For about 2 months now I have been seeing a psychologist to help me get past my PTSD issues that include anger, sadness, and destructive thoughts. We are peeling away the layers of armor I have put over myself to protect what is inside of me. I have monsters. I know there are things I have seen over the years that ride with me to this day, the one problem of having an eidetic memory is being able to recall events fairly accurately, even more so if there were emotions involved. I legitimately hate looking back on these events, and I truly hate sharing these moments with others because honestly, I don’t think people can understand why I hear the words “please get me something cool to drink” from an old woman who lay dying under a street lamp after she and her husband had been violently assaulted; or lifting the lifeless body of a 12-year-old boy out of the ditch he landed in when he and his brother took their parents truck and rolled it in the middle of nowhere, we airlifted him out, he didn’t make it, but I can still see that boy when I am feeling vulnerable and see my own child, the hardest thing that night was trying to lie to his parents that he was doing well on scene because I couldn’t tell them their child was in a traumatic arrest and the odds of surviving that are so low its not measured.

I carry these visions and voices with me, most of the time they are quiet and are only a quiet hum, like a bee flying by your ear, I don’t mess with them and they don’t mess with me. Other times they kick in the door on my psyche and are front and center. The last few years have seen those voices and visions being much more front and center in my life, I dream of dying patients, I dream of rage-filled moments where my righteous fury had taken over of my thoughts and I wanted to destroy something or someone, sometimes that fury was a good thing, most of the time it just got me in trouble.

Yesterday my psychologist and I talked about these rage moments and what they mean, I was told to take some time and work through what I could recognize as triggers for these times, and what I can do to redirect that energy. I thought a lot about it, and I believe I identified where some of those moments are. My son is one of the most important people in the world to me, I have watched him grow into an amazing person and I am proud of him, when something endangers him or his world view I see red, when a man made unwanted advances toward him I spent 2 weeks wanting to confront him and let him feel my righteous fury, and no one was helping me find this person’s name. Incidentally, the man who ultimately helped to get this information for me was someone that for the longest time I held great disdain toward, and looked badly of him because of what he represented to me, he showed me that he was of good character and bravery, he is welcome at my fire now, I judged him wrongly.

I have learned through my therapy that it’s ok for me to distance myself from people who make me feel negative whenever I am around them. It is ok for me to not want to interact with people who would belittle someone because of their politics, religious beliefs, or lack thereof, or whether they understand how hurtful their comments online can be. I don’t have to apologize to anyone for me standing up for myself or the people I care about. I don’t have to feel bad about trying to hold onto the things that gave me joy. It is ok for me to be me, but right now I am not sure who or what that means. What I do know is I hate being this way. I don’t really like the person I am right now. I want to go back to who I was before my descent into sadness and depression, but somedays it seems like an impossible task.

I know I am getting better, I feel better, but I know I have a long way to go. I miss the scruffy 20-year old I once was, he was a pretty cool guy, with his mohawk and his brown duster, he was a pretty sweet guy. I miss the 21-year-old who used to pursue life without a care in the world, I miss the 31-year old who once lifted a car off a trapped woman so his partner could start working to save her life. I miss the 39-year old who went into surgery 5 years ago feeling full of hope and optimism for the future and his surgery. I miss laughing so hard I hurt, I miss pain-free days, I miss nights of uninterrupted sleep, I think I just miss who I was. The person I am now has an overweight body with joints that don’t work, a lot of bad dreams, and emotions that are barely in check most of the time.

But I am getting better, I have people who care about me, I have a wife who is supporting me on my walk back to who I am, I have dogs and cats, a kid, and hobbies that excite me and keep me engaged, and household projects to get done.

My Dreams Last Night

I am going to combine two posts here, so sorry for my readers.

Last night was one of the worst nights in relation to how I slept in quite a while, maybe since September, a lot of bad dreams, a lot of those voices and visions crept out of the dark corners of my subconscious and chose last night to be front and center. From everyone’s favorite being alone tied to a bed in an all-white room, to fighting my patients, people trying to hurt my wife and child, and probably a few others. Our Keeshond must have heard me having a nightmare and battered down our dog gate to come and save me, because I am her human and since our elder dog Ben passed away she has taken that role very seriously, personally I think its because I give her carrot chips and frozen peas and less about a courageous dog riding to my rescue.

I know where these dreams stemmed from, yesterday my psychologist started unpacking my past traumas and working through them, which logically would bring those things to the surface, I just wish they weren’t so pushy to ruin a perfectly good night of sleep and cause my dog to have to come and save me.

I have also made the connection that it wasn’t until recently that I actually wanted to fix my life, I know I said many times I needed to be better, do better, etc. But I am not sure I wasn’t just telling myself things to re-direct. I think for a while I liked the rage, I liked feeling that power because I felt powerless in almost every other aspect of my life. I wasn’t doing the kind of work I wanted to do, I wasn’t able to see a way out of that situation, I was not being listened to within my social circle, and I felt that I wasn’t worth the time and effort most people would put into a friendship with me. But I have a newer outlook on life, I am choosing every day to walk in the light again, to face the day and all the turmoil in it and find my way back to the person I used to be, this might take a while, that guy is crafty, he knows everything I know and likes to be left alone to watch his cartoons and eat his cereal in peace, but right now I need him to save the day. He is good at that, especially when there is a life on the line, and right now it’s my life on the line, not physically (I’m not that bad) but mentally, I feel like I am losing what is me and I am being replaced by someone who is withdrawn, sullen and self-destructive. This won’t be the first time I have had to deal with that part of me, won’t be the last I’m sure, this is the longest he has hung around for though and I am kind of sick of him, he mostly just sits there taking up valuable space in my head, space that could be used for other thoughts, like books, or my disdain for people who who put pineapple on pizza..