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 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:

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.

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:

• It started off slowly.  At MMA, I started cutting out after one hour.  Then I started losing motivation to go one of the two nights attended every week.  Then, I stopped going altogether.  I try to look back to see when the last time was that I went, but I can't remember.
• I lost the motivation to get up early to go to the gym.  Pretty soon, I wasn't going to the gym at all anymore.  Again, I can't remember the last time I went to the gym.
• I sat down on multiple occasions to try to write blog posts.  My mind was blank.  Things were bothering me, but I couldn't find a way to start writing.  It was a horrible writer's block.  I wasn't even aware of how long it had been since I had last written a post.
• I started having more and more frequent nightmares.  It severely disrupted my sleep patterns, leading to significant insomnia and irritability.
• I started focusing almost obsessively on my work.  I couldn't shut my brain down.
• I started smoking more heavily.
• I stopped making time to get things rolling for the non-profit.
• The final straw was the way I caught myself emotionally withdrawing (slightly, not in a significant way) from my daughter on Christmas Eve.  When I realized what was going on, I became acutely aware of how I was feeling and it was overwhelming.

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...

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.

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.

• The Airstrike:  Sometimes you can tell that you are being encircled and all you need is someone to blow you a hole in enemy lines so that you can get your people out.  Calling in a targeted airstrike can do just that.  Air strikes are ideal for situations where you need overwhelming superiority for a short amount of time, just to get yourself out of a bad situation.  Since its use is of short duration, it has the opportunity to return to base and refuel and rearm fairly regularly.  My wife is my Airstrike.  When I tell her I feel the walls closing in, she takes my daughter out for an afternoon or down to her parents for the day, removing all distractions and external stressors from my environment so that I can focus on getting through that moment.
• The Quick Response Force (QRF):  Sometimes you know that you are vastly outnumbered and you find yourself facing a determined enemy and in a situation that you can't easily extricate yourself from.  You've tried utilizing an airstrike but it had about as much impact on the opposition as a squirt gun on a hornet's nest.  The QRF is perfect for this scenario - it can roll in, assess the situation and reinforce your lines where they are weakest, while also bringing substantial firepower to bear.  They are better equipped for longer deployments in the field but need more time to repair and resupply after they leave the field.  My family is my QRF.  Sometimes I need the love, support, and help of my whole family to get through really bad patches.  This seemed to happen more often when I didn't plan ahead and prepare myself for what I knew was coming, but should the need arise for sustained reinforcement, I know I can count on my family to 'take the ball' and give me the time and space I need to muddle through.

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!!

As you may be aware, things have been going really well for me in recent months - new job, balanced work/personal lives, personal fulfillment, and more.  I went into Memorial Day weekend and I was as happy as I can remember being in years.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up on Sunday that weekend and I felt like weeping.  I weight of my sadness and my guilt for feeling happy was oppressive.  It was unbearable.  I had resolved, before the weekend started, to honor the memories of those that gave their lives in service by spending quality time with my family.

How I felt on Sunday was a kick in the nuts.  I couldn't even enjoy the company of my wife and my daughter I was so morose.  The following few weeks have been hard.  Despite the fact that my duties at work have been incredibly fulfilling, I have not been motivated to do much of anything else and have had a lot of trouble sleeping.

Talk about feeling exceedingly frustrated.  Even when things were going right, what happened over in Iraq stole some of that happiness from me.  Unbelievable.  I've thought a lot about this over the past few days, trying to figure out why the guilt is persisting.  It wasn't until earlier today that I finally made a breakthrough.

After recovering from the burnout that was working in retail, I had taken a break from blogging and from advancing the cause of my non-profit.  What I discovered was disconcerting - I was fearful of burning myself out again and had been unintentionally shying away from responding to emails, communicating with my board of directors, and even from blogging.

I should have known better.  Working to help veterans had become a central tenant of my ability to cope with my PTSD.  I also now know that my new job will not overwork me or keep me from being able to administer my non-profit.  So here goes.  I am going to start blogging again at least twice per week and am going to start moving the non-profit forward again, despite the government tax-exempt status backlog.

So here's to another fresh start.  I hope I can finally find the right balance and stay true to myself.

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.

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

It's amazing how quickly medical problems can add up to turn coping with PTSD into trying to walk through a minefield.  I'm struggling to understand why all of these random health problems seem to keep happening to me, but it's getting old and particularly challenging to deal with.  While I am not out of the woods yet, I am starting to feel a little better.  That being said, the stress of this past week has taken an incredible toll on my wife and I.  I am physically exhausted as my body continues its struggle to heal.  My wife is beyond emotionally exhausted after having to resume the role of full-time caregiver of our daughter (and me).  What makes that even worse is that these were physical issues on my part that were not (as far as we know) related to my PTSD.

Here's the synopsis:

• On Monday, I felt something pop in my left ear and I was left with vertigo, nausea and ear pain.  After missing work to go see the doctor, I was diagnosed with a middle ear infection.  I was given ear drops and told to contact them if things got worse over the course of the next 10 days.  I returned to work on Tuesday.
• On Tuesday, I don't know if I was distracted by my ear pain or not, but I somehow managed to butterfly the tip on my left pinky finger on a deli slicer at work.  One ER visit later, I had six stitches in the tip of my finger.  That night, I had horrible nightmares and ended up waking up choking on my own bile.  I spent the next half hour vomiting and dry-heaving as I tried desperately to clear the bile from my back of my throat.
• Wednesday I had off.  I spent the day out-of-sorts as I struggled to cope with the intensity of the previous night.
• Thursday started off well.  I returned to work again and made it through the whole day without incident.  After coming home from work, the pain in my ear started getting worse.  I started to get a ringing in my ear and experienced mild loss of hearing as well.  I resolved to call the doc the following morning.
• When I woke up Friday morning, the pain and hearing loss was progressing rapidly.  The pain radiated out from my ear and down my neck.  I took the earliest appointment that my docs offered.  That afternoon, I was seen by the docs and they became very concerned when they looked in my ear and saw that it was a mass of blisters and pus.  They were concerned with the spreading of pain that the infection may have spread to the mastoid bone in my head.  They sent me out for an emergency CAT scan and it fortunately came back negative.  I avoided hospitalization but had steroids and antibiotics added to the ear drops.  Later that night, the pain continued to grow worse to the point of being unmanageable.  My wife had to take me to the ER where they evaluated my situation and put me on IV antibiotics and pain-killers in an attempt to get ahead of the infection.  They succeeded and sent me home around three in the morning with heavy pain meds and stronger antibiotics.  When I got home I was still so wound up from the adrenalin response to my pain that I wasn't really able to get to bed until my daughter woke up and cuddled me into submission.
• When I woke up a few hours later around 8:30, I went to fill my scrips I had gotten from the ER.  The pain meds they had given me were wearing off and I had to go to work to fill the scrips at the pharmacy. By this point, my patience and control of my anger and PTSD was wearing really thin.  I got home, took a scheduled dose of pain meds and faded into oblivion for about two hours until I felt multiple pops in my ear and pus started running out of my ear.  Fearful of the pus causing a secondary infection, I cleared as much of the pus out of my ear as I could by using swabs to wick it out without sticking them in my ear canal.  The relief of pressure was significant and I could hear a little better.  I was still in a substantial amount of pain, but I felt like I was finally starting to turn the corner.  I was so out of it on pain-killers and my wife was exhausted.  I quickly called my parents and asked if they could keep an eye on Caley so that my wife could get desperately needed rest and so that I could convalesce without having to try to keep an eye on a rambunctious two year old.

As you can see, it's been a long week.  While I am proud that I have been able to keep a lid on the anger (barely), it has been substantially more difficult to keep the catastrophic thinking and anxiety at bay over the course of this week - especially when I thought about my job security.  At some point a company is going to decide they've had enough and I live in an at-will employment state.  I kept on thinking, with how unreliable I have been because of health issues over the past year, they would be justified in letting me go.  While that outcome is improbable, the catastrophic thinking was pushing to convince me that I was going to lose my job.

Sooo,,,Now that I have turned the corner with my health issues and finally feel like I am on the road to recovery, I now have to contend with the emotional/PTSD fallout from everything I went through this past week.  The anxiety and adrenalin are still going strong and it is hard to keep a lid on them and not freak out. But I am still here, somehow.

I can't even imagine how hard this past week has been on my wife,  She just can't seem to catch a break and enjoy a little bit of stability, what with the PTSD and the random health issues.  It makes me feel incredibly guilty.  While I know that the physical issues are completely out of my control, it doesn't change how guilty I feel that she had to experience that emotional distress, take care of me and our two year old, and work to bring in money to keep us financially stable.  Seeing her that distraught and still fighting made my heart clench in my chest.  She just never gives up.  She fights until she literally can't stand up anymore.  It's disturbing to think of where I might be right now if it wasn't for the amazing fortitude of my wife and the strength of her love for me.  It's why I will always be dedicated to her, working as hard as I can to see her happy and fulfilled, despite my problems.

Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday.  All I keep thinking about is how we need tomorrow to be uneventful and restful, for both our sakes.  So, here's to hoping.