Hello all.  I'm so sorry to have been gone so long.  It's been a very challenging past few months in some ways and a revelation in others.  This is going to be a pretty long blog post, so hold onto your hats.  I have a lot to talk about and it's been too long.

With everything going on with the divorce proceedings, I needed to disconnect.  It was killing me not being able to blog about what I was going through.  You see, the thing is, my blogging about my PTSD has always been about sharing what I've learned and what I'm struggling through.  With the divorce proceedings, it wasn't about just me - it was about my ex and about my daughter.  When going through a divorce, there's no possible way to separate the personal from the interpersonal and I had to seriously think about how what I might possibly write might unintentionally negatively impact the outcome of of the divorce.

More importantly, I was seriously concerned about my daughter.  Some day she's going to read this and I don't ever want to write something that could confuse or hurt her.  She loves her mother and she loves her father.  Nothing should ever change that.  Our daughter needs to know that, despite the divorce, she still loved just as much.

I think that the biggest thing is that this divorce was emotional hell.  To be there for my daughter, my everything, I had to compartmentalize what I was feeling until the divorce was official.  Now that the decree has been officially signed by the judge, I can talk about how this has impacted my life, and just mine.  It's a complex mess of emotions and they're coming down on me like a ton of bricks right now.

Which, of course makes this the perfect time to talk about all of this.

So, here goes...

For those of you who know a little bit about my story, you know that July 30th is the anniversary of the friendly fire incident.  Well, now it's also the anniversary of the official divorce decree - the ignominious end to my marriage.  Well it's also the birthday of Caley's brand new cousin, born last Thursday, to Caley's aunt on the other side of the family.  What does that mean for me?  It means that I will never get to know him, love him.  I will never get to see him grow up and I'll never have the opportunity to share in the joy that this baby has brought into the world.


Pardon my French but...talk about a mindfuck.


On top of all of this, I had compartmentalized the biggest emotional hurt in all of this - the fact that I am now going to miss out on half of my daughter's childhood is really screwing with me.  The emotional devastation just the thought of that could cause is terrifying to me and, now that the divorce is final, the box surrounding that wonderful little tidbit of joy is spontaneously combusting.


To say that the next few days are going to be rough would be a bit on an understatement.


BUT......

With all of this, I've still managed to make some positive changes.  I've managed to make some friends, one of whom is a fellow combat vet.  The other, his father.  Both of them accepted me as I am, no judgement.  It's a feeling I haven't had in a very long time.  I've even reconnected with a friend I knew back in 2006 and lost contact with.

For the uninitiated, this is big stuff for me.  I had somehow managed to alienate pretty much all friends I had due to my inability to put up with outside bullshit.  My strained marriage was all I could take at the time.  When the marriage effectively ended last August, I couldn't handle the prospect of losing even a distant friend and closed myself off from everyone except for my family.

And then there's my family.  Oh, God, my family.  If they weren't around to shower me with their love and support, I can't even imagine where I'd be right now.  Since the separation, I've grown close with my parents in a way that I didn't think was possible.  With everything going on, we were able to completely look past old hurts and 'circle the wagons', so to speak.

My parents have been amazing.  Their only concerns in all of this were my welfare and the welfare of their granddaughter.  This divorce could have emotionally devastated my daughter.  Instead, she's well-adjusted and emotionally healthy.  A part of that is due to the love my parents made sure to shower her with.  That may sound weird but when all of this was new and confusing for Caley, my parents were there to give her all of the love and support possible to give.  And they were there for me when I didn't have Caley and needed to just cry or vent my anger (the healthy, grief-related kind).  Through everything I went through to get through this past year, good and bad, my parents were there - every step of the way.

And then, on top of all of this, my sister moved back to NYC from Syracuse.  Caley and I have been able to spend more quality time with her in the past year than we have been able to in the past few.  Again, more love and support from family, when we've needed it most.

The biggest positive change has been in how I see myself.  I know I'm a good guy and a great father.  I want to be even better in both of those categories and that's something I'll never, ever stop striving for again.  For the longest time, I'd lost sight of who I was and what I'm capable of.  Being able to feel deep hurt also means you're able to feel deep love and joy and I wouldn't have it any other way.  Some people think showing emotion and feeling deep emotions is a liability and a weakness, but I think it's just the opposite.  My ability to feel everything in my life, unflinchingly and without reservation, is where I derive my strength.  If I wasn't in touch with what I feel, I shudder to think how difficult it would be to cope with my trauma.  The faster you feel what you need to, the faster you confront your trauma, the faster you learn to cope with your trauma.

And. That. Is. COURAGE.

It's a kind of courage that few understand, most either don't or won't acknowledge.  It's what gets me through the rough days and makes the good ones even better.

After years and years of struggling with employment for a decade, I can honestly say I am now living the dream.  I am Chief Business Development Officer of a veteran-owned Cybersecurity startup and I love every minute of my work.  I've really thrived in this new environment and I now have very clear insight into why. Entrepreneurship is, counterintuitively, a perfect environment for veterans with PTSD.  Here's why:

• In traditional corporate environments, whether management or not, veterans with PTSD are triggered by co-workers not carrying their fair share of the workload (at least from the veterans' perspective).  Additionally, veterans want their voices heard and their ideas to be taken seriously.  All to often, in traditional corporate settings, their voices are ignored and their ideas marginalized.  Being powerless to affect positive change in the workplace can be a major stressor for veterans with PTSD.
• In the entrepreneurial setting, there are a lot of pressures that stress the average person out.  For veterans, what stresses out most people don't even make them blink.  Let me explain.  Veterans are trained to make the best decision they can with the time they are given to make it in and the information they have available to them at the time.  In a startup, the high-pressure decisions that stress most people out and cause them to lose sleep don't bother veterans because they just make the best decision they can given the situation and, if they learn new information that changes their course of action, they just adjust on the fly.
• Many of the stressors that trigger veterans with PTSD in a traditional workplace aren't present in the entrepreneurial setting.  Good startups are comprised of small teams of highly qualified, competent people who are fully aware they're going to have to pull their weight for the business to succeed.  Additionally, they're in positions where they are empowered to make changes that positively impact the future success of the startup. 

Needless to say, alleviating workplace stress has had a huge impact on my personal outlook and by ability to cope with my PTSD.

After ten years, I have finally gotten to the point where I was ready to explore my emotional and spiritual health.  For the longest time, the only place where I felt like I belonged was in the military.  In the civilian world, I never felt like I had 'people', either before or after my time in the service.  When I started thinking about what to do to re-engage spiritually, I started by looking at where I came from.

My dad's side of the family is ethnic Jewish, but I knew next to nothing about my Jewish cultural heritage.  Well, I became curious to explore my heritage and reached out to a local rabbi.  He told me about the different Jewish denominations and how they believe, without telling me what they were called and asked me which belief structure rang most true to me.

After sharing which denomination resonated with me the most, he referred me to another rabbi.  Well, I met him and discovered that he was a retired Navy chaplain.  My first time attending Shabbat services was Veterans Day last November.  The experience was unbelievable.  The entire service was dedicated to making sure everyone understood the depth and seriousness of the sacrifices made by our service members.  It was surreal.  I felt like I was home, that I belonged somewhere, that I had a people.

I've continued to attend on Fridays when I don't have my daughter and it's helped to make me feel more connected and engaged.  I finally feel ready to reconnect and take the risk to make new friends and meet new people.  How about that?

I always hated the term.  It's sounds so cliche and for a full decade seemed unobtainable.  I think, on some level, I hated the idea of Post Traumatic Growth because I couldn't imagine that I'd ever experience it for myself.

Well I was wrong.  I've been thriving and growing and becoming more and more comfortable in my own skin, asserting myself more and more.

I've been reticent to acknowledge the idea that I may be experiencing it because so many people equate it with, CONGRATS, you're HEALED!
Ummmm, No? That's not how this works.  While I am experiencing a personal and professional renaissance, it doesn't mean I don't still have to content with my PTSD.  I still get triggered and I still battle with hypervigilance, depression, insomnia, low self-esteem, and more.

It's confusing as hell.  How can I be experiencing growth and still struggling with PTSD every day?  When I figure it out, I'll let you know.  I'm at a total loss right now.

So What Next?

I know this is a lot to absorb and I'm still working through all of this myself but there are a few things I do know for certain.  I'm free to blog again and I won't be stopping again if I have any choice in the matter.  I took a lot of time this past week to write this post and it's amazing how much this writing process has cleared up my head.

Thanks to everyone for sticking around.  See you in the next blog post!

It's been a very long two months.  I didn't trust myself to blog about what I was going through, so I haven't blogged about what has transpired.  I know I've always been very open about what I am going through, but sometimes you just need to take the time for yourself.

So here's the short of it:  My wife and I are getting divorced.  I know we said in earlier posts that neither one of us would take that precipitous step until we had been separated for six months, but things were just not working.

We didn't come to this decision lightly.  We committed to everything that we said we were going to commit to.  We have been giving every consideration to the impact this has on our daughter, went to marriage counseling, everything.

We attended multiple counseling sessions, together and individually.  What became very evident to both of us is that too much water had passed under the bridge.  I can't be to her what she needs and she can't be to me what I need.  Our life paths had diverged too much and there was no foundation of trust or communication for coming back from the precipice.

So...we talked. A lot.  About a month ago, we mutually agreed to move forward with divorce.  It happened on a Thursday.  That Friday, Saturday and Sunday that followed were the most emotionally intense days I have gone through since returning home from Iraq.  I completely imploded that weekend.  Emotions overwhelmed me.  The grief was intense.  I talked about it with a friend who has gone through divorce and when I told her that it felt like I was grieving for a death in the family, she told me something that I'll never forget.

Well, how about that.  It definitely put what I was feeling into perspective.  While it helped, I still had to confront what was happening to me and I had to do it quickly.  I didn't have a lot of time and I had to be functional for work.  Somehow I managed to pick myself up and dust myself off by the end of the weekend.

And then something amazing happened.

I found hope in a blunt assessment of my recovery from that weekend:  That was the most intense emotional episode I have gone through since I came home from Iraq and I'm still standing...I didn't disappear down the rabbit hole again.  I didn't let the depression consume me.

Don't get me wrong, I feel the depression and anxiety 'banging on the windows' trying to get in but I have held onto everything that I have learned, and held on fiercely.  I have now, at the core of me, a steely resolve - to do right by myself, my family, and my daughter.  The inner fire is burning bright.

Just for clarification, no I don't like that I'm getting divorced.  It's had quite the impact on my self-confidence and my focus.  I think about my soon-to-be ex every day.  I worry about the long-term impact this is going to have on my daughter, despite our collective best efforts to soften the blow.  It's impacted my ability to focus on work and has caused me to question my ability to perform the tasks I have to do at work every day.

I continue to struggle every day with this whole mess, but every day is another day I prove to myself that I have the strength to endure this and come out the other side, still capable of loving and laughing.

So, what now?  Where do I go from here?  That's the trick.  I don't know.  But I'm looking forward to the journey.  I want to turn the page and start a new chapter in my life, but I really have no idea where to start.  One thing I know for certain is that I will be sharing that journey with all of you.

Yes, my PTSD has taken its toll on my life but life didn't end when we decided on divorce.  All I know for certain is that I don't want to take this journey alone.  I just need to figure out what the hell that means for me and what I want to do about it.

It's been a long month.  I have had to get used to things I never wanted to have to get used to again.  The house is empty for at least half the week.  I never realized how much it scares me to be alone and the nights when I don't have my daughter  have been the hardest.  I can count on one hand how many times I have seen my wife since she moved out and every time I see her, I feel like I have lead in my stomach.  It hurts my heart to see her so distant, and closed off from me.  Yes, we're on the same page when it comes to  parenting, but I fear that the hurt I caused her when I was depressed is too much to overcome.

I wish that there was something that I could do to help her see that I love her beyond words and that I have stayed strong through all of this.  I haven't disappeared back down the rabbit hole.  I'm still working out and still going to MMA.  Work continues to be a revelation.

So, what to do?  Where do I go from here?  The only thing I can think to do is just stay steady and continue to do what I have been doing - Living my life as best I can for me so that I can find fulfillment.  So I'm going to keep on making the most of my workouts, MMA, and work.  The biggest thing is keeping busy, especially as the major holidays approach.  There's always the temptation to stay in and not go out at all.  I swore that I would never go down that road again.  It's the first time in my life where I have been thankful for hypervigilance.  I've been able to repurpose it to help me keep from going down that road ever again.

I have been afraid to sit down at the computer to write any of this because is makes it real...Does that make sense?  Acknowledging my new reality is one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do.  It's one of the reasons that I haven't been blogging that past few weeks.  I had to come to terms with how things are and fight my fear and the anger.

It took a while...

But I'm getting there.  Bit. By. Bit.

And I'll keep on fighting to make the most of my life for as long as it takes and as long as I live.  I never really thought that Post Traumatic Growth was really a thing.  When I was in the throes of my PTSD, it seemed unattainable.  I don't think that it's the bright, shiny future that they make it out to be in the press, but I do believe it's real.  So, no matter how things turn out, I'm going to learn to be happy - with someone or by myself.

But that's a subject for another post...and one I'm working on writing as we speak.

So, I disappeared off the radar, again - this time for good reason.  All of my spare time has been dedicated to contending with family issues at home.  The end result: My wife and I are entering into a trial separation, as of today.  Before anyone overreacts to this, I need to make this clear - it was a mutual decision.  We have taken this step BECAUSE we love each other and want to save our marriage.

Seems counter-intuitive, right?

It really isn't and I'm going to explain why so that maybe the lessons we've learned from all of this will help other couples in distress for the same reasons.  I wasn't sure whether I really wanted to write about this, but I felt I needed to articulate in writing our thought process - that and blogging always helps me process through my emotions, so...Here we go.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I've been struggling with PTSD and depression for years now.  Back on November 8th, 2010, my amazing and wonderful daughter, Caley, was born.  When I held her for the first time, I was overwhelmed with the profundity of my love for her.  It was at that moment that I had the insidious and destructive thought:  "If anything ever happened to her..."

My PTSD headed very quickly into a downward spiral and the depression followed, gleefully riding the coattails of my PTSD on the way down.  I withdrew completely from my wife and from my daughter over the course of the next year, leaving my wife to contend with caring for two kids on her own:  Our beautiful newborn, and me.

I hit rock bottom in early 2012 when my wife confronted me with my withdrawal and gave me the ultimatum:  Get help or we are leaving.  This sounds really blunt but my wife had tried every other way of getting my attention and nothing had worked.  I was so deeply in the throes of my own despair that I needed the emotional slap in the face to be able to see through the fog of my depression.  When I did, I was horrified.  I had emotionally abandoned my family.  The guilt I felt was crushing - so crushing that I seriously considered committing suicide so that I wouldn't be able to hurt them anymore.  That's how insidious depression can be.  I couldn't see the forest for the trees and almost deprived my daughter of a father and my wife of a husband - Not because I wanted to selfishly end it all, but because I couldn't see any way of preventing my family from getting hurt again.

To this day, I still don't know what, exactly, pulled me back from the ledge but I'm grateful that I found a way.  Just thinking about how close I came still horrifies me and always will.  Over the course of the next few days, I started to gain a bit of clarity and was able to make a compact with myself - that I would never, EVER, let things get this bad ever again.  I knew that the road ahead of me was going to be long and painful, but I needed desperately to be the Father and Husband I know I can be when the PTSD and the depression haven't taken me hostage.

Over the course of the next two and a half years, I have put in the work.  I've gone to therapy, learned how to effectively cope with my PTSD and depression, learned how to watch for warning signs that I may be headed in the wrong direction and also learned that I needed to remove as much unnecessary stress from my life as I possible could.

The end result: 

• I left a highly stressful retail job that paid shit money for an unexpected opportunity to actually work in my degree field.  My new boss puts family first and supports his employees doing the same.  He facilitates work/life balance.  For the first time since returning home, work didn't drain my batteries.  I came home with enough energy to be actively involved with my wife and daughter.
  
• I recognized that, while the meds I was on when I first got home from Iraq may have been necessary to keep me stable short term, the VA's strict admonition not to go off the meds no longer held any credibility to me (they hadn't changed my cocktail in years - even though my emotional state had changed drastically over those intervening years).  I went off the meds at the beginning of 2014 and it was a revelation.  I could think clearly.  I could feel the depths of my emotions, good or bad, and processing them didn't send me into a tailspin.  I felt truly liberated from the shackles that my medication had become.
• I wholeheartedly wanted to be affectionate and intimate with my wife again.  I didn't feel like I was going to hurt her.  I was moving past the guilt and was finally able to put my guilt over what I had unintentionally done to my wife and daughter into proper perspective.  I found myself eager to be there for every little thing that my daughter did.  I felt a need to catch up for lost time and to make sure that I never let it happen again.

Up until a few months ago, I thought that the whole concept of Post Traumatic Growth was a load of crap.  I found myself, all of a sudden, full of drive and energy and motivation to live life and live up to the ideals I had always striven for.  I finally felt I was WORTH fighting for.

What happened next completely blindsided both my wife and I.  It sucks and it hurts, but I think you will see clearly how we got to this point.

Over the course of the past few months, I noticed that my wife was getting angrier and angrier with me over the smallest of transgressions.  I started talking to her about it and expressed a desire to get help and get therapy, for both of us, if necessary.  Nothing ever came of it and I thought, after some very serious heart to hearts, that we were moving past the anger and emotional distance (things have deteriorated so far for my wife that she's completely emotionally closed off and unable to show affection or appreciation - we've been living like roommates for the better part of the past year).

Over the course of the past few weeks, things had gotten progressively worse between us and it seemed like the hurt feelings and emotional distance were gaining momentum, regardless of how I tried to reconcile with my wife.  The end result:  I told my wife that I couldn't live like this anymore - that I felt like I was walking on eggshells because the was angry all of the time and was either unable or unwilling to be intimate or reciprocate my affection.

That's when she said those fateful words:  "I think I need some time apart to clear my head".  I felt the bottom fall out from under me and I clung desperately to the edge of my sanity.

Over the course of the past week and a half, I've climbed out and things have settled down.  Yes, my wife and I are separating but it's a mutual decision and I'm going to take the time to explain why this doesn't mean the end of our marriage.

It was only after I had finally accepted what needed to happen that I just gone through the five stages of grief for the state of our relationship.  It's analogous to the stages of grief that a person would go through when the doctor had told them that their loved one being kept alive by life support was going to be taken off of it according to wishes presented in their living will - the machines would be turned off and the person would either breathe on their own or they'd die.  For our marriage, things were very much the same.  My wife needed to get the space she needed (turning off the machines) so that she could process through the intensity of her emotions and figure out whether she was able to move past them and recommit to trusting me and loving me the way she knows I need (finding out whether our marriage will breathe on its own).  Here's how the five stages of grief play into this:

• Denial - I had been reading the writing on the wall for months, but refused to admit it.  I denied it all that way up to the day where my wife asked for a trial separation.
• Anger - My initial response was to feel incredibly betrayed.  She had stuck with me through everything when my proverbial shit hit the fan.  Now, when her shit's in the air on a clear trajectory for the fan, she cuts and runs?  What. The. FUCK!  What a coward!
• Pleading/Bargaining - After the anger had run its course, I tried desperately to keep our family under one roof and tried every rationale I could think of to convince her to stay and work it out as a whole family.  It didn't work.  I was trying to cling so tight to my love and wife that it made her dig in her heels.
• Depression - With my current state being that of a renewed sense of purpose, I watched and guarded against this at all costs.  I may have felt down about what was happening, but not in an unhealthy way.  I allowed myself to feel my true emotions but constantly checked to make sure I wasn't headed back down the rabbit hole I have fought for year to climb out of.
• Acceptance - I knew I had to find a way to reconcile with what was going to happen - my wife wouldn't budge.  I just couldn't understand why she wasn't willing to take any intermediate steps in the process.  So I turned to the internet and started looking for blogs on the subject and found one that opened my eyes to what was really going on: (For the Full Article Click HERE)

After reading that excerpt, things started to make a whole lot more sense.  Our lives were financially stable, our work was stable, and most importantly, I wasn't only stable, I was ME again - the guy with the inner fire and the sense of purpose.  It was finally safe for my wife to not be in survival mode anymore and when she let down the walls she had put up to survive, she was completely overwhelmed with how angry she was.  She fully recognizes that I never meant to hurt her, but the end result was the same:  She felt like she had been betrayed and abandoned by me for the better part of the past almost four years, since our daughter was born.  As anyone will tell you, the more deeply you love someone, the more deeply you hurt when you feel abandoned and betrayed by him.

Wow.  Just....wow....

All of a sudden, I understood completely why she needed separation.  The emotions she was feeling were so intense that any time she saw me, it triggered her emotions and none of them were particularly happy ones.  The only way she could possibly start to work through all of this is by removing the source of the pain: Me.  So, a few nights ago, I explained to my wife that I accepted her need for separation and why.  Believe it or not, it was a huge relief for both of us.  Up until that point, my wife  was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a way to accept her need for space and that the marriage would end before we even had a chance to work on it - not because we wanted it to, but because of irreconcilable differences.

Over the past few days, we've spent a lot of time getting on the same page and laying out the groundwork for separation and what it means for us and for our daughter.  By loving my wife and supporting her in her need for space, we have already started down the right road.  It may sound weird, but working together to coordinate the separation has been the closest my wife and I have been in years - because we are working together to save our marriage and working together hasn't been in the cards for a while now.  In the next blog post, I will detail our Separation Contract, what it entails, and why.  I could continue on and make this all one massive blog post, but this seems like a logical place to split it up.  I know that there are readers out there that are probably in the same position we are in and can't seem to find a way forward.  I hope that the struggle that I've gone through, both with the PTSD and Depression and with coming to terms with my wife's need for separation can help those of you out there that find yourselves facing a similar scenario.

Thank you all for your constant support and continued readership.

Have you ever heard of the TV Show, 'Hack'?  I hadn't either, but it was available in Netflix and its premise sounded interesting.  I cop that made a mistake, lost his badge, and started over as a cabbie or hack in Philadelphia.  The show starts Andre Braugher and David Morse so I figured I'd like it.

I'm glad I gave it a chance.  The show ran for two seasons in 2003 and 2004.  It has excellent lessons in morality and it's massive scale of grey, love, hope, and family.  Then I started watching Season 2, Episode 14, named "Fog of War".  The main character's godson came home from Iraq after being wounded and they depicted PTSD, raw and unfiltered.  They showed how he tried to numb his mind with pain killers and alcohol.  They showed how corrosive the effects of survivor's guilt can be on the soul.  They illustrated the particular way in which our anger can flare - by raging against inanimate objects and scaring the crap out of our loved ones.  It illustrates moral injury and the cost of war upon the human condition.  What gave me chills was the manner in which the actor playing the soldier depicted intrusive recollections.  The unconscious twitch of the body, the quasi-nauseous shudder and the thousand yard stare.

It also shows how quickly dependency and depression, combined with survivor's guilt, can lead to suicidal ideation.

One thought kept on popping into my head:  "This Could've Been Me."

PTSD didn't really reach mainstream awareness and acceptance as the signature wound of this conflict until 2006 and 2007.  What really gave me goosebumps was the date that this episode aired:  Feburary 7, 2004.  Just five days after I returned home from overseas - I was one of the vanguard.  One of the first to return home from Iraq.  They didn't even have support services in place for the conflict in Iraq.  My support group was comprised of veterans of previous conflicts, predominantly Vietnam.

I watched the episode four times in a row, with tears in my eyes every time.  Every time I watched it, the more poignant I realized it was - and just how aware the writing team was of the enduring costs of war.  I would warn against watching this episode if you are still learning to cope with triggers, but if you are in the right frame of mind - take the time to watch this episode.  It will be particularly educational for family members.  The show demonstrates just how important fidelity, unconditional support and love are to our returning veterans.

The veteran depicted in the show had a father who was a hard-nosed cop.  Old-school.  The show no weakness type of man who thought his son should just forget what happened and 'just move on' in his life.  The main character, who over the course of one and a half seasons has found his compassion and his own code of morality, lights the way to a positive solution to the show - not with his virtues but with acceptance of his flaws.  It is masterfully done and in such a way as to give hope to those who watch it that their loved ones with PTSD can learn to cope and live with their experiences.

I really didn't see this episode coming at all.  It even depicted the politics of the time from both sides of the aisle in a way that showed the validity of both standpoints without being argumentative.

Take the time to watch this show if you have Netflix.  You won't regret it.  It is truly an episode for the ages.

It's been a long month and an even longer beginning of the year.  Granted, the changes that have come fast and furious over the past few months have been positive changes.  They were changes, nonetheless.  You know what that means, right?  Stress.  Lots and lots of stress.  I know I haven't written nearly as often as I had been in the past.  I won't try to make excuses.  There are so many things that I have wanted to write about and I just couldn't bring myself to sit down at the keyboard.  Too much of everything was too raw.  After I stopped taking the meds, it's like every day and every experience has been an open wound and it has taken me a bit of time to adjust.  Quite honestly, I'm still adjusting, but at least now I know what I write stems from a position of sound mind and reason - not one held hostage by the anger and the fear that have come close to overwhelming me.

I really wasn't expecting it to be quite this intense, but it has.  My new job and my routine are what have brought me back around.  I just couldn't bring myself to focus on writing what I was feeling and experiencing when I wasn't even sure myself what my feelings meant.  Well, with the passing of this period of upheaval comes respite.  I now have the ability to make routines - routines that make time for myself, time for my family, time for coping and writing.  I'm learning to cope with my PTSD in a whole new way - a way that not only teaches me about myself but in a manner that will sustain me and give me the strength I need to help others.  So during my period of unintentional isolation and reflection, here's what has happened:

• I finally gave up smoking - even the smell of cigarette smoke turns my stomach now.  Every other time I tried to quit, I couldn't stand being around the smell because it made the cravings unbearable.  This time, it's different.  I can feel my body purging itself of all of the toxins that cigarettes put there.  After the physical withdrawal passed, I felt light, free.  I have used smoking as a crutch since I was still over in Iraq - no more.  I'm done running.
• I worked my last day in retail - and almost got run over in the parking lot.  My last day in my old job saw me working outside cleaning the parking lot and pushing carts.  It was a good day until the self-entitled punk yelled at me (the guy in the bright orange shirt) to watch where I was going.  News-flash, jackass:  you ran into me when you were busy talking on your phone and not paying attention to where you were pointing your car.  Never have I been so thankful to leave a job behind.  Retail is long, grueling hours for shit pay.  I wouldn't wish it on my enemies.
• I refocused my attention - I won't lie, the prospect of not getting 501(c)3 status until 2015 at the earliest almost pushed me to quit.  I had to step away from the non-profit for a bit out of frustration and disappointment.  I had to really evaluate whether it was something that I still wanted to pursue.  Not being able to effectively raise funds to support the non-profit made it impossible for me to pursue.  When you have to work full-time to support your family and you're doing non-profit work on the side, an inability to raise funds can seem like a death sentence.  What made it worse was the fact that the people I want to help (local veterans) have shown absolutely no interest in helping themselves.  The only veterans I know that congregate on a regular basis are the ones with well-pickled livers.  Our veterans don't seem to congregate to find support and solidarity.  We don't even show up for each other and we want the general public to treat us differently?  So, I've taken it upon myself to get out and lead by example.  I'll be out and about participating in activities for veterans.  I'll be focusing on creating that sense of community that we are missing terribly.
• Because of one racist asshole and one soldier that didn't get the help he needed and deserved, veterans have had more bad press in the past month than we'd gotten in years.  Like it's not hard enough for veterans.  Now the media is going to hyper-sensationalize this crap, thereby making it impossible for veterans to be viewed in a positive light.  Hey Media Outlets - you claim to be champions of social justice and you pull crap like that?  Where's the justice for veterans?  We didn't go to war so that we could return home to dwindling job prospects, a broken economy, and a general public that is scared of us.  But by all means, let's write an op-ed piece about the connection between military service and white supremacy and further drag our veterans' reputations through the refuse.  The rate they're going, the New York Times is going to find itself on the newsstand right next to the Star and the National Enquirer (where facts are an inconvenience).  I could say more, but I am reserving a very special place in my blog for the NYT and their idiot journalist.  Don't worry, it's coming soon.

Yeah, I think this blog post has been a long time coming.  I'm settling into a new lease on life and I am once again ready to share my struggles and my triumphs.  So keep your eyes peeled and your inboxes open, 'cuz I'm back and I'm not afraid to 'use my words'...

It's been a bit of a crazy few weeks.  A lot has happened and, for once, some of what happened was actually good!  That being said, some aspects of what happened these past few weeks were stressful and exhausting.

You all know that I have returned to work on a part-time basis.  That has actually been really good for me.  I have a relatively set routine and it has been particularly good for me.  For a few weeks, I didn't have any issues - and then last week happened.  I had been working an average of about 30 hours per week and that seemed to work out pretty well for me.  Then I decided to pick up and extra shift, work six days out of seven and I paid the price.  My anxiety shot through the roof.  I started staying up later and later and getting less and less sleep.  This past week, I had nightmares, serious nightmares, for the first time in weeks.  Things were a little frayed around the edges and I truly felt at wit's end.  Seriously?  I try to work 40 hours and I start  bugging out?

Well, before I started down the well-trodden path to depression and self-recrimination, I asked myself a question:  Is It You or Is It the Work?  That one stopped me dead in my tracks. Could it really be that simple?  Could it really just be that Retail and I are like oil and water?  We may have appeared to be mixed at first, but over a longer period of time, it becomes readily apparent that no matter how hard I try to make it work for the sake of financial stability and peace of mind for my family, Retail Work and I don't get along.

I know I haven't blogged in a while.  I haven't kept up on a lot of the things that I need to be.  I have been feeling really burned out and have been struggling in a lot of ways that have not been easy on me or my family.  This is really raw and emotional for me, so bear with me...

I have been working in a high tempo, high stress, retail environment for four years now.  When I first started working there, I was a rising star.  It took two years for me to implode and end up on short-term disability.  When my daughter had been born a few months before I went out on disability, it sent me into a tailspin.  I obsessed about being a supernatural provider and withdrew emotionally at home, cutting off my wife and daughter from love and companionship.  Thus, I went out on disability.

When I returned to work after fighting through my PTSD and learning to cope, I swore that I would always be prescient at home from now on.  My goal was come home from work with the energy and emotional awareness to be a good father and attentive husband.  What ended up happening is that my reliability at work and my availability suffered greatly.  It was made clear by my employer that they needed a level of reliability that I have not been providing over the past few months.

This raised my stress level at work, making work a 'non-permissive' environment - a place where I was at risk of losing my job or benefits or both if I couldn't sort this out.  It made me realize, regress my performance to a mean over time and it is readily apparent that retail work is grinding me down and taking a long-term cumulative toll on my performance at work.  That toll has sped up since I swore to always put my family first.

So now I have some hard decisions to make.  The only work I find fulfilling is being of service to others.  I have to balance what is best for me long-term with the welfare of my family.  It's not a fun place to be, but one I am confident I will work through.

I know I haven't been active recently in the community I created.  I know I haven't blogged as much.  For that I am sorry.  I needed to set myself in motion and resolve this issue with employment.  Now that I have the short-term leeway to figure it out while ensuring the welfare of my family is giving me the time and space I need to figure all of this out.

I want to thank all of those people who have reached out to me via email to express concern over not hearing from me and from my readers who reached out to ask how I was doing.  I truly value your compassion and understanding!

Here's the thing:  with all of changes that I have to make in my life to put my sleep back in balance, life is presenting a lot of new challenges...and lots of uncertainty.  What if work will not accommodate my need for a set schedule?  Why can't I seem to get to bed at a reasonable time?  Why is it still so hard for me to get up and get active?

What if?  Why?  How?

I asked myself these questions a lot yesterday and tried to come to terms with all of the things that are going to need to change in order for my life to center itself.  I got up, went about getting new sneakers and then went running in the afternoon heat.  It felt amazing.  Things fell apart as the day wore on.  I ate dinner and had planned to sit down and work on making some changes to one of the websites.  Well, that didn't happen and as the evening wore on, I lost track of time and that I intended to go to sleep at 10PM.  1230AM rolled around and I felt like an idiot.  Talk about being frustrated with myself.  If I can't get to bed at a reasonable hour, then I can't regulate my sleep and catch up on the huge deficit I already have.

So, just like the old challenges, I pick myself up today, dust myself off, and try again.  Today, I am going to work on the website and blog entries in the morning, clean the apartment and go for a run in the afternoon, and take some free time in the evening.  That's the goal.  Now I just need to push forward and make sure that I meet those goals.

So, yeah.  The challenges are new but the approach to overcoming them is the same.  Grit and determination.  Intestinal fortitude.  Finding ways to keep myself motivated.  All of these things are not new to me - just the problem to overcome.  The important thing for me to remember is that I have never given up in the past and I won't now.  I have past successes and failures to teach me what I need to do to move forward.

Because Every Day is a New Day.

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