Off the main trail for a second.....

Today’s post was going to be about PTSD from the point of view of the spouse/family, but I was asked to do something different, so I will do that one tomorrow. Today I am going to talk about a subject that hits close to home, especially for me. Suicide. Unfortunately, that is a very real threat that we, as PTSD victims, have to contend with, sometimes on a daily basis. There are a million and one reasons why someone would want to commit suicide, and at those times, things do seem quite bleak, but let me tell you, for those million and one reasons for, there are a million and two reasons against. A little personal story for you. I have this close friend named Jeff. While in Iraq we were pretty much inseparable, well, since I showed up to Ft. Campbell on April 28, 2002. He came and introduced himself to me while I was still in the inprocessing company. Apparently they knew they were getting a new Commo Dog so they he wanted to come check me out. From then on we were tight. But especially so while in Iraq. We used to talk about coming home and all the cool things we’d do. He was into street racing and such and lived down in the Orlando area, so I was gonna go visit him. He got out of the army about a year before I did but we still kept in constant contact. Finally, it came time for me to either re-up or get out, and I chose getting out. (Dummy) We talked a lot, me, Jeff and another of our friends Mike. On July 4^th, 2006, Jeff called to give me some news. He hadn’t served all of his time, so as the Army will sometimes do, he was recalled. He didn’t wanna go. I told him tough cookies, they call, you go, unless he wanted to move to france, in which case, let me pack a suitcase. Then he dropped the second bomb on me. He was already supposed to have reported but he didn’t. He was awol. Not good I told him. We had planned on going out to Orlando, me and Mike, on the 4^th but plans got changed and we couldn’t. I told him to give me a day or two and I would fly out there, and we’d take care of this together, like we always did when one of us got ourselves in a jam. He said cool, he needed all the help he could get. We hung up and I started getting things ready to go. He called back that night telling me thanks for helping him, he really needed a friends right now and he knew he could always count on me. I said ALWAYS BRO! July 5^th, 2006 I got a call from Jeff’s roommate, telling me that Jeff left the 4^th of July party early, went to their apartment, typed up a not, then put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It was a joke, it had to be. It wasn’t. He called to tell me by that last time. There is a hole in the middle of my chest still and I hate the 4^th of July now. It will always be that way until the day I die. It still feels like a joke and I still wait for him to call me and laugh about it, but it will never happen. This is what you leave behind when you take your life. This is the pain you leave when you decide that you can’t go on. It turned out that Jeff could have gotten out of going but he never tried. He never asked for help, no one knew. This is the pain that will never die. If you are contemplating suicide, think of the hole you are going to leave in someones chest. The feeling of not being able to breath.  Over and over. Coming across a picture and feeling it all over again. He was a jerk, a scared jerk and I hate him for it. I love him always, but I hate him. Think about your families. And families, keep your eyes open. Jump at shadows. Be ever vigilant. ALWAYS.  Sometimes we are bullheaded. We think we know everything and we don’t wanna listen to reason sometimes. We’ve commanded troops before, so we’ve got this. Then before you know it, things have spiraled out of control and it’s beyond our scope of reason. Yes, we know this is happening, and we usually can see the pattern, but we think that this time, THIS TIME, I’ll do better, I’ll control it. Some of us yell, some of us hit, some of us cheat, most of us ignore. We leave you with calling for appointments, worrying about family matters, bills, the car needing tires, the baby needing changing. But all we want is to be better, to be normal, to be like we used to be. I used to want to go back to the combat zone. At least there I was at peace. There everything was cut and dry. There I wasn’t damaged goods. But for those of us that are like me, try to take a second and thank your spouses, thank your loved ones, because THEY are going to be the ones who will try to talk you down when you can no longer deal with it. They will go frantic looking for you because you can’t remember your way home. They will be there as long as it takes. I don’t envy the job that you spouses have. I don’t know if I can do it. I only hope that my wife knows how much she is appreciated, even when I don’t say or show it. Because of her, I still live.