So I said I would explain more - here I am. After the accident, I thought I was ok. I didn't seem any worse for wear. About five days passed and something changed.  Maybe it was the shock wearing off, I don't know. All I know is that I suddenly started having constant nightmares.

It was different this time.

Rather than being the 'usual' reliving of the friendly fire incident, I find myself on a cot in a hallway when another soldier - a sergeant, comes running in, dazed and hysterical, with blood all over his face. He keeps on saying that there's been a vehicle accident and that the other passenger was killed. I had to keep him from going back out there. 

This is where it gets weird for me. I can't tell if this happened or not in reality. Talk about screwing with your head. The recollection (if that's what it is) seems too specific and too detailed not to be real but I have no clear memory of this incident when I'm conscious. Is this what a repressed memory resurfacing is like? Talk about terrifying. What else is out there that I don't know about?

Needless to say, this is triggering the hell out of my PTSD when I'm awake and making it very hard to fall asleep most nights. Last night was the first night since the insomnia started on Wednesday that I slept for more than two hours in a night. And here I sit, wondering what will happen tonight.

The one thing I do know for certain: It's not a coincidence that this is happening after I just survived an accident I never should have. I have survivor's guilt and I don't know why. It's somewhat surreal.

So in a nutshell, I don't feel in control AND feel powerless to do anything about it. Add that in with my current reality that I am still adjusting to at work and you've got a recipe for PTSD to overwhelm me.

But it's not. I won't let it. I may be triggered but I can honestly say that the strength and support I get from family and friends help be find a way through my minefield of emotions, just waiting for an unsuspecting foot. 

Writing this is definitely helping, though.  It's good to be back in the swing of things. Maybe soon I will figure out what the hell is going on and why I can't shake these new nightmares. In the interim, I will do my best to cope with what comes. Here goes nothing.

I still can't believe I haven't blogged since last August...

Well, in a way I can.  The divorce was finalized July 30th and it wasn't very long after that my life began to change dramatically.  I don't really know why or how it happened but I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and share anything.

The words just wouldn't come and I was at a loss - because I needed the outlet but just couldn't bring myself to share.  Why was this happening?  Did it mean anything?

After the long hiatus, I think I know what happened:

After everything I had gone through, I needed to step away from everything that I knew so that I could find a way forward for myself.

So here's everything that's happened in the past too many months since I last blogged:

• I worked a LOT
• I spent what time I had with my daughter
• I stopped going to the gym
• I withdrew from everything except my work persona and being a dad
• I stopped caring about my health and smoked even MORE heavily than before
• I stopped being a participant in my own life

And everything felt EMPTY, bereft of meaning, bereft of hope, bereft of happiness - except when I was with my daughter.

and then...

Something started to change in mid-September.  I don't even know why, but I just quit smoking cold turkey on September 15th.  I haven't touched a cigarette since.

By September 30th, I was moved out of the apartment I had been married in and was living in my parents' basement while I looked for a house.

In December, our company was awarded 2015 Emerging Business of the Year and I had been responsible for 700% year over year revenue growth.  As a result of my dedication, I was granted 15% ownership in the company as sweat equity.  I lived for the work I was doing - in total control of my professional destiny.

I moved into a beautiful 1835 sq. foot townhome with my daughter on January 5th.  As I moved in, I started to put all of the stuff back out the way I liked it, reasserting my sense of personality and style.  Things that I didn't realize I had put in a 'box' both literally and figuratively over the last few years of my marriage.

In early February, I joined Title Boxing Club and immediately found my rhythm and routine there, losing 18 pounds and 4 inched off my waistline as of last week.

An then my mom asked me a very simple question:

COLD WATER

It made me stop and think.  Why did I stop blogging?  Did I even know when the last time I blogged WAS?  I sat down and I thought about it a lot and I realized something very profound.

I'd been on autopilot, going through the motions and yet...even in my haze of pain and endings, I had somehow found the strength to make new beginnings.

So I'm sitting here and I realized that I am at a crossroads and I've been here before.  I wrote a poem about it:

So it's time to make a choice.  I have my daughter, a job I love, a new home, and a fresh start.  What I don't have is connections with other people outside of family and work.  I don't have a social life.  I'm standing here watching my life pass me by like I'm a stick stuck in the mud, wondering why the rising tides of time's passage are making me feel like I'm starting to drown.

It's time to choose - do I fight free so I can float to the surface - OR do I decide to look up, take a deep breath, and step into It, Submerging self once more to be baptized by Life.

Tomorrow will tell.

Sorry it's been so long since the last blog post.  I'm not going to make any promises about where things are going from here.  I'm going to take it a day at a time and see what happens.  Hopefully, you'll join me on this journey.

​

Yeah, you read that correctly.  I recently met someone.  She's intelligent, passionate about languages and culture, and attractive as hell.  I had a blast speaking with her about cultural experiences and could have talked for hours more.

I have zero expectations and I think we could become good friends.  The problem is, I can also see the potential for something more and it scares the living shit out of me.  I just got through this divorce and I'm not ready for anything else, but...

I find her intellect and her kindness incredibly appealing.  She hung on my every word with keen interest and it's been so long since someone outside of my family or work did that.

My emotions are a jumbled mess.  When she finds out about the PTSD, will she think me irretrievably broken? Do I have it in me to be a good friend?

I never thought that meeting someone who shares so many interests would trigger my PTSD, but there you have it.  The old PTSD fallbacks are pushing to the forefront.  All I want to do is withdraw into myself and avoid the uncertainty.  In my mind, it's also fear of 'inevitable alienation' that's twisting me up in knots.

The catastrophic thinking has me on my heels.  When she finds out I have PTSD, will she think, "I could be friends with this guy, but boy is he a mess.  Do I want to invite this drama into my life?"

This is what I was talking about in my previous post - I've grown in so many ways...but at times, I'm still crippled by low self-esteem, self-doubt, and fear hurting others and getting hurt in return.  So, this is apparently my latest struggle.  I don't want to spend my life alone.  I want to meet and be surrounded by friends who love and respect me.  I want to find someone who's committed to me for the long haul, someone who I can be committed to in return.

And I have no freaking clue how to take that first step.  

Don't get me wrong, I've found a great community at my temple that makes me feel included and respected, but this is something else.  After everything that I've been through, I'm not in any rush to jump into anything.  I just wish I knew how to take the first step without tripping over my own two feet.

I'm a single dad with an energetic almost five year-old. I have PTSD.  I'm a very busy entrepreneur and I have a non-profit to revitalize. I know I need to make time for myself and I can't put my life on hold but when am I supposed to find the time to relearn how to socialize?

If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.  I haven't been in the right frame of mind or situation to even think about this when the divorce was still in process.

Still, it feels good to be back and blogging and getting this all out.

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 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.

We are getting absolutely pounded with heavy snow right now.  So, with nothing else going on, it seemed like a perfect time to catch you all up a bit on everything that's been going on.  There has been some concern expressed by family, friends and readers that recent posts have expressed a lot of anger.  Yep, they sure have.  I'm less angry than I am frustrated, but that's just part of the story.

I'm 35 years old and I have had no luck starting a meaningful career since 2007 when I graduated (Magna Cum Laude, I might add) from college.  I have continually been told that I'm 'overqualified'.  Well, now I'm seen as too old and too experienced for entry level work, but I don't know the requisite computer applications that seems to be required for mid-level management (seriously?  It's a computer application - I could learn a stupid computer program in a day or two).  I've also come to the realization that I really don't play very well with others.  I'm demanding and exacting and hold people to the standards I hold myself to and that seems to cause me a lot of problems in the workplace.  It's made me realize that the education and skill set I currently have isn't doing me any favors.  As a result, I'm exploring whether VA's Vocational Rehabilitation program could help me get the training I need to go into business for myself (or at least on a contract basis).

Seriously, I want to change career fields so that I can be self-employed.  I've been exploring options and I think that learning web and application design could open a lot of doors for me.  Even if I worked for someone else, it's much more cut and dry what the skill requirements are for the jobs - you either know the programming languages or you don't.  Considering I learned Arabic in 63 weeks, learning programming languages should be a breeze.  I've actually been teaching myself HTML5 and CSS.  I'm going to learn Javascript, jquery, ruby, and python too.  Hopefully, voc rehab will be able to help me get the formal education I need to make the transition.

So, that's the work side of life.  Things on the personal side are settling down substantially.  I go to train MMA as often as I am able to get out to the gym.  I am learning to deal with my emotions better (anger and frustration still need a lot of work).  I've been off the medication for about two months now and I feel a whole hell of a lot better.  My psoriasis is much more manageable, I have stopped having constant stress headaches, and my asthma is almost non-existent.  My instinct that the medication was having an adverse impact on my physical health definitely appears to be right on the money so far.  I feel more energetic, motivated.  I've still got a lot to work through and think through, but I feel like I'm finally headed in the right direction.

As for the non-profit, well...The backlog on 501(c)3 Tax Exempt status is so big, we won't gain our tax-exempt status until 2015 at the earliest.  It has made getting the non-profit off the ground exceptionally time-consuming and frustrating.  As a result, I've had to change the short-term focus and just get down to the basics.  The crowdfunding rewards are finally done and in hand - sort of.  The company that made affortable static window clings went under.  The other companies charge more for a single window cling than I paid to purchase and print a t-shirt.  Same goes for the 550 cord key chains.  As a result, I've decided to send all supporters a silicone bracelet and a t-shirt.  So keep an eye out for the email I'm sending out to confirm mailing addresses.  The silicone bracelets I got for a song - the website I purchased them through gave me 200 free when I bought 100 debossed two-tone bracelets.  At least I'll be able to make a little money for the non-profit by selling them and the extra t-shirts.

So there you have it.  That's pretty much everything going on right now.  I've been much better about recognizing my limitations and am finally making the lifestyle and professional changes I need to so that I can live a less stressful and better balanced life.  I won't lie and say that things have been easy as I have worked on making this transition.  It's been stressful as hell, but I finally feel like I'm thinking long-term and making the changes I need to provide for long-term stability.  I'll keep you posted as things progress.  Thanks to all of my readers for your continued support and readership!

Well, I'm back.  I cannot tell you how relieved I am to not have my thoughts locked up inside anymore.  I have tried for weeks to sit down and blog about my recent challenges and every time I sat down, I couldn't type a single word.  I just didn't know where to begin.  My head was a jumble.  To some degree it still is, but being able to finally get this out in my blog will go a long way.  Once I'm done telling you where my head has been, I think you'll understand why it's been such a long few months.

I'd been feeling particularly toxic and had not been able to figure out why.  Then, about a week ago, after months of not being able to figure it out, it hit me.  I've lost myself.  I don't recognize myself in the mirror.  I don't recognize my behavior, my attitude.  I've lost confidence in myself.  I never used to care what anyone thought of me but that's all I've cared about in recent months.  It was a nasty confluence of events.  Here's what's been going on:

My Psoriasis:

Out of control is an understatement.  Even taking injections for the psoriasis wasn't keeping it fully in check.  It spread all over my face and scalp.  If I grew facial hair or let my hair on my head grow out, it got worse.  If I shaved to often, it got worse AND looked really irritated and splotchy.  People started looking at me with disgust, like I had dry flaky skin because I have poor hygiene.  Ugh.  The one thing I didn't take into consideration is how pent up stress exacerbates the psoriasis.  As the toxins in my body build up, they look for a way out.  What I couldn't fathom was why the toxins were building up so quickly and continually.  After talking about this with my wife, we came to the understanding that my psoriasis was really bad because I'd been holding my emotions in - unintentionally.  It was my medication.

The VA Medication Quick Fix:

When I went to the VA with PTSD, they immediately put me on mood stabilizers and a whole bunch of other meds for insomnia, anxiety, jitters.  The problem is that all of the meds they prescribe keep people from being able to feel and express the full spectrum of their feelings.  I have been frustrated as all hell with the continual cycle I have gone through for the last decade - the ups and downs and outs.  I've never been afforded the opportunity to truly examine what I am feeling because I the drugs prevent and/or mask the truth of my emotional experience.  When you can't fully express how you feel because medication prevents it from being externalized, where else does it have to go?  It goes deeply internal and toxifies the whole body.  As this toxicity progresses, these emotional problems start manifesting themselves as physical health issues.  Let's see here:  Exacerbated Psoriasis Sypmtoms.  Check.  Worsening Insomnia.  Check.  Compromised Immune System.  Check.  Lethargy.  Check.  Check.  Check.  Check.  Check.

You getting the idea?

Perceived Failures:

I've been married for over seven years.  My wife recently explained to me that the man she fell in love with has been MIA for quite a while.  The fell in love with a man who was supremely confident in himself and his abilities.  On top of that, he couldn't care less what others thought of him.  My wife found this confidence and self-assurance extremely attractive.  Then things started to go sideways.  The economy tanked in 2007 and I couldn't find a job after graduating from college.  The jobs I could find were crap service jobs making shit money with no room for true advancement.  Things got really rough financially for my wife and I.  And so on and so on.  It was like one gut blow after another.  I started to doubt myself.  I started to wonder if I had been deluding myself all of those years.  It just kept on getting worse and worse.  Every new venture or idea I have had in recent years has been met with delay and disappointment.  Even starting the non-profit has been a non-starter.  The application process and wait time for tax exempt status is so long, I won't be able to raise funds until 2015 - IF - IF I'm lucky.  Anything else?


Needless to say, realizing all of this over the past few months has been more than just a little distressing for me.  That's some pretty profound stuff to digest. So, that's where I'll leave it for today.  I'll explain what I plan on doing to rediscover myself in the coming blog posts.

Again, I am so sorry for the hiatus.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

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!

Well, that was an unexpected turn.  A few days after the horrible nightmare I had last week, I suddenly found myself motivated to examine how I had been living my life.  It wasn't pretty.  I wasn't doing everything I know I am able to be.  I wasn't being a partner to my wife, I wasn't pulling my weight at home.  I was anxiety eating myself into diabetic shock, slowly gaining weight, pound by pound.