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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:
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: Are you ever going to blog again? I don't think you realize how important your blog is to so many. I know I miss it. Do you even know why you stopped? 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: It is hard to see the good things in life 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. 
I've been blogging for a while now - since January, 2011. It's hard to believe it's been that long, but it has. I've shared my struggles and my victories and I have been gladdened to see that by sharing my struggles, I've made a positive impact in the lives of my fellow service-members and in the lives of the ones who love them. Over the course of those years, I've gotten to know quite a few bloggers sharing similar stories. One, in particular, has always had a deep impact on me: Living with PTSD & TBI. The author, Uncle Sam's Mistress has a talent for clearly and emotionally depicting how difficult life is for someone deeply in love with a veteran with PTSD. Over the past few years, we've gotten to know each other tangentially through our respective blogs and through Facebook - sharing posts, insight and a kind word. I began to grow concerned that I hadn't seen a blog post from her in a while, as I know my readers have been for me these past few months. One of my greatest regrets is that I couldn't see past my own challenges to check to make sure everything was OK. When she posted her latest blog post, From A Stigma to A Statistic, I sobbed. I sobbed for the loss of her husband, I sobbed because of the profound and heartfelt pain she expressed through her words, and I sobbed because PTSD had taken another veteran too early. I did my best to let her know through comments how deeply distressed I was for her loss, but don't think I ever found the right words. So that's why I'm writing this tonight. Here Goes... Dear Uncle Sam's Mistress, To One in Sorrow by Grace Noll Crowell Let me come in where you are weeping, friend, And let me take your hand. I, who have known a sorrow such as yours, Can understand. Let me come in -- I would be very still Beside you in your grief; I would not bid you cease your weeping, friend, Tears can bring relief. Let me come in -- I would only breathe a prayer, And hold your hand, For I have known a sorrow such as yours, And understand. To my family, friends, fellow bloggers, and faithful readers, I ask the following: Show your solidarity. Write your name (or pseudonym) in the comments along with a kind word. Just a moment of your time would mean so much.
 It's been a while since I've written a blog post. For that, again, I am truly sorry. I never intended to go this long, but one of the first things to go when PTSD and depression are starting to get away from you is your accurate sense of the passage of time. When the holiday season started, I thought I was dealing well with the end of my marriage. I was focused, motivated, and very dedicated to my daughter. I was going to the gym and training in MMA twice per week. I was enjoying my job and thriving. Things changed so subtly that I only noticed how depression and PTSD had started creeping in on the edges until things were dangerously close to a tipping point that would have seen me spiraling back into a very dark place. On Christmas Eve, I had to take my daughter to her mother's house. Caley was communicating effectively how much she was grieving that mom and dad were no longer together and it hit me like a ton of bricks. When I woke up on Christmas day, I could feel the depression pushing the walls in. I closed myself into my apartment and pushed back with all of my might. I thought about everything that I have been through over the past few years. I focused on how much progress I've made. I looked at what I have been able to accomplish, despite the PTSD. More importantly, I focused on how I have managed things since my wife said she wanted a divorce. Logically, I knew I should be heartened by what I have been able to accomplish. So why didn't my feelings match what I have been able to provide for myself and for my daughter? For those of you who are familiar with my blog, you know by now that blogging helps me to articulate what I am feeling and why. Writing out how I am feeling, in general, has that effect. Well, on Christmas Eve, I had received a Facebook message from a friend, sending me best wishes and hoping that I was doing OK. I responded with an outflowing of emotion and then, because of the nature of PTSD, summarily forgot that I had written her back until half way through the day on the 26th. Here's what I wrote her: thank you for reaching out. It's been a bit dark for me in recent weeks, since the holidays started. I'm really struggling. I just want to curl up in a hole and I'm fighting the depression with everything I have. The sad part: it's been a slow creep. A death by a thousand cuts, emotionally. I have so much to live for and be proud of but I can't see the forest through the trees right now. I'm about to step into my parents' house to fill them in. You have no idea how much it means to me that you checked in. I hope you have a very merry Christmas. I'll be sending out an email to fill everyone in, since I've been silent for a bit. I am going to need support getting through the next few months, as the divorce gets finalized. I know I can be honest with you so I'll say it. I'm ashamed. Ashamed my marriage failed. Ashamed I can't keep the depression in check. Ashamed I haven't kept up with my blogging. Ashamed. Ashamed. Ashamed. I shudder to think where I'd be right now if it wasn't for my amazing family and friends like you. The crazy thing is that I barely remember writing this or discussing what I wrote in it with my parents until I saw the response from my friend on Facebook. You are right Max you do have so much to live for and be proud of, a great deal, more than most! I wanted to check in several times but at the same time want to respect your need for space. You may always reach out anytime you need someone, even if it's just to listen, share a meal, walk and talk, whatever... YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF, trust me when I tell you that forgiving yourself is a must, you need to allow yourself forgiveness because we are all only human trying to get through what can often be a hard and difficult path, it's ok that life doesn't work out like we thought, or that the path we were on changes, as hard as it is for you at this moment I promise you that you will understand at one point in your life and you will know you went through all of this to get through it, I know you will because you didn't get this far without having that courage and strength. I can not ever say I understand what you are dealing with because I have not lived your life, but I can tell you that you don't ever need to go through any of it alone, you have too many people Max who care... Please enjoy the joy of your family, of your daughter and have a blessed Christmas. 2015 is a year for opportunities and growth and love... Merry Christmas! Sometimes, all you need is a little validation from a friend. If you are a friend of someone with PTSD, please read what was written by my friend above. She never claims to understand what I am going through but she validates my emotions while gently reinforcing the positive and forcing me to evaluate the truthfulness of the negative emotions that I was feeling.
Her words were exactly what I needed to hear. It allowed me to safely distance myself from the volatility of my emotions and figure out what exactly had transpired over the past few months that had landed me on the cusp of full-blown despair. Here's how insidious PTSD and depression can be, even when they are being well managed:
What's so frustrating is that, in 20/20 hindsight, it's all so clear. Why couldn't I see it when it was all happening? I mean, I was in a good place. I effectively managing my PTSD triggers and was devoted to my daughter (still am). So why, WHY, am I sitting here writing this blog post? How did I get here? Well, I have a choice to make. Learn from this and move forward to correct all of the things I am not doing to effectively cope, or I can disappear again. Not much of a choice if you ask me. I'm spending the rest of the holiday season resting and relaxing and relishing every moment I have with my daughter. Once 2015 begins, time to rededicate myself to doing the things I need and love doing. All I know is that I have never been so grateful for the amazing family and friends I have in my life. It's time to focus on the things that are working and fixing the things are aren't. Here's to the New Year...  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. To me divorce was more emotionally intense than losing a loved one. When a loved one dies, there's closure - it's final. With divorce, you don't get that luxury. You don't get closure ever - especially if you still deeply love your partner. Especially when there's a child involved. 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. Well, it's been one week since we started the separation. I won't lie and say that it hasn't been very hard, but I'm going to stay focused on laying out the ground rules for separation that my wife and I agreed to. When we sat down to hash out the ground rules, we had a few major considerations:
Our Daughter, Caley:First and foremost, our daughter's health and well-being takes precedence in all of this. My wife and I both agree that it is important that our separation should have as little emotional impact on our daughter as humanly possible. We have and continue to make sure that she knows that mommy and daddy love her with all of our hearts and that we still love each other. No matter how this turns out, Caley will never be put in the middle. We have seen to many couples use their child(ren) as a tool to hold over the other parent. We have also seen parents badmouth each other in front of their child and that's not only hurtful, but incredibly confusing for a kid. Part of the children will feel that they need to share those feelings for the other parent out of loyalty to the one who is doing the badmouthing and it never ends well for the child. We've worked it out so that the days during the week alternate between my wife and I - it's easy since she's in pre-school and one parent can drop her off and the other picks her up. Every other week, one of us gets Caley for a four day weekend. So far it seems to be working out well, but if we find that there's issues that come from this setup, I will be sure to pass along what we learn along the way. Duration and Basic Conditions:We laid out some ground rules for initial duration of the separation and also the minimum duration should my wife desire to come back before the full length of separation expires. Here's what we agreed upon:
Financial Considerations:One major consideration in all of this is our finances. We were finally financially stable enough to do more than just make ends meet and were starting to aggressively pay down our debt. I told my wife that I will continue to make minimum payments on our last item of debt, but without her income being added into the mix, I'm not going to have the funds to help financially support her during this separation. We agreed that if she couldn't find a place that was safe and appropriate for my wife and Caley to live, then this whole separation is off. There's no getting around it - this separation is going to strain our finances to the limit (just like they were when I was working my old job). I also explained that there were some expenses I was not willing to give up - my MMA and gym memberships, in particular. I have finally started to get myself back in shape and am making friends for the first time in what feels like a decade. I need those things in my life and I explained to my wife just how important they were to my mental health and well-being. Thankfully, she understands and never considered asking me to give those up. Marriage Counseling:Out of everything, this is the one condition that for me is a deal-breaker. We absolutely needed to find a marriage counselor and get professional help. I told my wife that even though I don't want her to leave, if she needed to leave then we absolutely and unequivocally had to have the ball in motion for getting counseling. Part of the reason we are where we are is because of failures in communication. Also, it helps to have an intermediary there to help keep emotions from destroying progress. We both agreed that this was necessary and we are currently looking for a counselor who will help us work through this and decide if staying married is something that both parties really want.
So there you have it in a nutshell. I think that explains everything fully. If there are any aspects of this that I may have forgotten please don't hesitate to ask. Also, I know that there may be some readers out there that have gone through something similar. If there are any lessons you can share that can help us avoid common pitfalls, we're all ears. PTSD, Depression, and Marital Separation - Loving Your Spouse Enough to Give them Space to Heal8/17/2014
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. The BackStoryIf 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:
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. I Need Some Time Apart to Clear My HeadOver 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. The Five Stages of GriefIt 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:
However, rather than a means to an end, separation can be a helpful tool to stay together. This seems counterintuitive when a marriage is troubled and relations are fragile. Most of us believe that when we feel our spouse slipping away from us, we should merge together more, get as close as we can, and do more to "make the marriage work". 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. It's June 30th, the last day of National PTSD Awareness Month. It's also exactly one month out from the trauma anniversary that has, historically, been very challenging for me to cope with. It's with this in mind that I'm writing this blog post. I wanted to bring a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor to a serious subject and help to inform loved ones of how pending anniversaries can impact the daily lives of our veterans. I also wanted to present how I cope with my PTSD anniversary in a way that would be immediately familiar and identifiable to anyone who has served in a combat zone. So, here goes...
Pre-Deployment Processing (PDP): When soldiers are getting ready to deploy, they go through an exhaustive review of their readiness from physical fitness to ensuring all shots and vaccinations are updated to drawing weapons and equipment to updating their life-insurance beneficiaries and their wills. It is a focused and direct approach that ensures that each soldier is fully-equipped to confront the challenges they will face when deployed. When I am preparing for the emotional and physical buildup that stems from a pending anniversary, I take stock in much the same way - to ensure that I know the status of my resources and to shore up any weaknesses in my coping mechanism. I take stock of how well I've been sleeping. If I haven't been sleeping well recently, I make a point to go to bed earlier to try to compensate for this. If I haven't been active and exercising, I make a point of increasing my activity levels - it helps you sleep better and it has been proven that exercise improves your mood. I start paying particular attention to events that could potentially trigger my PTSD (the Fourth of July, for example) during the month leading up to and immediately following the anniversary. I do what I can to prepare my family for what could be a bumpy ride. Marshalling and evaluating the readiness of your resources is key to a 'successful deployment', whether into a combat zone or in preparation to confront and cope with your PTSD triggers. In the past, I have tried convincing myself that I don't have to do this and that believing that the anniversary won't impact me would see me through - Epic Fail. Don't fall victim to the Five P's (Piss Poor Proper Prior Planning). Battle Damage Assessment (BDA): After a battle, a unit goes through what is called a Battle Damage Assessment to evaluate the readiness of their troops and equipment. This is a critical process - after the BDA is complete, it allows the unit commander to redeploy his resources in the most effective way possible, given the readiness and condition of his assets. It is much the same after something has triggered your PTSD. It is vital that you evaluate how much of your emotional reserve has been depleted by coping with the trigger and fighting to regain control. It is also very important that you evaluate your physical condition. There is almost always a strong adrenalin response when I am triggered and it can disrupt my sleep and my physical energy reserves can become dangerously depleted. After I have re-stabilized, post-trigger, I perform a BDA so that I can redeploy my coping resources more effectively. Sometimes that means taking naps to catch up on lost sleep. Sometimes that means making sure I have time to decompress built into my day. Sometimes it just means staying in for a day to recover. I do whatever I have to do to ensure that my resources last as long as possible. Make no mistake: Effectively coping with anniversaries is like fighting a campaign with each trigger event being an individual battle. Winning or losing an individual battle may not win or lose you the campaign, but without proper planning and resource allocation, you will lose out to attrition and loss of morale. Don't try to ignore the warning signs - you'll get blindsided. It would be like a convoy not sending out scout vehicles and being surprised when they get decimated by a near ambush with intersecting fields of fire... Calling in Reinforcements: Sometimes you will find yourself in a situation where you know you're about to be overrun. In the past, I have let my pride get in the way of asking for help and have paid dearly for it. Reinforcements are not unlimited so it is imperative that you know what reinforcements you have access to and how often.
After-Action Review (AAR): After every campaign, commanding officers get their officers and their NCO cadres together to evaluate the performance of the unit over the course of the campaign, to better identify recurring weaknesses in strategy or to identify resources that were more rapidly depleted than planned and accounted for. This is a high level review that allows commander to respond and react to lessons learned and properly account for them in future deployments. It's important to do the same with PTSD after the anniversary has passed. Once things have returned to the status-quo, it's important to take a look at what you did right and where there's adjustments that need to be made. It's important to talk to your friends and family and get feedback, should it be necessary. If you don't incorporate lessons learned in preparation of the next anniversary, you're not doing yourself any favors. As a commander, if you knew that deploying your troops differently in response to a threat would save lives, you'd want to know it. Treat coping with your anniversary the same way. So there you have it. I hope you find this helpful and humorous at the same time. If you have any questions or feedback, don't hesitate to comment on this!! 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.  OK, not entirely accurate. This guy has hair. 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. |
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Max HarrisAs I continue my life with PTSD, I will share my challenges and discoveries on this blog. Archives
October 2018
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Note: This website offers links to resources and venues for veterans to discuss PTSD. Any opinions expressed herein are solely the opinions of the website administration and are not a substitute or supplement for professional treatment.