'Tis the season, or at least 'a' season where things can get awfully convoluted in some of our heads so... "bump".
I know I can't fix the myriad of issues for everyone, but if I can help just one person during this season, then that's all I'm after. I don't know how else to achieve it other than continuing to put the word out on the resources available so that's what I'll keep doing. I've posted other resources before and shared that I've personally found myself in a place not too long ago to use them myself in the past so please don't take my encouragement as an empty token I'm sharing.
I've said this before but if you find yourself in a situation where you may be able to take advantage of those resources but think I'm full of crap- well then my challenge is to you is to prove me wrong.
I feel very strongly about this particular topic. So much so that I'm willing to put my own experience out there if that will encourage someone to at least try it. I spent just bit shy of 15 months deployed to Iraq in the early 2000's in a combat arms field. We lost some very good people during that time and, I know I don't have the appropriate words but it was tough to deal with that at the time and afterwards.
What really started throwing me through loops though is that once we came home, folks started deciding to.. for a lack of better terms, 'self-exit' from this world. It got to the point where I started knowing more people that went that route (these were people that made it home, had families, had their whole lives ahead of them) than what we lost during my deployment.
I got to the point where I had established my own ritual of sorts to deal with the notification of another battle buddy lost. I'm sure I'm not alone and that it's different for everybody but for me- my ritual encompassed buying at least 2 packs of unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes (had to be those) and a case or two of beer and just work through it internally consuming both products and not talking to anyone about it.
Eventually I got hit with several iterations of this which were too close to home. One of which was a fella that I worked with every single day. He was a Marine and an aspiring comic. We became fast friends and I started going to all of his shows to support him, we worked together to aspire to our career goals, I knew his estranged wife, I knew his kids. And then one morning he didn't show up to work and well- I'm sure you can piece together what happened. What really tore me up with that one, was this was the one guy I spent so much personal time with and I've gone through this so many times before that I couldn't help but blame myself that I, of all people, should have seen it coming... but I didn't. I was completely blindsided.
It was snowing that week and our department was all called into a conference room to hear the news. When what happened was stated- I took offense and told the executive that that wasn't funny at all and tell us why we were really there (I was frankly sensitive on the topic and pissed off that they'd even joke about it) and then the grief counselors came in. I'd been down that road so many times and for whatever reason- that just broke something inside of me and I was sent home from work on admin leave.
Like I said it was snowing but I remember coming home, bought a carton of Lucky Strike unfiltered, 2 or 3 cases of beer, and just started shoveling. I shoveled for hours upon hours not wanting to think, I just was done with this event playing over & over in my life.
Moving forward from that- I kept smoking/power puffing cigarettes (I was one week shy of a year of being cigarette free at that point) and I just kept buying cases of beer and was downing them like a frat boy. My (now) wife was freaking out that I seemed to be off the rails and I didn't care. I was tired of this 'movie' playing over and over with my friends and I figured that I was better off not feeling anything anymore. After all- they were adults, that was their choice, and that wasn't going to be me so I mid as well give up caring about it and just go on with life and focus on my career.
And then it happened again. What was different (for me at least) that time was this was the first time a friend of mine was impacted by it and of all people, it was his wife that called me to come over because of how upset they were and that they completely shut down. I started recognizing the similarities in how I was behaving by this point and went over to help my buddy through it. That night I learned that I was being a hypocrite myself and didn't know what to do about it.
So long story short- I was completely lost and was starting to realize that much- so I defaulted to my MO and started drinking. I don't know what it was but during that particular night, I was just angry. Angry at myself for enlisting, angry at our dumbass leaders that ordered people to drive down a road to see if there were IED's, angry at all of the people that 'self-exited' and the avalanche of pain that they left their family & friends with, and angry again with myself that I was allowing this to carry the weight it did in my life.
While looking for answers, I came across a Reddit page on how folks interact with the VA and I saw threads upon threads of people talking about how they successfully got disability ratings for... let's just say things I was appalled at. I'm talking about cooks who never even saw the wire but heard mortars in the distance, women who claimed sexual trauma (there's a separate Reddit page on what to say for that as the VA has a separate rating just for that category). And when these folks were successful getting disability for their submissions, everyone else celebrated with $$$ type of responses. And frankly that just made me even angrier.
Whether I was/am right or wrong, I took offense to these characters getting high disability rankings and never having left the wire while I was constantly having friend after friend or other acquaintances continuing to 'self-exit' and getting nothing in terms of support. So I wasn't in a great mindset by this point but I came across a link (which I've shared) for veterans struggling.
Well I must have drank just enough and was angry just enough that I said the heck with it & why not, and I reached out to that link. I remember when I hit the URL there was just a few questions presented- mainly what name do you want to be referred to (in hindsight, I could have likely entered something like 'Jolly Green Giant' and that's how they would have talked to me) & what did I want to talk about.
Honest to god- I still remember the other person's name I talked to, but Nancy showed up on the chat and essentially asked me what's up. I pretty much dumped everything I was feeling in the chat (essentially like what I'm doing here) and say how angry I was with everything and that I felt like folks were absolutely 'gaming' the system while the folks that really needed the help were cast away and left to their own demons.
Well Nancy started sharing her experiences which aligned with mine and truth be told, that caught me off guard for a few reasons but it defiantly had me off balance. Next thing I know we were swapping 'old' war stories and I left that conversation with some resources (which again I've shared) and a few pointers on what worked for her.
Well lo and behold- I started getting some help after that conversation.
I know this is longwinded as all can be but my point is- this is typically a very tough time for some of our Vet's and if this post resonates with you- please at least give one of them a try.
If you don't like the outcome/what they have to say, then let me know and I'll see what I can do.
-LD
www.veteranscrisisline.net
