Here's what it looks like to live daily with PTSD

I've been holding back because I don't want to alarm anybody... but it's time now for my story to be told

Note: this post gets pretty heavy. If at any time you feel yourself reacting badly, please take a minute and consider if you’re okay to continue reading, or if you need to reach out to a trusted friend or counselor for help. In the US, the national crisis hotline is 988.

I feel like I’m coming apart.

Every wall is coming down. Every door and window is being opened. Every secret is coming to light.

I’m ready for this storm. It’s the reason I moved to Lubbock to begin with.

This pain needs to come out of me for good.

But it probably never will.

I’m almost fifty years old, and in all those years, I’ve had maybe five good ones… maybe.

Most of life, I’ve wanted to die. I have fantasized about my death, about taking my own life, about dying in some tragic, noble attempt to save someone I love, about jumping off a high cliff, stepping in front of a bus, taking pills, cutting my wrists, going to sleep and just… not waking up.

I hate this world. I hate the life I’ve been given. I hate what all has been done to me. I hate the way I’ve let it all define me. I hate the mess I keep making of my life, every day. I pray for God to call me home. I anxiously look forward to the day I can die… and finally… finally be done with it all…

And yet, I refuse to let the darkness take me.

Even though I’m pretty certain my future will always and only be a repeat of my dark and lonely past… I refuse to ever give up hope completely.

I’m so angry, so tired, so afraid of always being alone. I’m convinced that everyone will abandon me, and when they do, it’ll be because I pushed them away.

I’m afraid I’ll never be comfortable with another person ever again.

All I do is hurt people and let people hurt me, and then ignore all the hurt, and hide behind Netflix and video games and computer screens and fake love and locked doors and complete isolation and hopeless romance and music loud enough to drown out all my suicidal thoughts so that I can maybe get one or two hours of sleep just to wake up and have everything right there, where I’ve been leaving it this whole time, right in front of my face, waiting for me to confront it.

And I can’t confront it. I won’t. It hurts too much. It feels too heavy. It makes me too depressed.

I try so hard every day to convince everybody that I’m winning, but every day, I wake up and I’m mad that I’m still alive. It’s not fair that I have to live with this illness when so many other people have already fallen victim to it. Why do they get to die and not me? When is it going to be my turn, my time to lay this battle down, and rest in Valhalla?

(Yes, I know one doesn’t actually “rest” in Valhalla… even so… I’d rather be there most days, than here in mortality.)

I want to feel close to the people I care about.

I want to feel like other people think about me on a regular basis, and miss me when I’m not around, and hope I’m finding things to do on my own to keep myself happy, and healthy, and engaged in some meaningful cause.

I hope they don’t think like I do: that I would be better, and they would be better, if I didn’t exist.

I already believe that about myself. I couldn’t stand to think the people I love believe that about me, too. I don’t think they do. I want to believe they see my worth… my value… my potential… but when I don’t believe I’m redeemable, it’s difficult to allow for the possibility that other people do.

I feel like I don’t deserve to have anything good in my own life. I turned my back on everything I believe in, everything I ever stood for, everything that ever brought my life meaning, or direction, or purpose… and I don’t deserve to ever have those things back.

I’m not willing to fight for the life I truly want… so why should I be entitled to anything more than what I’ve learned to live with?

I’ve kept this all to myself for so long, locked away in my head and my heart, until it’s become my reality — even though I know it’s not the truth.

I know I’m every bit as deserving as anybody else. I could maybe make the argument that I’m more deserving than some, because I have such a gigantic heart, and I’m so willing, today, to put myself in harm’s way if it will help somebody else…

But I believe I’m not worth saving. And that belief feels impossible to change. I’ve tried… Lord, how I’ve tried…

I can’t tell another living soul how deeply I’m hurting. I’m afraid if I do, the darkness will spill over, and I’ll contaminate them, and they’ll stop believing that this is a good world. And I don’t want to be the person who pops that bubble. I want to protect the people around me from finding out what evil lurks beneath the surface… not be the one who introduces it to them…

I want to blame all of this on the Navy. On me being such a gentle soul that deploying in wartime just devastated me. But I felt this way long before I joined the Navy.

I will allow though, that PTSD makes all of this worse. But I would be lying if I said the Navy brought it all on in the first place.

I don’t know how I’ve survived to forty-eight. Hell, I can remember thinking I was going to die before I turned eighteen… so, yeah… I’ve been carrying this all around for some time now…

Still, I wish I could blame it all on the Navy. It’s easier when you have an enemy, when you have somebody else you can claim is responsible for all of your pain and your hardship. And they are responsible for some of it, but then again… I’m the only one today who can do anything about it…

No Navy doctor is gonna come knocking on my door and say, “Hey, we know you really suffered on deployment and no one was there to help you… but we’re here now and we’d like to make everything better.”

(I would love it if they did, though! I could finally be like, “See Mom? All those years you said, ‘No one’s just gonna show up on the front door..’ and they finally did!” But I know in this once instance, Mom is right. lols.)

For a few years though, I had it really good.

I had so many friends… girlfriends… family who I loved and who loved me… a real sense of purpose, and belonging, and dare I say hope for my own future…

And somewhere around seventeen, it all got taken away, and ever since then, the pain has just grown until it’s become unbearable…

until the only thing I can do is to just try to move faster than my memories…

to keep everything at bay…

and everyone at arm’s distance…

and make damn sure that nothing can ever get through to me…

because I don’t know how to handle awkward, or difficult, or uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or situations…

and I don’t trust myself to confront my own past alone.

So I hide. And I lie about how bad things are. And I try to cover it up. And I keep it all secret. Even from myself. Because I’m not prepared to handle it all — and I don’t truly want it to destroy me.

Look… I don’t WANT to die… I just… don’t know, anymore, how to live.

This started around seventeen… and I think I joined the Navy (at twenty-one) to try and get away from it all. I couldn’t get away from it any other way. I’d tried, and nothing helped.

I didn’t know how to fix what was wrong with me, and I didn’t believe that anybody else could help me, so I did the only thing I knew how to do: I ran. I joined the Navy as much to escape a bad home life, as I did to serve my country or bring my family honor or protect the freedoms that I love.

Actually it probably had more to do with just wanting to run away, than actually wanting to do anything brave or noble, or remotely good for my own self, let alone my family, God, and country.

I didn’t deal with anything while I was on active duty. Military life kind of teaches you not to deal with emotions, though. They only get in the way of the mission, so we’re all taught (but never explicitly told, mind you) to stuff everything so deep it can never come out to haunt you. I get it; in battle, you have to shut your emotions off in order to survive.

But for goodness sake, y’all, we’re not in battle 24/7 for the duration of our enlistment!

There needs to be somewhere that active duty servicemembers can go and let their feelings out… and learn to let them go… and get help so that they can self-regulate… so that our future fighting forces don’t have to be treated like emotionless machines…

Somebody needs to make it okay for our fighting men and women to speak up when they’re feeling afraid, or angry, or confused, or desperate! But that’s for another post.

When I left the Navy, I was in worse shape than when I had joined. I didn’t know how to deal with anything; the only thing I knew was that, if these thoughts and feelings ever caught up with me…

I don’t even want to say it. I just knew I had to keep putting space between me and all the things that were coming to bring me down. I didn’t know — I still don’t know — how to fix the things I’m responsible for. And I don’t know how to stop feeling responsible for the things that I had nothing to do with… the things that were never my fault… that were never even about me, in the first place.

I don’t know how to talk about any of it without being afraid of what it will make me do, or what it will make other people think.

I don’t want to deal with any of it.

I don’t want people to know how deeply wounded I have become.

I want the easy way out.

My whole life I have wanted the easy way out.

I have sailed into danger (and it scared the piss out of me.)

I have run from danger.

I have hidden myself away from the world.

I have avoided conflict… denied responsibility… refused accountability.

I have gone to therapy and refused to get real or go deep.

I have left puddles of tears on the floor when I decided to get real and go deep.

I have said no to invitations to simply go be around other people, and maybe have a good time.

I have forced myself to travel halfway across the country, to spend four days with 300 other people who all couldn’t wait to meet me and shake my hand.

I have believed God no longer exists — or, if He did, He wouldn’t want somebody like me on His side, anyway.

I have given my life to God and done what I believe He’s wanted me to do.

I have told other people I would do the things they suggest that I do, all the while knowing I was going to completely ignore their advice, but it felt easier to go along with them in the moment than to tell them I’ve already tried it all, and none of it works.

I have told myself I’m never going to do what she suggested… and then turned around and done it, only to find out it really does work, when you’re ready for it.

Every day, I try to push back against the pain. I try to lift up the few people I do still have in my life. I make time for friends and I tell people I love them and I’m grateful that they’re a part of my life.

And still, every day, I want my life to end. I want the pain to go away. I want to avoid having to talk about it, having to be responsible for it, having to know how to go on living when all the things I was living for are gone, and I’ll most likely never have them in my life again.

I want to be forgiven for all the wrong I’ve ever done. I want to stop holding grudges. Stop being mad at everybody who’s ever hurt me, and everybody who has good things in their life that I don’t have, and who’s found some semblance of meaning, or purpose, or direction in their own life.

I don’t want to be jealous of everybody all the time.

I don’t want to have to go to bed with headphones on, listening to hip hop or heavy metal, because I can’t stand the idea of being alone, in silence, with only my own thoughts and feelings to remind me of how horrible I’ve become, and I need something to drown out all the noise that wants to come out of my broken heart and my anxiety-riddled mind.

I don’t want to go on like this.

I don’t know how to be any other way.

I’m afraid to step out my own front door, because I don’t know when I’ll ever end up in a situation where I have a meltdown in public — and I’m so afraid of how people will respond in public.

I have built a lifestyle — on purpose — that ensures that I never have to leave my apartment… and sometimes, I don’t leave for weeks. If it’s too cold to go for a walk, or if I’m too depressed to deal with being outdoors… I don’t even open a window and look outside. I hole up in my home office, where I’m in control, where I know I’m safe, and where nothing unexpected can come in and hurt me.

Sometimes, I spend days glued to a computer screen.

Sometimes, I wake up just to go back to bed.

Sometimes, I move from my bed to my couch, and then go back to sleep.

Sometimes, I sleep on the floor, because that’s all the privilege, and comfort, I deserve.

I don’t know how things got so out of control.

Also, I don’t know, most of the time, how I’m still alive. I really don’t want to be.

I know there are good things in this world — and good people.

I’ve had fun, and positive, experiences.

I’ve traveled.

I’ve met people.

I’ve made memories.

I’ve enjoyed some moments and made the best of some circumstances.

I’ve fallen in love.

But if I could end it all today, and no one else would be sorry I was gone, or hurt or confused by my sudden departure, or heartbroken and never understand why and always wonder if they could’ve done something to stop me… I think I might do it.

And yet… I’m still here. I don’t know why, sometimes; I just am.

I know I can help other people, some of whom probably need to hear my story, to give them hope that they can overcome their own. But when do I get the help I need?

When do I get to connect with somebody else’s story?

When do I get to know that somebody cares about me?

When do I get to feel like I have more reasons to stay than I have to go?

I keep waiting, and I keep praying, and I keep hoping…

and I keep being too afraid to let another person in…

afraid they’re going to judge me…

afraid they’re going to leave me…

afraid they’re going to give me the answers I’m not ready to hear.

Afraid they’re going to tell me that every one of my problems can be solved… and then I’m going to have to take responsibility for cleaning up my life, and making what’s left of it really mean something… and I don’t think I know how to do that…

I don’t want to keep going on like this.

I don’t know how to change, though.

But maybe, I’m ready to try.

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