Hey everybody...
I was in the Army for 11 years. I've been back from Iraq for 7 years now. For the past, oh I dont know, 6 years and 11 months I keep asking myself "why the hell did I get out?". I remember promising myself before I came home that I wasn't going to let all of the things that stressed me out before affect me when I came home, stuff like bills, my wife, the kids, etc. being in combat for a couple of years changed my perspective and priorities on life. Problem is, nobody else shares my perspective.
My bosses tell me "you don't have any sense of urgency", I say "what you really mean is I focus on a solution instead of panicking like you!".
My wife says "you're always distant and never talk to me". I say "I don't have anything to say".
She tells me I'm always in a bad mood and negative. I tell her I'm bored with life and it all seems obsurd and insignificant. At which point her feelings get hurt and she asks how I could say our relationship is insignificant... She just doesnt get it, and I can't explain it to her.
I love my kids, but soon they'll be grown and out of the house, then what? I got out for my wife and kids, to be a better husband and father, but all I do is work and try to pay bills. My life revolves around a two week pay cycle where I spend a majority of my life working at a meaningless job I hate, to pay for stuff I don't care about.
I need to feel the rush! I need to make a difference, even if it's just covering the guys ass next to me. Even if I got killed in combat, at least I died doing something... And my wife and kids wouldn't have any more financial problems... I can't live the rest of my life, pacing the floor like a caged animal, just waiting to get fat and die in my sleep.
I realized I had some issues to deal with after about a year home when I had two incidents resulting in extremely reckless behavior and physical violence towards total strangers!!! Both times I remember thinking after the fact "what the hell was that all about? What normal human being chases someone in a car at over 90 mph, then drags them through their drivers window on the side of a busy road?". "How did I just go from sitting in my car minding my own business to nearly beating somebody to a pulp without even thinking about it? What the hell's wrong with me?"
So then I talked to a couple of counselors, and made up my mind to play the game. I was going to change, so I could fit, so everyone around me would be happier... And it worked! My wife was happy, my kids were happy, my boss was happy...... And I was freakin' miserable! More over, I was resentful and felt like a total fraud! So that lasted about a year before a couple of verbal blow-ups with my wife and kids, telling off a couple of less-than-productive subordinates and a confrontation with a boss that cost me a job and valuable professional contacts. not to mention 5 months of unemployment that nearly cost me my house, my car and in reality, very nearly my marriage.
So, now, here I sit, in my recliner where I spend hours playing video games to try to simulate some kind of great cause, or significant accomplishment to fill in the great empty hole in my soul. Where I play guitar to feel like there is something creative about my life, where I eat too many bowls of ice cream because there's no point to PT any more. Why be lean and sharp and strong when here are no more fights to fight? I just don't want to subsist for another 35 years, and then just fade from existence. There has to be more.
I was in the Army for 11 years. I've been back from Iraq for 7 years now. For the past, oh I dont know, 6 years and 11 months I keep asking myself "why the hell did I get out?". I remember promising myself before I came home that I wasn't going to let all of the things that stressed me out before affect me when I came home, stuff like bills, my wife, the kids, etc. being in combat for a couple of years changed my perspective and priorities on life. Problem is, nobody else shares my perspective.
My bosses tell me "you don't have any sense of urgency", I say "what you really mean is I focus on a solution instead of panicking like you!".
My wife says "you're always distant and never talk to me". I say "I don't have anything to say".
She tells me I'm always in a bad mood and negative. I tell her I'm bored with life and it all seems obsurd and insignificant. At which point her feelings get hurt and she asks how I could say our relationship is insignificant... She just doesnt get it, and I can't explain it to her.
I love my kids, but soon they'll be grown and out of the house, then what? I got out for my wife and kids, to be a better husband and father, but all I do is work and try to pay bills. My life revolves around a two week pay cycle where I spend a majority of my life working at a meaningless job I hate, to pay for stuff I don't care about.
I need to feel the rush! I need to make a difference, even if it's just covering the guys ass next to me. Even if I got killed in combat, at least I died doing something... And my wife and kids wouldn't have any more financial problems... I can't live the rest of my life, pacing the floor like a caged animal, just waiting to get fat and die in my sleep.
I realized I had some issues to deal with after about a year home when I had two incidents resulting in extremely reckless behavior and physical violence towards total strangers!!! Both times I remember thinking after the fact "what the hell was that all about? What normal human being chases someone in a car at over 90 mph, then drags them through their drivers window on the side of a busy road?". "How did I just go from sitting in my car minding my own business to nearly beating somebody to a pulp without even thinking about it? What the hell's wrong with me?"
So then I talked to a couple of counselors, and made up my mind to play the game. I was going to change, so I could fit, so everyone around me would be happier... And it worked! My wife was happy, my kids were happy, my boss was happy...... And I was freakin' miserable! More over, I was resentful and felt like a total fraud! So that lasted about a year before a couple of verbal blow-ups with my wife and kids, telling off a couple of less-than-productive subordinates and a confrontation with a boss that cost me a job and valuable professional contacts. not to mention 5 months of unemployment that nearly cost me my house, my car and in reality, very nearly my marriage.
So, now, here I sit, in my recliner where I spend hours playing video games to try to simulate some kind of great cause, or significant accomplishment to fill in the great empty hole in my soul. Where I play guitar to feel like there is something creative about my life, where I eat too many bowls of ice cream because there's no point to PT any more. Why be lean and sharp and strong when here are no more fights to fight? I just don't want to subsist for another 35 years, and then just fade from existence. There has to be more.
