USMarine
10-17-2008, 08:10 PM
This battle with my PTSD is killing me slowly, i am constanly working on it. i meet with a chaplian three times a week, a combat stress team once a week, an anger and stress management group twice a week; and on top of that i write and read my stories over and over and over again. the only way for me to sleep at night is to take 1,000 miligrams of pills. i woke up this morning with my fiance turned around on the bed so that her feet were at my head, and her head at my feet.
She said that it was because i kept swinging my arms around last night hitting her in the face. when things like this happen i feel depressed enough to....well, you know. i have woken up many a night and had my family or ex wife moved across the room from me in fear of what i was saying or doing. i remember one night after i got back from iraq the first time when i was in a hotel room with my parents and my now ex wife. i woke up and she was sleeping on the floor by my parents bed, because apperantly i had woken up and yelled at her sking if she was alright.
she told me that when she answered yes i grabbed onto her and rolled her body over repeatedly patting her down, and then she asked me what i was doing. she told me that i answered saying; "Because that grenade went off way to close!" i was rolling her over and patting her down looking for wounds. i used to wake up at my house in california just standing in the door way or looking out the window. if touched in my sleep i would react violently to whoever it was that had touched me.
the worst part of this PTSD is not what it does to me, but what it does to those around me that i love. there are many times where i wonder why i had to live through my three tours of combat in iraq. things would be so much easier for eveyone if i wouldn't have made it back. i honestly feel like i have died over there, three times i went.....and every damn time that i came back, i left a huge part of my mind and who i was over there. i remember the plane ride home from my first tour, when an old chief warrant officer came up to me out of nowhere and said; "Make friends with you deamons now son, because they are going to haunt you for the rest of your life." and then he just walked off, and it was as if when he passed me, he could see my soul.
I don't know what to do anymore, i am falling apart at the seams. i'm not holding on with a grip......i'm bairley hanging on by my fingernails. i'm tired of feeling like i'm in everybodies way. i'm tired of not feeling like a normal human being, i'm tired of hurting others with my problems. i don't know if the people in my life that coudn't understand my PTSD pushed me away.......i think that i pushed them away, and i think that i did that by just being the person i am because of the PTSD. I remember patrolling the streets of Fallujah for seven months in 2005 while on my third tour of combat, and i din't give a shit if i were to get hit.
i would smoke on post in the middle of the night inside of my bunker not caring if the enemy saw the cherry of my cigarette. on one occasion i was sitting there smoking in my bunker at night when i heard the familiar "SNAP!" of a bullet breaking the sound barrier. i climbed out of my bunker and looked at the sandbags that made up the top of the "window" where i would look out of, and sure enough there was the snipers bullet hole, the sand leaking out of the sandbag. i cussed at the idiot for missing and went back inside my bunker, and lit another smoke to give him a second chance that he never took.
There was a quote carved onto a wall at the school of infantry that said; "IN THE DEPTHS OF THE MIND GONE INSANE, REALITY AND PAIN ARE THE SAME." I remembered the quote all through my time in the corps, and realized what it truly meant the more insane i went, and abnormal i felt. What now yah know? how the hell much longer does one have to live with the pain and guilt that i feel? why is it that in a room full of hundreds, i am still the only one in there? i would love to hear back from anyone.
She said that it was because i kept swinging my arms around last night hitting her in the face. when things like this happen i feel depressed enough to....well, you know. i have woken up many a night and had my family or ex wife moved across the room from me in fear of what i was saying or doing. i remember one night after i got back from iraq the first time when i was in a hotel room with my parents and my now ex wife. i woke up and she was sleeping on the floor by my parents bed, because apperantly i had woken up and yelled at her sking if she was alright.
she told me that when she answered yes i grabbed onto her and rolled her body over repeatedly patting her down, and then she asked me what i was doing. she told me that i answered saying; "Because that grenade went off way to close!" i was rolling her over and patting her down looking for wounds. i used to wake up at my house in california just standing in the door way or looking out the window. if touched in my sleep i would react violently to whoever it was that had touched me.
the worst part of this PTSD is not what it does to me, but what it does to those around me that i love. there are many times where i wonder why i had to live through my three tours of combat in iraq. things would be so much easier for eveyone if i wouldn't have made it back. i honestly feel like i have died over there, three times i went.....and every damn time that i came back, i left a huge part of my mind and who i was over there. i remember the plane ride home from my first tour, when an old chief warrant officer came up to me out of nowhere and said; "Make friends with you deamons now son, because they are going to haunt you for the rest of your life." and then he just walked off, and it was as if when he passed me, he could see my soul.
I don't know what to do anymore, i am falling apart at the seams. i'm not holding on with a grip......i'm bairley hanging on by my fingernails. i'm tired of feeling like i'm in everybodies way. i'm tired of not feeling like a normal human being, i'm tired of hurting others with my problems. i don't know if the people in my life that coudn't understand my PTSD pushed me away.......i think that i pushed them away, and i think that i did that by just being the person i am because of the PTSD. I remember patrolling the streets of Fallujah for seven months in 2005 while on my third tour of combat, and i din't give a shit if i were to get hit.
i would smoke on post in the middle of the night inside of my bunker not caring if the enemy saw the cherry of my cigarette. on one occasion i was sitting there smoking in my bunker at night when i heard the familiar "SNAP!" of a bullet breaking the sound barrier. i climbed out of my bunker and looked at the sandbags that made up the top of the "window" where i would look out of, and sure enough there was the snipers bullet hole, the sand leaking out of the sandbag. i cussed at the idiot for missing and went back inside my bunker, and lit another smoke to give him a second chance that he never took.
There was a quote carved onto a wall at the school of infantry that said; "IN THE DEPTHS OF THE MIND GONE INSANE, REALITY AND PAIN ARE THE SAME." I remembered the quote all through my time in the corps, and realized what it truly meant the more insane i went, and abnormal i felt. What now yah know? how the hell much longer does one have to live with the pain and guilt that i feel? why is it that in a room full of hundreds, i am still the only one in there? i would love to hear back from anyone.