I worte an essay about what it is like to live with PTSD. A lot of us hear things through the grapevine but I thought that it would be good to share what it is really like from a first hand perspective.
The war is done for me now. The days of standing in the hot desert sun, setting up ambushes on the sides of mountains and washing the blood from my friend’s gear are over. The battles with bombs, bullets, and blood are a thing of the past. I still constantly fight a battle that rages inside my head.
October 17, 2003 was a normal day in Iraq. I had just returned to the country from two weeks of leave back in The United States. I was set to leave Mosul airbase late in the morning, but our supply sergeant was too lazy to bring us our gear. I had to grab the flak vest and helmet of a soldier going on leave and hitch a ride on a convoy back to my base in Tal Afar. The flak vest and helmet were a little small, and I had no weapon, but I had to be back in Tal Afar so that I wasn’t counted as AWOL. I was uncomfortable with the situation, especially since I found out that I would be riding back to base in a bus.
As we passed the gates of Mosul I heard a loud bang, felt a blast of heat and immense pain on the right side of my head. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, kind of felt like the feeling you get in your hands when you hit a baseball without batting gloves. Smoke quickly filled up the bus and we heard a second explosion. There was a man lying in the middle of the bus with half of his calf torn off. I told everyone that I was fine and I just must have hit my head on the window when the blast hit us. I was bleeding from a cut over my right eye, but I felt all right other than that.
My friend and mentor Bobby kept telling me to be still. I kept telling him that I was fine and I just wanted a weapon. Bullets were coming at us and I wanted to be able to shoot back. When the smoke cleared and the rifles were silent I just wanted to sit down and have a cigarette. The medevac helicopters were on their way, I was sure that I would not be getting on it for a small cut over my eye. As Bobby bandaged my head he found something that still bothers him to this day. A piece of metal about 4 inches across was sticking out from the back of my head. Bobby forced me on the helicopter and I was sent to Baghdad for surgery.
After a stint in Landstchul, I was sent to Walter Reed. The care I got for my head injury was great. The care that I was getting for my psychological problems was non-existent. I was treated as just another soldier with a head injury. Not as a soldier who was slipping into the abyss of PTSD.
The first few years after my injury were rough. I hid inside a bottle and self medicated. I drank at least a fifth of whiskey a night, and whatever other booze I could get my hands on. I mixed alcohol with pills, pills, pills and more pills. I was so medicated that I could even remember being hurt anymore. I still have the temptation to crawl back to the whiskey and I fight it every day.
I was not sleeping even after all the booze. If I did sleep I would have horrible nightmares that lasted for hours. The doctors put me on sleeping pills, which made the nightmares worse and I couldn’t wake up in the middle of the nightmares. So I would lash around the bed, punching kicking and screaming. To this day I still have problems sleeping. I sleep an hour here and an hour there, but rarely for a full night and rarely without bad dreams.
I lost contact with all my friends. They were fine and I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be reminded of how bad I was. I also couldn’t trust anybody. I was always waiting for someone to fuck me over. I don’t have any close friends and have lost contact with my parents after they tried to take what little visitation time I had with my daughter away. My daughter was the only thing that kept me sane; I never drank around her and was able to sleep if she was around. I never thought about hurting anyone or not wanting to wake up when she was around. To this day my parents are still trying to keep me from seeing her.
My wife and I met in Iraq. I didn’t like her at first and it wasn’t until we got to the states that we got together. She was in the Army and saw some pretty fucked up stuff too. She found solace by writing about it in her book “Love My Rifle More Than You”. Although this helped her a little, it didn’t help her that much either. She has PTSD as well, but refuses to seek treatment. PTSD affects your ability to trust and to show emotion. My problems with trust and my flattened affect have caused our marriage to crumble.
My brain injury doesn’t help much either. I am very easily distracted and have a hard time focusing on things.
My memory is pretty good, but it still isn’t what it used to be. I find it hard to get things done sometimes. Easy things, hard things, any things. I know they need to get done and I try, but I just can’t make them happen. Concentration is tough, sometimes I concentrate so hard on concentrating that I can’t get tasks accomplished.
I am hyper-vigilant. I am always on the lookout. I need to know where the exits are; I need to be in a corner so that I can see what everyone is doing. I need to watch everyone a little closer than the average person so they don’t get the jump on me. This tends to make it hard to listen to what anyone is saying. Thoughts always run through my mind.
Every day I have to drag myself out of bed. I have to make myself try to live. I go through the motions of a normal life, but I don’t enjoy any of it. I’m not suicidal but I often feel as if I am wasting my time as well as everyone else’s. It would just be much easier if I could sleep for days and stay in bed.
So while my days in the Army uniform are over the effects of war will never be gone. I see psychologists and counselors, but PTSD never goes away. I have to try to take it one day at a time and not have meltdowns. This past week I have been recovering from a meltdown and hope to be more functional in the future. Baby steps, that’s what I tell myself.