July 4th is coming. It's like a monster approaching my house, a giant Godzilla - only not as rubbery and fun.
When I was a child, the 4th was an important day. Family and friends gathered in the neighborhood. We ate blackened hot dogs and drank ice-chilled generic sodas from the old metal Coleman cooler. At the end of the usually-sweltering Kansas day, we watched an impressive display of shimmering fireworks while fireflies blinked and mosquitoes did what mosquitoes do, all in celebration of this great nation we call home. It’s a cherished memory from my childhood.
Now, the celebratory whistles and explosions are twisted into small arms fire and mortars. I’ve spent two Fourth of July's with Chris and it has been a sad realization that the very day celebrating everything he stood and fought for has become a source of pain and fear. It’s another item on the long list of things he’s misplaced to PTSD, and by association I’ve lost as well. I say misplaced because I refuse to give up on the possibility it can all be regained in one form or another.
Chris’s reaction to the sounds surrounding the 4th is hard for others to understand, most think it’s simply being ‘jumpy’.
‘Yeah, loud noises bother me, too. I’m not going to let it ruin the day for me. Man up.’
Loud noises don’t just bother Chris. They make him fall to floor to take cover. Incoming.
We’ve got inbound.
Baghdad tower to Dog Pound, please acknowledge.
He’s there. He’s back in Iraq waiting for helicopters carrying the wounded or sending rounds down range. He’s forced back into a reality that he’s already lived and shouldn’t have to live over.
So, while America celebrates her birthday, please give thought to the men and women who are hunkered down in their homes, windows closed, pillows clutched around their ears, waiting for the party to end. Remember them and their gift of freedom to the rest of us.
Maybe this year, don’t light that illegal M-80 because old man Jacobs down the street is a Vietnam vet or because the Martin’s boy just got home from Afghanistan and he looks ‘different’ somehow.
This day should not be a day filled with dread, but for many people, many amazing and valiant people, it is. Be aware not everyone wants to hear explosions to celebrate our freedom because some listened to them while fighting for it.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
One. Two. Three.
He has all ten toes.
But he doesn’t have restful nights or anxiety free days.
He has his arms and his sight. He is talented, and loving. Kind. He can walk, he can run, and though he doesn’t have total use of both his hands, he can paint and write.
But he has horrible nightmares, flashbacks, guilt, anger.
He has his voice, he has his memories, good and bad.
But he has lost so much.
He has many things. Much more than what he’s lost. He is alive. Focus. Focus on what he has, not on what he has not.
This is important. Focus on what you and your loved one have. Focus on what can be gained. We’ve been to counseling a few times and I’ve watched Chris and his counselor talk like old buddies. They spoke of places and things both experienced. Spoke of loss. But they also each spoke of what they still had, what they had gained. It was a good lesson, a good experience.
Why?
Because he still has all ten toes.
Breathe. Focus. Count to ten, and move forward.
But he doesn’t have restful nights or anxiety free days.
He has his arms and his sight. He is talented, and loving. Kind. He can walk, he can run, and though he doesn’t have total use of both his hands, he can paint and write.
But he has horrible nightmares, flashbacks, guilt, anger.
He has his voice, he has his memories, good and bad.
But he has lost so much.
He has many things. Much more than what he’s lost. He is alive. Focus. Focus on what he has, not on what he has not.
This is important. Focus on what you and your loved one have. Focus on what can be gained. We’ve been to counseling a few times and I’ve watched Chris and his counselor talk like old buddies. They spoke of places and things both experienced. Spoke of loss. But they also each spoke of what they still had, what they had gained. It was a good lesson, a good experience.
Why?
Because he still has all ten toes.
Breathe. Focus. Count to ten, and move forward.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Child Support and Liability
This is the advice I wish I'd gotten years ago. It would have saved my husband and I a great deal of heartache. Not everything when dealing with a loved who’s suffering from the aftermath of war is physical in nature. Some are legal matters. With the amount of divorces happening for our service people suffering from PTSD, many of us are bound to come up with some issues relating to child support.
When a person is rated 100% disabled, they must go back to court to have the child support order reflect this. Simply giving the children's names and social security numbers when filing out paperwork does not mean child support is ‘covered’ in the eyes of the court. Over the years child support will accrue even if the disability payments going to the minor children exceed the ordered support.
Get in touch with the courts to have the payments applied as support. This will necessitate a new hearing and a small amount of paperwork. Have all the information, including your rating paperwork and the amount the children are receiving from Social Security and/or VA.
Do not be embarrassed or scared even if it's been too long. Get on the phone or have a trusted someone call. This isn’t something that will just go away if hidden. Plus, let’s face it, knowing everything is squared away will relieve an amazing amount of stress, and the less stress the better.
When a person is rated 100% disabled, they must go back to court to have the child support order reflect this. Simply giving the children's names and social security numbers when filing out paperwork does not mean child support is ‘covered’ in the eyes of the court. Over the years child support will accrue even if the disability payments going to the minor children exceed the ordered support.
Get in touch with the courts to have the payments applied as support. This will necessitate a new hearing and a small amount of paperwork. Have all the information, including your rating paperwork and the amount the children are receiving from Social Security and/or VA.
Do not be embarrassed or scared even if it's been too long. Get on the phone or have a trusted someone call. This isn’t something that will just go away if hidden. Plus, let’s face it, knowing everything is squared away will relieve an amazing amount of stress, and the less stress the better.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Beginning of an End
“It would have been better if I’d have died over there.”
He says it often, usually late at night after a bad day. Though it pains me to even consider it, would it?
I tried to imagine but only came up with the fact that had Chris not made it home, I’d have never met him. For me, that would not have been better, regardless of the bad times.
But what about him? I am only an observer to his nightmare. I’m not stolen away by my own mind and plunged back into the very thing that created so many traumatic memories. I only hold him when he’s barking orders and screaming "Incoming!" Is death easier than years of fighting the war again and again?
My husband began seeing a counselor this week. He will not take this journey alone, and I won’t abandon him when he needs me, so I attended. The first meeting was an orientation to the facility and what it offers. In an over air-conditioned room, we sat across from two Vietnam vets. I watched faces, saw the young men behind the aged eyes. The boys who’d been there and carried back with them the same burden our newest veterans are carrying. Now old grey men, still suffering after all these years.
Would it have been easier for them had they died there? For their estranged children and long gone wives? After death, grief for the family begins. It’s different for so many of us, but it’s a beginning of an end. Estranged children may simply be children who remember a loving father vaguely, the pain a dull ache now. Memorial Day could be a day for loved ones to lay flowers and remember a man who was a hero, not a self-medicating hermit who was angry a lot, paced the house in the middle of the night, and separated himself from the family until everyone he’d ever loved had walked away.
Chris has struggled for the past six years to find the beginning of an end. Not in death, but in re-finding life. False starts, misplaced hope, pills, tests, blah, blah, blah. It’s a barrage of dead-ends, and it’s draining.
When we sat around that conference table, the one Vietnam veteran directly across from me, we listened as he talked about all these years. Chris’ jaw tightened and I watched him shut down. I could see his thoughts across his face.
I’m not doing this for 40 years. I can’t do this for 40 years.
The thought was staggering. Forty years of flashbacks, nightmares, no sleep, paranoia, hyper-vigilance. No peace. And I wandered back to those words he spoke in the middle of the night some weeks ago.
“It would have been better if I’d have died over there.”
And I wondered. For him, would it have been? Doesn’t that depend on what’s in store? Do we become blind to the good when there is so much bad?
Though I feel guilty for my thoughts, I’m hopeful June 10th, will become Chris’ new birthday and he will never again say death is better than life.
The beginning of the end.
The end of flashbacks, the end of nightmares. The end of him dreading bedtime, dreading leaving the house, dreading the mail, dreading the VA.
An end to the fate of dreading life, as an old vet feels sitting across from the newly wounded and still searching for relief from the burden of a long ago war.
May we all find our beginning so that our end is in sight.
He says it often, usually late at night after a bad day. Though it pains me to even consider it, would it?
I tried to imagine but only came up with the fact that had Chris not made it home, I’d have never met him. For me, that would not have been better, regardless of the bad times.
But what about him? I am only an observer to his nightmare. I’m not stolen away by my own mind and plunged back into the very thing that created so many traumatic memories. I only hold him when he’s barking orders and screaming "Incoming!" Is death easier than years of fighting the war again and again?
My husband began seeing a counselor this week. He will not take this journey alone, and I won’t abandon him when he needs me, so I attended. The first meeting was an orientation to the facility and what it offers. In an over air-conditioned room, we sat across from two Vietnam vets. I watched faces, saw the young men behind the aged eyes. The boys who’d been there and carried back with them the same burden our newest veterans are carrying. Now old grey men, still suffering after all these years.
Would it have been easier for them had they died there? For their estranged children and long gone wives? After death, grief for the family begins. It’s different for so many of us, but it’s a beginning of an end. Estranged children may simply be children who remember a loving father vaguely, the pain a dull ache now. Memorial Day could be a day for loved ones to lay flowers and remember a man who was a hero, not a self-medicating hermit who was angry a lot, paced the house in the middle of the night, and separated himself from the family until everyone he’d ever loved had walked away.
Chris has struggled for the past six years to find the beginning of an end. Not in death, but in re-finding life. False starts, misplaced hope, pills, tests, blah, blah, blah. It’s a barrage of dead-ends, and it’s draining.
When we sat around that conference table, the one Vietnam veteran directly across from me, we listened as he talked about all these years. Chris’ jaw tightened and I watched him shut down. I could see his thoughts across his face.
I’m not doing this for 40 years. I can’t do this for 40 years.
The thought was staggering. Forty years of flashbacks, nightmares, no sleep, paranoia, hyper-vigilance. No peace. And I wandered back to those words he spoke in the middle of the night some weeks ago.
“It would have been better if I’d have died over there.”
And I wondered. For him, would it have been? Doesn’t that depend on what’s in store? Do we become blind to the good when there is so much bad?
Though I feel guilty for my thoughts, I’m hopeful June 10th, will become Chris’ new birthday and he will never again say death is better than life.
The beginning of the end.
The end of flashbacks, the end of nightmares. The end of him dreading bedtime, dreading leaving the house, dreading the mail, dreading the VA.
An end to the fate of dreading life, as an old vet feels sitting across from the newly wounded and still searching for relief from the burden of a long ago war.
May we all find our beginning so that our end is in sight.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Pen to Paper
Two months ago, I wrote the last chapter of a novel exploring the darkest depths of death and PTSD. I’ve written hundreds of thousand of words, three novels, and countless short stories, but that chapter was the hardest couple of pages I’ve ever written.
It is a work of fiction, but like many of the stories I’ve written, it has some basis in fact. The truth in this tale is one of the two protagonists is coping with life after Iraq. He is based on my husband, Chris.
For me, this was a cathartic journey. But for Chris it was an outlet. It was a way for him to talk to me about what had happened without feeling like he was burdening me with the knowledge. There was a purpose to the sessions. I would ask, he would answer and talk. Not only did I ask about the bad, but I asked about the good, because I knew twisted into the horrors there were also stories of camaraderie, laughter, and momentary happiness.
As I worked, I read him the scenes so he could correct any of the details. It was important to him and I both that the book read realistically to those who’ve ‘been there done that’. Eventually, however, the scenes became too much and I stopped reading it to him. Still, it left us with an open dialog about what had happened. He talks to me.
I get many emails from loved ones about how to get their wounded soldier to talk to them. I can’t give anyone a definitive answer, all I can do is pass on what worked for me and mine and let everyone know that the answer is there but it is an individual one. He or she may never confide in loved one. They may feel the burden is too much. They may worry about judgment coming if others know. Or they may need desperately to unload the thoughts in their heads and are waiting for the right opportunity.
The key is to never give up the search. Dealing with PTSD is like walking a maze. There will be some dead ends, but the way out is there. Keep looking.
It is a work of fiction, but like many of the stories I’ve written, it has some basis in fact. The truth in this tale is one of the two protagonists is coping with life after Iraq. He is based on my husband, Chris.
For me, this was a cathartic journey. But for Chris it was an outlet. It was a way for him to talk to me about what had happened without feeling like he was burdening me with the knowledge. There was a purpose to the sessions. I would ask, he would answer and talk. Not only did I ask about the bad, but I asked about the good, because I knew twisted into the horrors there were also stories of camaraderie, laughter, and momentary happiness.
As I worked, I read him the scenes so he could correct any of the details. It was important to him and I both that the book read realistically to those who’ve ‘been there done that’. Eventually, however, the scenes became too much and I stopped reading it to him. Still, it left us with an open dialog about what had happened. He talks to me.
I get many emails from loved ones about how to get their wounded soldier to talk to them. I can’t give anyone a definitive answer, all I can do is pass on what worked for me and mine and let everyone know that the answer is there but it is an individual one. He or she may never confide in loved one. They may feel the burden is too much. They may worry about judgment coming if others know. Or they may need desperately to unload the thoughts in their heads and are waiting for the right opportunity.
The key is to never give up the search. Dealing with PTSD is like walking a maze. There will be some dead ends, but the way out is there. Keep looking.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Stars, Stripes, and Handcuffs
“No ma’am, we don’t need an ambulance. My husband is an OIF vet. Yes, he called. He’s having a flashback, this is not new, we do not need an ambulance.”
She didn’t listen and soon a fire truck, ambulance, and two police cruisers were in front of our house.
The police entered first. Hands on holsters boys, there’s a combat veteran in the house having one of those things most people never witness.
Are there any weapons in the house?
“No, sir, there are not.”
I needed them to leave, all eight of them with their bags and equipment. I explained the situation; that this is not new, that I can deal with this and have many times in the past.
Leave.
But they didn’t. I took them back to the bedroom where Chris was still balled up on the bed. In his head mortars, small arms fire, screams, all played out in the cruelest joke ever played on anyone who has ever served their country.
I climbed back on the bed with him and held him, talked to him, ordered him to come home. They watched for ten or so minutes then told me they would have to take him because of his altered state.
Take him? He hasn’t done anything wrong, how can you take him out of his home when he hasn’t done anything against the law? All things I wanted to scream at them, but didn’t because I was focused on getting him out of the flashback.
They handcuffed him.
They grabbed his arms and his legs, twisted his hands up behind his back like he’d just been apprehended after a committing a crime and they handcuffed him. Face down, he struggled and screamed. Begged me to help him and all I could do was watch.
He didn’t do anything wrong. He served his country, came home and tried to fit back in but couldn’t so I protect him. I am his buffer, and I couldn’t save him.
His first moment of clarity that night happened at that moment. He looked up at me and said “what the f*ck”. He was home and terrified. I grabbed the chance and told him what had happened as quick as I could because I knew his hold on reality was tenuous.
What did I do? Did I hurt someone, what did I do? Help me.
“They’re trying to help you, baby, I promise.”
Did I hurt someone?
“No, baby, you’re just having a flashback and they’re going to take you to the hospital. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Please, help me.
I watched them put the restraints on his arms and legs after he climbed onto the gurney, a bewildered look on his face. He was searching the faces of the officers and firemen for someone he recognized. Someone he’d served with. I didn’t hear what he said, but they laughed and he laughed.
My Chris, he can always make people laugh no matter how bad the situation is. They called him Dr. Evil in the desert because he found a way to make the worst moment humorous for a brief second.
By the time I saw him again, he was under a thin blanket in the hospital. He’d been given two injections and was still confused.
I need to talk to Doc Porter. Get the Colonel.
“The Doc isn’t here, baby.”
Where are my men?
His facial expression cracked and he started naming names. I don’t know all the names, but he talks a lot in his sleep and I have heard many. My knowledge of who came home is also limited, but I told him they were okay. They made it home, they’re okay. When we got to the last name, I knew I was wrong.
His face dropped into an expression of pain I’d never seen before.
No, he didn’t make it.
Then he heard the mortars again and took cover.
I stood, paced, and sat by his side in the hospital for about six hours. The sedation kicked in eventually so five of those hours were spent holding his limp hand or stroking his hair.
I cried a lot sitting in the hospital in the wee hours of the day. It was his birthday as a matter of fact, two days before Memorial Day. I made a red velvet cake and we hung the flag that morning like nothing had happened. But it did happen.
And I was powerless to stop it.
She didn’t listen and soon a fire truck, ambulance, and two police cruisers were in front of our house.
The police entered first. Hands on holsters boys, there’s a combat veteran in the house having one of those things most people never witness.
Are there any weapons in the house?
“No, sir, there are not.”
I needed them to leave, all eight of them with their bags and equipment. I explained the situation; that this is not new, that I can deal with this and have many times in the past.
Leave.
But they didn’t. I took them back to the bedroom where Chris was still balled up on the bed. In his head mortars, small arms fire, screams, all played out in the cruelest joke ever played on anyone who has ever served their country.
I climbed back on the bed with him and held him, talked to him, ordered him to come home. They watched for ten or so minutes then told me they would have to take him because of his altered state.
Take him? He hasn’t done anything wrong, how can you take him out of his home when he hasn’t done anything against the law? All things I wanted to scream at them, but didn’t because I was focused on getting him out of the flashback.
They handcuffed him.
They grabbed his arms and his legs, twisted his hands up behind his back like he’d just been apprehended after a committing a crime and they handcuffed him. Face down, he struggled and screamed. Begged me to help him and all I could do was watch.
He didn’t do anything wrong. He served his country, came home and tried to fit back in but couldn’t so I protect him. I am his buffer, and I couldn’t save him.
His first moment of clarity that night happened at that moment. He looked up at me and said “what the f*ck”. He was home and terrified. I grabbed the chance and told him what had happened as quick as I could because I knew his hold on reality was tenuous.
What did I do? Did I hurt someone, what did I do? Help me.
“They’re trying to help you, baby, I promise.”
Did I hurt someone?
“No, baby, you’re just having a flashback and they’re going to take you to the hospital. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Please, help me.
I watched them put the restraints on his arms and legs after he climbed onto the gurney, a bewildered look on his face. He was searching the faces of the officers and firemen for someone he recognized. Someone he’d served with. I didn’t hear what he said, but they laughed and he laughed.
My Chris, he can always make people laugh no matter how bad the situation is. They called him Dr. Evil in the desert because he found a way to make the worst moment humorous for a brief second.
By the time I saw him again, he was under a thin blanket in the hospital. He’d been given two injections and was still confused.
I need to talk to Doc Porter. Get the Colonel.
“The Doc isn’t here, baby.”
Where are my men?
His facial expression cracked and he started naming names. I don’t know all the names, but he talks a lot in his sleep and I have heard many. My knowledge of who came home is also limited, but I told him they were okay. They made it home, they’re okay. When we got to the last name, I knew I was wrong.
His face dropped into an expression of pain I’d never seen before.
No, he didn’t make it.
Then he heard the mortars again and took cover.
I stood, paced, and sat by his side in the hospital for about six hours. The sedation kicked in eventually so five of those hours were spent holding his limp hand or stroking his hair.
I cried a lot sitting in the hospital in the wee hours of the day. It was his birthday as a matter of fact, two days before Memorial Day. I made a red velvet cake and we hung the flag that morning like nothing had happened. But it did happen.
And I was powerless to stop it.
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