It took away, a healthy respect for serious injury and death, coupled with a severe depressive disorder, looking back, I know when I have been depressed for far to long, overwhelmed, debilitating anxiety, thoughts of suicide return, and because of my past, I was afraid I would be unafraid to on impulse, do it again. I entertained suicide for 7 months, and accepted it for the end of my life, and it was a anxious spark the night before the shooting that lit the fuse that caused me to pull the trigger to the firearm less than 24 hours later. To cope with this as an adult, I burned down (metaphorically speaking) every source of anxiety. Rather than deal with the stress, cause of depression, and anxiety in a rational manner, I would: quit college a month before graduating, sell 2 houses, quit 1 good career, chose homelessness because I couldn't cope anymore, 1 failed marriage, threatened suicide last fall, to include 2 plans. I nearly lost my marriage and children last year because of it (2nd marriage, 14 years married)... I didn't know I had PTSD until 2011. Diagnosed with Delayed Onset fall. In therapy as of next week, 3 times a week.
I don't even know where to begin what it did to me...
I know it was the complex PTSD, after a decade of child abuse, neglect, and abandonment that led to the suicide with a firearm. My first therapist in 2011, wanted to dive into the effects of the child abuse on my life as an adult but I tried to tell her at the time, those issues died with that teenager when he squeezed that f/ing trigger.
However, after trying to work with this, I feel she was right. I know, now, it was fear of severe harm that led to the suicide, and I have a terrible fear of overbearing bosses. Fear of failure in the work place was debilitating for me, I know, today. I could have really used this information 20 years ago when I became an adult. My ex wife, and current wife have yelled at me, "Why___can't you keep a job???" I'd go to work, "HEY___ What's your problem, why can't you get this (lack of concentration)...Why___Can't you get along with coworkers???" Pause, shakes head, I don't know, I am thinking. I swear, honestly, I don't know, I am trying. "Well___We're going to have to write you up." I swear it would feel like I was having a knife disembowel me with anxiety. I was terrified. I didn't know why. I'd just quit the job, scream at the boss to go F*CK HIMSELF. And run from the job. I'd rather be homeless than experience that...Now I know. In my fight or flight, I saw my abusive father picking up that chainsaw to attack me with. I saw him pull over, and turn out the lights to the truck so he could yell at me, on a dark highway where certain death was around the corner when the next car happened upon our parked, darkened truck, just sitting in the highway. Or the beatings, isolation...
Lastly, it's been the hidden wound syndrome. If there's such a thing. When I was trying to recover from the gun-shot they said, "It would be better if your legs had been cut off in an accident, or your body burned in a fire because people would see those wounds and understand, but this, never." Yup. How true they were. The worst thing is when average person says, "Oh. I know where you're coming from. I experienced (fill in their comparison to the thing that dials up enough force or energy to burn the effects of PTSD into your nervous system)...but, I was able to just pick myself up by my boot straps and move on, how come, you can't?" As if, the things that generate PTSD, are so everyday common place, everyone can relate. What's been extra difficult to reconcile is though I have PTSD...the suicide and shooting, were cowardly-shameful so I shouldn't really have PTSD. Only valor, in combat, can generate Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, you shut down, stay away from people, and feel as if you're an outsider and when you go into the village to interact, you have to hide yourself under a cloak.
