There is a new MST resource website in the works, but they have ten days to raise $5,000 to get federal funding. It's really really important.
If you can spare $5.00 or anything really, please go to http://www.gofundme.com/durk0
Thanks!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Hide and don't seek
I got my new disability "award" from the VA. I'm rated at a total of 80% disabled. However, I'm still unable to work due to my panic attacks. I'm still working up to being able to go see a movie with my boyfriend.
They gave me the back pay, which should have felt awesome. The reality of it, is that the VA is paying for the last two years that I couldn't function normally as an adult. It's kind of depressing. I'll be a bit more financially independent, which is good. I guess I just hoped it would have been a turning point. Maybe I thought the money would fix everything, which is silly I know. All it does is let me make tiny steps to feeling more self-sufficient, maybe more self-confident.
I have no idea what path I'm on, or where it will ultimately take me. After two years like this, I still don't know. I make these tiny steps, and the path seems to stretch farther and farther, and I can't see anything ahead of me. My footing just isn't so good right now. Especially not when all I want to do is hide from the world. I'm not here, you can't see me.
They gave me the back pay, which should have felt awesome. The reality of it, is that the VA is paying for the last two years that I couldn't function normally as an adult. It's kind of depressing. I'll be a bit more financially independent, which is good. I guess I just hoped it would have been a turning point. Maybe I thought the money would fix everything, which is silly I know. All it does is let me make tiny steps to feeling more self-sufficient, maybe more self-confident.
I have no idea what path I'm on, or where it will ultimately take me. After two years like this, I still don't know. I make these tiny steps, and the path seems to stretch farther and farther, and I can't see anything ahead of me. My footing just isn't so good right now. Especially not when all I want to do is hide from the world. I'm not here, you can't see me.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Don't I wish, it were that easy.
I will make myself safe.
For all of my misery, it does get better. It gets better so frustratingly slow that it is hard to appreciate the progress. I still wake up angry almost every morning, but I don't have as many days where it seems the whole day is one big panic attack.
The hard part is trying not be angry with myself for not being able to wave a magic freaking wand and making it all better. This is not a matter of being "weak" or any of the other incredibly stupid things ignorant people love to toss around. I have zero control over the panic attacks or flash backs, other than hiding out while I work on my therapy. It's easier to handle when you don't feel as though you are being judged.
People like to make sweeping assumptions about all sorts of things they know nothing about. Someone once said something like "Of course bad things happened to you, it was WAR." Oh, my bad. The army trains you to work as a team, and the team is trained to protect the whole team to the best of their ability. I had the same training, so it blew my mind when members of my team hurt me. I was thousands of miles away from home, the team was all I had, and I needed to be able to depend on them, and I couldn't. Believe me that kind of shit, will drive you crazy. War is hard enough, there is no "of course" about it, because nothing in your whole life can really prepare you psychologically for it except living it. When it becomes real, illusions will be shattered, fear and pain thresholds change, and you fall back on whatever you can to hold your sanity together until you either die, or go home.
You can not make sweeping generalizations about that kind of thing, and you are an idiot if you try. That is the truth as I know it, and having lived it, I would know. I also know that picking up the pieces are hard to find and put together after the war is done. It's hard to even recognize the pieces of yourself from before the war, because you aren't the same person you were before. I don't know if I will ever be close to the person I was before, because I don't remember who she was. I've got pictures of her, and I can't relate that image to who I am now.
It is hard to accept the illusion of safety once you are back home. Soldiers never take that kind of thing for granted after war. Even in your own home it is hard to feel safe. For some of us, it is hard to even PRETEND that everything is alright. Even in our dreams, when we sleep, we don't feel safe, because the dreams, the memories, the pain is still there. It really gives a hard new take on the phrase "You can't go home again". I read something somewhere that said something like "It is of the utmost importance to not have to worry about being shot in your own home." This is a simple truth, and it made me laugh. And cry.
The hard part is trying not be angry with myself for not being able to wave a magic freaking wand and making it all better. This is not a matter of being "weak" or any of the other incredibly stupid things ignorant people love to toss around. I have zero control over the panic attacks or flash backs, other than hiding out while I work on my therapy. It's easier to handle when you don't feel as though you are being judged.
People like to make sweeping assumptions about all sorts of things they know nothing about. Someone once said something like "Of course bad things happened to you, it was WAR." Oh, my bad. The army trains you to work as a team, and the team is trained to protect the whole team to the best of their ability. I had the same training, so it blew my mind when members of my team hurt me. I was thousands of miles away from home, the team was all I had, and I needed to be able to depend on them, and I couldn't. Believe me that kind of shit, will drive you crazy. War is hard enough, there is no "of course" about it, because nothing in your whole life can really prepare you psychologically for it except living it. When it becomes real, illusions will be shattered, fear and pain thresholds change, and you fall back on whatever you can to hold your sanity together until you either die, or go home.
You can not make sweeping generalizations about that kind of thing, and you are an idiot if you try. That is the truth as I know it, and having lived it, I would know. I also know that picking up the pieces are hard to find and put together after the war is done. It's hard to even recognize the pieces of yourself from before the war, because you aren't the same person you were before. I don't know if I will ever be close to the person I was before, because I don't remember who she was. I've got pictures of her, and I can't relate that image to who I am now.
It is hard to accept the illusion of safety once you are back home. Soldiers never take that kind of thing for granted after war. Even in your own home it is hard to feel safe. For some of us, it is hard to even PRETEND that everything is alright. Even in our dreams, when we sleep, we don't feel safe, because the dreams, the memories, the pain is still there. It really gives a hard new take on the phrase "You can't go home again". I read something somewhere that said something like "It is of the utmost importance to not have to worry about being shot in your own home." This is a simple truth, and it made me laugh. And cry.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Alexander
Once up a time I made a friend, in a country that was torn apart by war. We were soldiers, and very young. My friend's name was Matthew Alexander, and he was very young, not old enough to drink when I met him. He was from Nebraska. He was engaged to his high school sweet heart.
Alex always made me smile, even when I was miserable, frightened, and angry over the horrible things we saw. We saw soldiers and enemies die. We played Dungeons and Dragons in rubble in between missions, so that we could find something that felt normal. We told each other secrets, and we told jokes to make each other smile.
Alex went home for mid-tour leave and married his sweetheart. He emailed me pictures of his wedding. On May 6, 2007, Alex died. They took his body home to Nebraska, to his young widow.
I didn't know him for very long, not even a year. We both knew that we might die, I was too angry to care, but Alex just acknowledged it and tried to make me laugh. When he died, it broke something inside of me. My grief over his death is still as strong today as it was the day I watched his truck get blown to pieces with him inside. He was too far away for me to help him, and there was nothing I could have done to save him anyway.
He was a good kid, and he deserved everything that was good in life.
Alex always made me smile, even when I was miserable, frightened, and angry over the horrible things we saw. We saw soldiers and enemies die. We played Dungeons and Dragons in rubble in between missions, so that we could find something that felt normal. We told each other secrets, and we told jokes to make each other smile.
Alex went home for mid-tour leave and married his sweetheart. He emailed me pictures of his wedding. On May 6, 2007, Alex died. They took his body home to Nebraska, to his young widow.
I didn't know him for very long, not even a year. We both knew that we might die, I was too angry to care, but Alex just acknowledged it and tried to make me laugh. When he died, it broke something inside of me. My grief over his death is still as strong today as it was the day I watched his truck get blown to pieces with him inside. He was too far away for me to help him, and there was nothing I could have done to save him anyway.
He was a good kid, and he deserved everything that was good in life.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Curiously furious
The magic medication that made my nightmares stop, isn't working so great anymore. I've had some vicious mood swings, triggered in part by the VA's latest attempt to give me a nervous break-down. I filed an appeal of my initial disability award of 30% for PTSD. I've been living on around $500 a month for the last two years or so, and unable to work due to my disabilities. Specifically, my utter terror of leaving the house alone. They decided that the first year of my appeal they would bump me up to 50%, and for last year they would assign me a 70% rating. I've been alternately raging at the unfairness of it, and becoming resigned and depressed over the whole situation. Not only did I get a rating that would provide me income that I could live off of, but now I have to file a whole lot of other paperwork. Interestingly, every time I start to fill out the appropriate paperwork, I get a migraine within a few minutes.
In general, this has shot my plan of forcing myself to be optimistic all to hell and back. If my past history is any indication, my mood, sleep, and eating habits will be shot to hell for a few weeks to a few months, before I start leveling out again. Someone at some point diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder, and something that seems like paranoia which I don't fully understand. It all falls under the broad heading of PTSD anyway, and will not affect my disability rating.
Right now I really want to crawl back into bed, and pretend like today doesn't apply to me. Ironically, my Pandora just started playing "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Curious. The urge to break something has passed, and now I'm only tired.
In general, this has shot my plan of forcing myself to be optimistic all to hell and back. If my past history is any indication, my mood, sleep, and eating habits will be shot to hell for a few weeks to a few months, before I start leveling out again. Someone at some point diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder, and something that seems like paranoia which I don't fully understand. It all falls under the broad heading of PTSD anyway, and will not affect my disability rating.
Right now I really want to crawl back into bed, and pretend like today doesn't apply to me. Ironically, my Pandora just started playing "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Curious. The urge to break something has passed, and now I'm only tired.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Dream a little dream....
HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
W.B. Yeats
What do you do when all your dreams are taken away, not given freely, but stolen? I haven't been able to forget my dreams, even though now it seems likely that none of them will come true. I've locked myself away in this tower for so long, that looking out at the world is frightening. Two years now, I've been too terrified to leave home and seek out my dreams or search for new ones. I could have done anything before this, I was capable of doing almost anything. I don't even know what to hope for. When I look at class schedules I have panic attacks. What is this? I am 29 years old, and I have no debt and I have a little money saved. There is nothing hanging over my head that should stop me except for these damn anxiety disorders. I can't leave my house under my own power. I can't be around crowds of people, or even walk down the street alone. I'm so confused, and I try hard not to think about it at length, because it makes my throat close up, and my heart beat too fast, and I lose control of my breathing, it's too hot, and I want to run, but where do I go? My chest aches, and now my head is spinning, and oh God where do I go to hide? I can't let people see me like this, I can't let myself get trapped like that, it's too humiliating. When the panic finally stops I start hating myself again for my weakness. I can't get anything accomplished, because I've spent half the day hiding, so now the depression starts. I'll just go crawl back into bed with my favorite blanket, and my teddy bear, and my gun where I feel safe, and rest until I feel better. As soon as I feel better, I'll get some work done, and everything will be fine once again. I end up sleeping for four hours, and the rest of the day has slipped through my fingers. I wake up with a raging headache from so much crying and I feel sick, and angry at myself again, and I just go on feeling like that until everything goes numb. Then I don't want to go to sleep at night, afraid of the dreams, the nightmares, or maybe just wanting to punish myself for being such a failure. Such a failure. I was a combat soldier! I served tea in a firefight, I did air assault missions, and patrols for two weeks straight with no rest, and these little freaking panic attacks are going to hold me back? What a weak pathetic person I've turned into.
For two years. That is what my life has been like for two years. So what dreams am I supposed to reach for now? Where do you go from all of that? I don't even recognize myself half the time anymore. So much time has slipped through my fingers. I've painted myself into a corner, and have very little choice about where to go from here. Try, try, try again. It makes me so tired to think of the future when even the present is almost unbearable some days. The therapists say that I'm not the same person I was before, and that is normal. They say figure out what you want to do and then make a plan. Every day take little tiny baby steps and before you know it you will be running again! Yah! What the hell do they know about anything? They only deal with theoretical situations. God only knows when they will get my brain chemistry sorted out again.
This isn't even as bad as it gets, and I'm pathetically grateful for it. When it gets really bad, I don't even bother getting out of bed. I just lay there and wait, knowing that every day I survive, is one day closer to dying. How bizarre that such a thing would be so comforting.....
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