Downtime: The Double-Edged Sword of Introspection

Introspection...Ally or Enemy?  It's a question I have been asking myself a lot over the past few days.  It seems that every time I have too much time on my hands to sit and think, I get evaluate everything that's going on in my life.  I look at my home life, my work life, being a husband, being a dad.  I examine every facet of my life, ad nauseum.  In some cases, in excruciatingly fine detail.

I have to wonder how healthy this is for a person like me to do.  I seem to get less and less out of it the longer I look.  While, I know that there is a lot that makes me very happy in my life, there is also a lot that has left a very bitter taste in my mouth.  I wonder if I will ever be able to realize my full potential, and sitting on my duff recuperating from a physical health issue doesn't lend itself to feeling positive about what the future holds.

What I have begun to realize is that I  desperately need more out of my professional life - and soon.  I think about all of the things I could be doing with my time to advocate for changes in behavioral health care, to educate people about PTSD, to work to reduce the stigma associated with PTSD.  It makes me sick to my stomach that I am spending my time in customer service in a grocery store.  It's depressing and demotivating.  I am an accomplished speaker, an even better writer.  Yet, here I sit, wondering how I got myself stuck where I am.  I constantly think about hunting for work in Veteran Advocacy.  I look online all of the time.  I think about the good I could be doing and I feel trapped by the need to make a living to support my family, unable to get out from under the thumb of crap wages and a shitty economy.

Yep, that's introspection for you.  It allows me to make important realizations - realizations about things I need to change in my life.  Yet, when I am in a position where I don't get to choose when the introspection ends, I get caught in the quagmire of depression and catastrophic thinking.  I am on pain meds, so I can't drive anywhere, I can't work.  I am stuck here at home with one of two options:  sleep or think too much.

So I sit here and think.  And contemplate the edges of a sword that never get dull from overuse.

This is the danger of isolation for veterans with PTSD.  It suffocates our will, douses the flame of hope.  Too much introspection is not a good thing.  It's like painting yourself into a corner, with no one around to notice you have until the last stroke has already been painted.

Boy was that a depressing trip.  I think I need to make sure that I get to CPT group tomorrow, despite my inability to drive myself.  I need something to shake the cobwebs loose, something to turn my sight outward.  I need to focus on getting a hold on the depression as it sinks its claws ever deeper into my psyche.  I need to focus on my wife and my daughter, how much they need me to be here for them.  I'll find a way, I always do.  I think I just needed to get those poisonous thoughts out of my head.  To rattle those insidious doubts from their nesting places in my mind.

I know I can make it until tomorrow, and that's all that truly matters when the going gets rough.

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