Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Sleep

When I was in Iraq I had trouble sleeping. I mean I would go two or three days without sleeping. Eventually I started dealing with it. I would be lying awake at 3 a.m with an 18 hour mission in 2 hours and I would think something along the lines of "A mortar could hit me in my sleep and I could just never wake up." The key part in that was "never wake up". At any rate after I would have that thought I'd go straight to sleep.

I'm having trouble sleeping again. Only now nothing is likely to kill me in my sleep. I can't comfort myself to sleep anymore. Even if it was a fucked up thing to use for comfort, it was something.

I feel blank, empty, and I don't have much hope. I don't know if or when I'll get better. I just keep hanging in there because.......I don't even know. I don't have a reason. I have a few things that I look forward to, even though they are silly things. The things I really want out of life right now, I'm afraid I won't get. These things are a step down from the things I wanted before. Maybe I'll have to take another step down before things get better. I'm trying to be a better person, but I am so broken. I'm trying to glue pieces back together blindly.

Sleep would be good. The nightmares that I've had lately have been so bad that I've wished I had a table to crawl under and hide the whole next day. I'm exhausted. I quit smoking and I'm too tired to really give a shit about wanting a smoke. Which is weird. I bitch about it, because its the only thing I can articulate about how I'm feeling lately. I feel trapped and lonely. I feel like I'm a burden to myself and everyone around me. I started this blog, because I never intend for anyone who knows me to read this. Its anonymous just by sheer obscurity. I just discovered I had things to say, needed to say. I ramble sometimes, and sometimes when I'm feeling dramatic, I ramble with poetry.

I tell people who are close to me how I'm feeling and that I am overwhelmed by these feelings, and the next day I have to have the same conversation again. It never changes. I'm sick of hearing myself talk about it, because I can't say it right. I can't convey the butterscotch ickiness of how I feel every day. So some days I pretend to feel better. Just so I don't start boring people with repetition. Its circular. It always starts and ends at the same place, except it doesn't really end. Cyclic. Maybe that's a better word. Today its despair. Yesterday it was frustration and anger, and God only knows what it will be that is stuck on instant replay tomorrow. Well we will see won't we.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Things I hate, fear, and avoid

I hate when people tell me to breathe. I hate when people say well just don't let it upset you. The very basis of my problems are that I have very little control over my physiological reactions to stress. Also I have chronic insomnia and what the VA charmingly refers to as "sleep disturbances". You know how cranky you feel when you didn't sleep well or get enough sleep? That is me every single day almost. When I'm home and calm and feel safe, I really want to smack people for the idiotic crap they tell me. Panic attacks don't come with an off switch.

I've never sat down with any one person, even therapist, and just listed all of the bad things that have happened to me in my life. I tried to list the things when it was just me and I was alone, and I found myself thinking "No one would believe all this shit happened". Sometimes it doesn't even seem real to me. There was way too much. It was one thing after another after another for more than five years. That's not to say nothing bad happened to me before those five years, but MOST of the trauma I experienced happened within five years.

I spend most of my time alone now. Its a lot of time to think, to remember. Its good that I can remember some of it that I forgot. My memory of some of the things that happened are spotty at best. Sometimes I worry that I will suddenly remember something even worse that happened that I completely forgot. Most of the worst of it comes in sensory memories. Smells or sounds are the most frequent. Those usually trigger panic attacks.

I really really don't like being around people. I tough it out sometimes, because I know that total isolation is really bad for a person. Sometimes when I get angry at myself I push myself and that usually ends up in panic attacks. Most of the time thought I stay at home, and I love/hate the solitude. I watch tv just to feel some connection to the outside world. I get angry at the people on tv which is usually amusing to watch I'm told. I can't relate to people on a personal level anymore very well. Sometimes people ask casual questions and I give what turn out to be completely inappropriate and horrifying answers. That is another thing that makes me angry at myself. I intensely dislike confrontation, but in many ways I handle potentially dangerous confrontation better than normal social interactions. I'd rather fight than talk to strangers. I can't go around picking fights though.

Every single day perhaps a dozen times or more I think about Iraq. I think about the rapes. I think about the assaults. I remember firefights and bombs and mortars and death and destruction. Its nerve wracking. Some days it feels like torture. Those days I can't even get out of bed. Some days it actually makes me sick. The symptoms are extensive and disruptive. I'm appealing my disability rating with the VA. I can't work right now. I literally cannot deal with people, not even myself.

I hate listening to people talk about their problems, because I can't empathize anymore with anything less than a life destroying issue. I hate listening to people talk about their day to day lives also because I don't have a day to day life. So I don't like talking and I don't like listening. It makes for great conversations. I can't just "be myself" because I am a fucking train wreck. People like to stare at train wrecks, but they don't make friends with them unless they are as equally as wrecked.

I get so scared sometimes that this is all my life will ever be. I try to focus on goals or anything positive I can think of, but thoughts are slippery fuckers and they get away from me sometimes. Lately I've tried to make some changes. (Also I really hate being told people are proud of me. My life is nothing to be proud of, all I've done is survive. Animals can do that.) When I'm around people, I have violent thoughts. I find myself hoping for a fight. I want to hurt someone, but I can't do it unless I'm given a good enough reason. Even then I refuse to escalate situations. So far I've never provoked a fight, or let a situation escalate to a fight. Its the training I think, strange that it would stick. I think it would either be the best feeling ever or it would put me over the edge and either way it would be bad.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

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Monday, April 12, 2010

A long story not so short.

Once upon a time I was a soldier. I remember this time with more clarity than any other period of my life. I remember the war. I remember things that happened in the war that never should have happened. I remember the faces of the fallen.

I remember Old Baqubah. I remember running towards a battle that was long over. I remember that while I was running to that battle the mortars were clearing the path for us...a little too close. I remember thinking that this would be what the end of the world felt like. You feel the shock wave before you hear it. Its like a rubber band around your chest tightening for a moment before shoving you back. It was always not quite powerful enough of a blast to completely knock you off of your feet. Or perhaps you've gotten better footing through a long bitter deployment. The explosive concussive blast makes a shrill trilling noise that comes after the shock wave but still before you hear the explosion. The explosion itself is almost anticlimactic, because once you hear the explosion it doesn't matter. Once you hear it, that is when you know that it didn't kill you, and you have to keep moving forward.

You can't use your night vision because the explosions are close enough that the light from them will blind you. The mortars are coming fast enough that you are never without light for more than a few seconds.

I remember these moments were the most terrifying of all of the moments I had during a long 15 month deployment. And as it turns out, when the mortars stopped, there were no enemy in Old Baqubah that night.

I remember the firefights. I remember the IED's. I remember the sound of bullets flying a little too close coming from no where. I remember the silent wounded. I remember the corpses lying dead in the street. In the night animals would come and eat from the dead. No family came to claim their dead while we were there. I remember I really never wanted to know what the inside of the human body looks like. I remember I once served tea during a firefight.

I remember all of these things through a kaleidoscope of emotions.

I remember the smell. I remember the smell of the raw sewage and garbage in the streets in Old Baqubah could almost kill you by itself. Underneath those smells, were the smells of desert sand, like burning hair and smoke. Gunfire has its own smell as well, as do most explosives. So does fear.

I remember I was part of a team that didn't want me there. I remember the bitter taste of contempt. I remember blank confusion in the face of misplaced rage. I remember being friendless and alone. I remember after the battles, in the dark, fighting dirty hands. I remember the silence. I remember choking on tears and screams when I couldn't get away, when I was cornered. I remember being raped. I remember never stopping to think about how that made me feel. I remember being afraid to go to sleep and not understanding why. I remember drugging myself to sleep because I had another mission hours away and I remember having no choice.

I remember so many things I want to forget. I remember once upon a time I was a real person. Then I was a soldier. Now I am a ghost. Because you can survive these things, but you never feel quite real again.