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.

When I woke up on Veterans Day, I was really looking forward to it, as I always do.  I was going out to enjoy a free breakfast at the local Friendly's with my dad (who is also a veteran).  After that, I was going to a promising meeting for work and then the Netizen Crew (all veterans) were hitting Texas Roadhouse for a team lunch.  Then, that afternoon, I had another really promising meeting for work.

I started off the day full of vim and vigor, ready to seize the day and enjoy the company of my fellow veterans.

To say that the day proceeded a little differently...well, that would be an understatement.

When I arrived at Friendly's, I met my dad and we went inside.  The place was packed.  There was one cook in the kitchen, one very stressed waitress, and ZERO management.  I looked around the seating area and saw a lot of disgusted faces.  To attract veterans (yes their food is free) and their families (their food is NOT free) with free food to honor their service and then not staff up was a complete failure on Friendly's part.  It wasn't the fact that I wasn't going to get free food that really rankled me.  What really angered me was that now, because of the absolute ineptitude (and apparent apathy) of Friendly's management, I no longer had time to find another place to eat breakfast with my father and was denied the opportunity to celebrate our service and spend quality time with my dad.

That was TRIGGER#1

I walked out into the parking lot a little edgy.  I saw my dad off and as I was walking to my car, I witnessed a lady t-boning another lady in parking lot adjacent to Friendly's.  I didn't think, I just reacted.  I ran over to check on the two drivers.  The lady who was t-boned was standing outside of her car next to the open driver-side door, visibly shaken and wobbly.  I quickly instructed her to sit down, as I was afraid she was going to pass out.  She complied and I asked her how she was feeling, whether she had any medical conditions and told her I was going to call 911.  The lady said she had hypertension so I again reassured her that I was calling 911 and that everything was going to be ok.  I called 911 and when the cop arrived, gave my statement.  While we were waiting for the police, I helped the lady to call her husband so that he could come and pick her up - her car was totaled.

After my information was taken and I was released by the police, I went back to my car and was shaking from head to toe with adrenalin.  I didn't need to remain calm anymore, as the welfare of the accident victims was now in the hands of the police.  I had to consciously focus on slowing down my breathing.  I was having intrusive recollections of the aftermath of an IED attack in which I was one of the first responders.  I felt like I was a hot mess, so I swallowed my memories, bit my lip and drove to my first business meeting.

That was TRIGGER#2

I arrived at the first meeting feeling like I must appear outwardly to be a hot mess.  Somehow, I got through the meeting without imploding.  I even asked our CEO, who I was in the meeting with, if I looked visibly shaken or distracted.  I felt like is had to be obvious to everyone that I was a hot mess.  He reassured me that it didn't show and I started to relax a little bit.

After the meeting, we headed to lunch with the team.  Texas Roadhouse was packed.  I was still on edge, so I was really hoping that the staff was on point and that I would be able to sit with my back as close to the wall as possible.

Thankfully, the staff was amazing (Texas Roadhouse, you ROCK!) and I was able to sit where I could see most of the people coming and going.  The lunch and the company was great.  I was starting to relax and decompress as I was finally getting to celebrate the day and enjoy the company of my fellow veterans.

I headed home to check on a few things for work and to prep for my afternoon meeting when I got notification that an article that had been written about me and the nonprofit work I am doing had gone live.  My stress level went up instantly.  They hadn't afforded me the opportunity to fact check what they had written and had not notified me that it had been published.  I quickly checked the article on their website and I almost put my fist through the wall.  They had gotten every fact about my service wrong.  They had the wrong suffix for the nonprofit's website.  They screwed up the name of the entrepreneurship initiative I am working to roll out.  They directly attributed quotes to me that were such poor grammar that they made me sound like an uneducated idiot.

To say I was furious would be an understatement.  I immediately called their managing editor and chewed him a new one.  He took down all of the fallacies that needed to be corrected and told me that he would correct the article online, but there was nothing he could do about the print version.

Fucking wonderful.

That was TRIGGER#3

Before anyone jumps the gun and comes to the conclusion that this is about my ego, let me clarify a few things:

• The facts surrounding a veteran's service in combat are deeply personal.  The fact that they got them completely wrong was deeply upsetting to me for this reason.
• I was depicted as having PTSD from serving 'outside the wire' in the 'Iraq War Zone of Kuwait' and the Liaison to the Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense.  Ummmm. No.  Served as a Liaison to the Kuwaiti Ministry of defense in 2002.  I crossed the berm as a member of a joint forces Mobile Interrogation Team (MIT) attached to 3rd MP, 3ID.  The vast majority of my time in country was spent outside the wire as a member of a tactical counterintelligence/insurgency team.  This upset me deeply for the reasons I listed in the first bullet, but also for another reason.  If a veteran who didn't already know my story read those statements, he would think I was a sham.  There was no Iraqi War Zone of Kuwait.  The way they depicted me would be immediately construed as me being a glory-seeker who had never seen combat, a REMF (for the uninitiated, that's a derogatory acronym for Rear-Echelon Mother Fucker - used to describe the glory seekers who had never seen combat).  Their depiction of my service damaged my credibility and the credibility of my nonprofit with the veterans I am woking so hard to help.

After all of this went down, I had to get back in my car, again, and head to my last meeting for the day.  The meeting went well, but it was exceedingly hard to keep the agitation and adrenalin in check.  I was a hot mess.

I got out of the meeting and met my parents for dinner at Red Robin.  I ate quickly and departed quickly.  I just wanted to get home.  I changed clothes and headed over to the Yoga Lab to take advantage of a free mat yoga class.  I figured doing some yoga would help to work out the adrenalin and anger and allow me to focus on my breathing.

The class was intense and I struggled to maintain the motivation to finish the class, but I was able to purge a lot of the anger over the course of the class (Thank you, Yoga Lab!)

I went home and putzed around, desperately hoping that my body would allow me to actually lay down and get some sleep.  I went to bed and closed my eyes, desperate to put this day behind me.  I tossed and turned for hours and finally fell into a fitful sleep around 2 in the morning.

I woke up a few hours later when the alarm went off, feeling like I'd swallowed a cup of sand.  My eyes were gritty and blood-shot, my tongue was swollen,  and my lips were stuck to my teeth.  The bed was soaked with sweat.  I looked in the mirror and my lips were literally glued to my teeth in a grimace.

I didn't remember any nightmares, but they must have been intense.

My body ached from head to toe.  I let my boss know that I was going to be working from home today and explained that I was a bit worn out from being triggered yesterday.

His response?  "No sweat, take the time you need".

I've never been so grateful to be working for Netizen as I was this morning.

I'm feeling a bit more like myself, but it's going to take a few days to come down fully off of this.  I hope I recover sooner, rather than later, though.  Startup Weekend is this upcoming weekend and I'm one of the organizers.

As always, the timing couldn't be better...