Then and Now, Purgatory

Thursday, May 14, 2009

I am so frustrated with being here today.. if there is such a thing I believe that this is what purgatory feels like. I was accused of being a malingerer and that I was using my PTSD as an excuse to get out of the Army, etc. which would make me feel worse. I was torn between knowing I needed help and the other part of me that said you are a soldier, you are strong and you can handle this yourself no need to ask for help. I would call home or I would correspond with friends back home, they would reassure me and tell me to seek help as they could tell I wasn't ok but then I would look into talking to someone and I was told ok but not M-W-F because I had firing and not T-TH because I had mandatory duties. So when? 

Was I trying to shirk my commitments? I don't think some of them understand that the Army was going to be my life, my career and its the only thing I ever wanted to do. I was in 3 years and would have made Sgt. in 3 years, I was doing great until this. I have complaints about the staff, not all of them but some. I am mostly frustrated by not being able to move forward until I am seen by an Army doc at the hospital on base and that cant happen until there is a bed available and that is pretty much an open ended equation. Some of the guys have been here waiting for 6 weeks so other than writing my Senator and Congressman there is not much else to do but wait and feel tormented. 

Should I be honest with my doctor or therapist? Part of me says yes but the other part says not to let all the crazy out because I will be deemed incurable, there will be a mark on my permanent record along with the one that haunts my every thoughts. I am just pissed off. 

They put me on seroquel and depakote but I don't feel like they are working but they said I need to give them time - sadly like everything else in the military medications are also hurry up and wait. I did some research today and they were used to treat bipolar and other manic disorders which pissed me off even more because I am not bipolar but when I asked my therapist she said that the treatment for severe PTSD and bipolar is the same except that for bipolar they don't prescribe antidepressants (they will make a true bipolar worse). Maybe I shouldn't have researched the meds at all. I want to get better, I want to believe what everyone tells me that there is a end to this nightmare and that I can make it. I just wanted to be a soldier, I just wanted to serve my country and make my folks proud. I wanted to marry the girl back home, I wanted a life. I didn't want to be sitting here in purgatory. 

-- Skip forward two years. Sunday, May 15, 2011

I am not in that place anymore. I am home, well in that place that I called home but nothing feels like home. My folks are great, my friends are fewer and fewer each day and that girl I wanted to marry well she is gone. I am still in purgatory. I am in treatment and some days I feel glimpses of hope, those glimpses I try to cling to and build off of. 

My most recent therapist suggested I started looking for different support networks online since my anxiety keeps me isolated. My isolation makes my depression worse and its just this nonstop cycle. I ran across a blog of a soldier who after seeing some of the images on his website I realized I recognized his face. Not from war but from the VA clinic, I was strangely and probably pathetically excited to see his life was good. He has two blogs and one is dedicated to his life after the military and he has an older blog that is filled with posts he made while in the military. He has had a rough time and PTSD is part of his life but what I was so excited about was that he looked like he had a full life. He was divorced but he has photo's on his new blog showing his ex-wife, he has two beautiful kids and a dog. He writes, he has been published, he rides motorcycles and he has a girlfriend. He has a full life, he looks happy. He does not look perfect and as I read back through a bunch of posts and see what he has been through I was excited so I decided to comment on one entry. Since I had recognized him I put a few words about talking to his girlfriend at the VA, I told him how inspired I felt after seeing his blogs and I congratulated him on his full life. I hit submit and the comment was sent off into the web for moderation and when I returned later in the morning I saw that it was approved. Maybe I am really broken to feel validated by a stranger simply allowing my comment to exist on his website. I called my sister and asked her about starting my own blog and she said that she was happy to get a call from me with such a positive tone in my voice. (Her and my folks are so completely supportive of me and I don't know what I would do without them in my life!) She said it was a great idea and with that I started researching how to get started with this new idea. 

My pain meds make me sleepy so there really is no such thing as a normal sleep schedule for me. I woke up and got back online, I went to this Vet's blog to see if there was a link to his email address so that I could ask him for advice. I looked at the post where my comment was approved and it was gone. I immediately felt panicked and embarrassed because in what I had written I had included some thoughts on his family, his girlfriend and his photo's but most importantly that I recognized him. He probably was put off by what I said and instead of thinking I was doing something nice I came off as some sort of creep. I immediately emailed him an apology and tried to reaffirm to him that no harm was intended and that I hoped that I did not offend him. I called my sister and told her what happened, she said it was probably some misunderstanding and that I should not take it so hard. It was after all one small comment on a strangers website on this large internet but you see when you don't have much to be happy about any small thing can hit you hard. 

I sat here quietly for awhile and looked at my old journal entries and I saw the one from two years ago and decided that I would use them as my first post on my new blog. You see I could easily use this grain of sand to add to all the negative thoughts in my head or I could stick with the small glimpse of happiness that I had in finding a fellow soldier who was similar to me in so many ways but the big difference being is that he was actually LIVING his life, and what a good life it looks to be! 

I have hope that I will leave purgatory soon.