The day started off so well.  My wife and I took my daughter down to a local mall and we walked outside and enjoyed the weather, ate at Red Robin, and my daughter played with the other kids in the fountain next to the Starbucks.  No really, she did:

I feel relaxed.  I am enjoying the day.  In the mid-afternoon, we get in the car and head home.  When we get there, I very quickly fall asleep in my recliner...and wake up choking on my own bile from a nightmare. I bolt out of my seat and start gagging and puking up bile into the sink in the kitchen.  My daughter saw the whole thing happen and it's a first I could have done without.  She is scared out of her wits and very worried about her daddy.  I stay as calm as I can since I am still gagging and trying to clear my wind pipe and my wife is a champ, explaining that daddy's ok.  I did my best to reassure her that I was ok, but she wasn't satisfied until my gag reflex receded and I was able to pick her up.

Caley: "Daddy, you cried."
Me: "Yes I did, bear bear."
Caley: "It's OK, Daddy, It's OK" (hugs me fiercly)
Me: "I'll be OK, Caley.  Daddy just had a bad dream."
Caley: "I love you, Daddy."

After that exchange, my heart melted into my figurative boots.  Caley asked to be put down and went back to playing in the living room and I was left to reflect on my nightmare.  It was about the death of an Iraqi translator that was killed for working with the US.  He knew it was dangerous but worked hard to ensure the safety of our troops wherever he was.  He wasn't the only Iraqi to die protecting us.  The Kurdish Peshmerga (Special Forces) guarded our safehouse in Khanaqin.  Many were murdered after they returned home to the Kurdish North for disobeying orders and staying to protect us while we got set up in town.  These are not isolated incidents.  These men were believers in what the United States stands for and died to protect our troops.  They paid the ultimate sacrifice too, but you will never see a monument to their courage and selflessness.  The men and women have always been there in any war - the forgotten heroes.  The locals who believe so strongly in us that they protect our troops and sacrifice themselves for our cause.

I don't know why I had that nightmare in the middle of a wonderful day.  I think I may actually be grateful for it.  All of us are mourning the loss of those we served with who didn't make it home.  All I ask is that you take a moment to reflect on the nameless ones who never expected to be remembered.  Take a minute to praise and give thanks for those who have selflessly sacrificed themselves to ensure our troop's safety in a hostile environment and paid the ultimate price for their efforts.

Because, In My Eyes, They Were All American Service Members, Too

I have been trying and trying to write this blog post and every time I start to write it, I can't seem to get anywhere.  Honestly, the whole prospect of TBI has been a lot to wrap my mind around and I have been having issues with my PTSD as a result.  It scares the hell out of me. What makes it worse is that I don't even know if it IS TBI - and that's what's killing me right now.  If it's not TBI, is it because I am not getting good sleep?  Or could it be that my brain chemistry has changes drastically and my med cocktail is out of wack?  What if it's all three or none of the above?  It's driving me nuts and I haven't been able to concentrate at all.  My ability to focus has gone right out the window.

Then there's the PTSD.  As a result of all of the added uncertainty and fear, I have been struggling to keep emotionally involved with my wife and daughter.  Granted, when I start to withdraw, I have been able to catch myself and pull myself back from becoming a cave-dweller, but it scares me that this whole situation has had such an adverse effect on my ability to cope with aspects of my PTSD that I have managed very well over the past six months.

The TBI evaluation cannot happen fast enough.  It's amazing how uncertainty can throw my life into total disarray.  If anyone has any brilliant suggestions on how to work through this, I am all ears.

Well, I had another session with my individual therapist today.  We did a lot of talking about my recent realizations about being black and white about everything.  We still haven't come anywhere close to a work around or work-through.  One realization that I did make was that survivor's guilt plays a huge role in setting the standards I hold myself to (and my inability to forgive myself for not being good enough) and why I can't forgive others for disappointing me (well, violating my trust is more accurate).  There's a lot more to this that I still have to work through, that's for sure.  One of the things she told me is that she's concerned that because I need to have people fall into one category or another (Trusted or Not), I may try to force people to fit into those narrow categories, even when they don't belong there.

We talked about this for the vast majority of the session and she asked me if there was anything else bothering when I unintentionally dropped a bomb on her.  I could tell it concerned her greatly because her demeanor went from relaxed and attentive to focused and intense.  Here's the situation:

Last week, Thursday night into Friday, I lost a day.  What do I mean by that?  I went to sleep a little after midnight and the next thing I remember coherently is waking up and realizing I have to be at work in 45 minutes - work started at 2PM.  I slept for over 12 hours.  I remember nothing in the interim.  The next thing I remember clearly from that night is helping to clean the slicers at the end of the night.  I know interacted appropriately with my coworkers, but I have absolutely no sense of the passage of time for that night.  None.  I have no idea whether I was asleep all that time either.

I drove home that night wondering whether I was going to be walking into a shitstorm at home.  I had no idea.  After talking about this with my therapist today and seeing how concerned she got, it raised some alarms in my head and I ended up not working on the newsletters I wanted to send out today - I could barely concentrate on writing this blog post.  So I decided to take a break and watch a movie or two.  I couldn't concentrate on anything and it was starting to ratchet up my anxiety something fierce.

What I thought was strangest was the timing.  Everything was going well.  My PTSD symptoms were wll-managed.  The only thing I can think of is that it happened the night after I talked to the consultant about incorporation and foundation documents for the non-profit and I had a funding proposal that I put before a local veterans group for consideration.  I was extremely excited.  I was thinking that maybe my body doesn't know how to tell the difference between excitement and fear.  I know my adrenalin was pumping like crazy.

Unfortunately, the end result was the same - I lost a day.

So now, I have to track when this happens to see if there is a pattern.  I did some looking online and the specific information about the symptoms of TBI seem to fall in line with some of the issues I have with short-term memory, loss of sense of time, anger, etc.  Anyone out there know more specifics or resources online that articulate this better?  I don't want to pee up a tree and send doctors looking for ghosts if there's nothing to this.

This past Wednesday, I had my weekly meeting with my individual therapist and she expressed some concern about how black and white I was.  She didn't express concern with the way I was black and white in the fiasco that was my last group session.  She asked me if I was this black and white about most things in life in general.  I said I was.  She asked me if that bothered me and I said that it didn't really.  Then she went on to give me scenarios:  work, social gatherings, making friends, working with others in my non-profit.  What happens in those situations when someone violates some aspect of my code?

My response?  I rationalized it all away.  The upsetting part is that I didn't realize that's what I had done until after the fact.  It hit me later that night and ran me over like a train when I had time to think through it more fully.  The inability to see and accept shades of grey is what has held me back at work and from making friends.

At Work:  I voluntarily stepped down from a management position because I was too stressed out all of the time and was having difficulty handling my anger when people did little thinks that would trigger the massive overreaction that would ensue.  Most of the time, I didn't show the overreaction and that's what made me so stressed and so exhausted all of the time.  Up until this moment, I didn't realize that it wasn't the job that was stressing me out - I was my PTSD getting triggered.  How about them apples?

Friendship:  I haven't been able to make any friends for a while.  Every time I make one, they do something that violates some minor aspect of my 'code' and I refuse to bend because 'I don't operate that way'.  I have alienated almost all of the people I considered friends not solely because of what they did, but also because they violated my personal code which I have been treating as inviolable.  The end result?  I write them off and cease all contact because 'I don't need their shit'.

The End Result:  Through unwitting actions I have taken, I have succeeded in halting my career progression and alleviated myself of friendships that should have been long-standing ones.  Way to go me.  The worst part is what it has done to my self-esteem and estimation of my self-worth.  I feel like a pariah.  I don't like the person I see in the mirror.  I feel worthless.

The Solution?:  Hell if I know, but at least I have made that realization and have somewhere to start from and something to work on.  If this is what many of us go through in professional settings and in friendships, no wonder we have a tendency to live very isolated lives.  Well, at least I know what I am going to be working on with my therapist over the coming weeks and months.  I can't let this stand.  Having success in starting my non-profit has only made me realize that I need more than an hourly wage at work.  I need to live up to my level or experience and knowledge and work to put myself in a position to affect real progress in my professional life.  Having started the non-profit also made me realize that, other than my wife and my parents, I have no one to share my passion with - no one to celebrate with.  I'm tired of feeling lonely.  Maybe it's time I go find a wading pool...