Batgirl, you’re now learning an idea about the pain you’re going to suffer in order to heal. Whilst this may be chipping away a little at your trauma by providing some understanding, please think about whether you’re going to continue reading this, or just STOP now and exit this thread.
Jim said:
More specifically, I knew full well Eric was a mess. Had himself in quite a state, drunk and unkempt most of the time, shutting himself in his room and yelling at the kids.
Jim, did you know about PTSD at that time?
Jim said:
Was drinking and down on himself, thus I assumed he was experiencing the same as myself, after my Middle East deployment.
This is the reason I have mentioned before actually, that contact after your deployment could be a bad thing, because whilst you may not turn to alcohol, your going to need time to really talk out your deployment with your wife and others, ensuring you are ok and have gotten rid of your trauma. I actually hope now that with what you know about PTSD, the effects you've had previously with deployments, that you can actually begin to pick things up in your troops during deployment and get them talking more openly, so its not all locked up to be drowned with alcohol and manifest into PTSD when they return, yourself included. You would be well aware now the high ratio of troops returning with PTSD. It has nothing to do with whether they see action or not, they don't need to in order to get PTSD. The mere deployment itself, constant state of alert and Hypervigilance, on edge 24/7 will do the job by itself, let alone seeing action, dead bodies, injured troops and so forth.
Jim said:
When he refused outright, I reported him to the base commander and MPs, the result being he was then ordered to meetings, with me accompanying him. I became his sponsor.
Tough call, but a good call. Well done for your bravery actually Jim. I think we both know how many people just let their mates slide, family or not, they them go and rid themselves of responsibility. Good to see mate and congratulations on such a good job.
Jim said:
Cheryl asked Kathy and I to take the kids temporarily. We agreed, and confronted Eric with the news. He was calm about it, not the reaction I was expecting.
Ok... his reaction was the give away, yes. To me looking in, yes I would have taken more action on that reaction he gave, however; when this happened five years ago, at that time I did not know that the reaction he gave was the reaction of a person ready to die. I do now from my own learning. Let’s face facts, five years ago not I, you, Cheryl, Kathy or batgirl knew what that reaction meant. So how do you combat an action, which you do not know the reaction for? You don't, because it’s impossible.
Let me give you an example to really hit this point home. Do you know what "the law of the four inseparable factors of evolution" are? Why not? Because you haven't learnt that information maybe? So if you don't know what they are if someone asked you or
if someone spoke off them, then you couldn't provide the answer at that time, or
you couldn't understand what they where saying by their action at that time. Correct? I think so. What would you do when time permitted though? You would go and look the answer up, or maybe go and learn about the law of actions, reactions and interactions! Yes? Absolutely, depending upon its significance to you at that exact time. What are we limited by on earth? Time...
(
The answer by the way is: the sum of forces inherent in environment, in individual development or ontogeny, in race development or heredity, and in natural selection.)
A common phrase I guess that most would know in part to understand what I am talking about is:
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
So from what you also said Jim:
Unfortunately it didn't occur to me his reaction might be a dangerous warning, was absolutely correct, because you couldn't have known something that you had never learnt. You didn't know about the actions of suicide, you didn't know about PTSD, its sign or symptoms, you DID NOT KNOW. NONE of you knew, nor how could you if you had never been faced with such an action previously!
Jim said:
Next day, Eric got a shave and haircut, put on his CADPAT uniform, took out his M16, and well you know the rest.
I will confirm what is most likely in your mind though, yes... a clever idea at that time would have been to remove weapons from his possession, or ability to possess them. Your thinking it Jim, or you have thought about it... tell me I'm wrong? Yes, No... well... to be honest, if you didn't know how to identify suicide, which I certainly didn't five years ago, then you wouldn't have really pressed any issues about removing weapons either!!!
Jim said:
Long story short, can't help wondering if our fixing to take away his kids sent him over the edge.
I somehow think it was in his mind Jim before this came about. Suicide is not something someone just comes up with overnight, it is lying within them, thinking about how, when, why, etc etc. Suicide often does have some prior thought to the action itself.
I guess we can throw stones all day long now at "what if's" but nothing done now is going to fix what has happened, and that is a fact. We can say, "what if batgirl didn't go to the room after hearing shots, would he have come out looking for her, or just pulled the trigger on himself immediately?" Would she have merely walked in on seeing her family dead instead of being shot herself? Would he have hunted her down regardless? What if's only provide us negative emotions now, none of which is going to heal any of us who are surviving life, especially if we want to live life itself.
Jim, one thing off note though I think needs to be mentioned. If you have any more of this stuff hiding around, maybe you need to offload it all right now before deploying, because batgirl can tell you all about the impact storing trauma has, and you know for yourself the impact that operations have upon giving you trauma. Go into an operational zone with a full bag of trauma (guilt, fear, undealt emotions), your not coming home without PTSD or severe issues. Whether here, private or to a counsellor, I believe it all needs to go now mate, so you don't have these same issues later in life.
