I am a broken man, on the mend

This is a way for me to talk about the things that have shaped who I am today.

I am broken, fractured. My mind is not what it once was, it was my sanctuary. Now it is my prison. I am chained to memories I can not break free from. I live in fear, fear of being weak, fear of being cornered, fear of being forced to do the things I hate myself for. Forced not by the hands of man, but by those that would use my sense of duty, and honor against me, to fight their wars.

I am weighed down by the things I can no longer do, images, events, even phrases will set me off. I have hurt people I love, and alienated those who once loved me. I have ruined a marriage and lost family members.

I would like to say I am sorry but is sorry truly the right word?

How does one apologize for actions they committed, but they were not in their right state of mind?

When I have episodes, I am not myself. I am not "here" anymore. I am instantly transported back to the time that I was forever changed.

Iraq.

I can feel the heat of the sun on my skin and the scratch of sand across my face. I can feel the weight of my gear once again, I can feel the flat polymer of the hand guard of my weapon. I know it isn't there because I know I am not there. But every sense, every feeling is telling me that I am. My hands ache because I can feel the hand guard in my hand, but I can't sense the weight of it. My hands grasp at air, and desperately trying to free themselves of the feeling of something so real yet not there.

My patience becomes nonexistent, not because I don't love the ones around me, but because I am living in two worlds, at to different times. One of peace, and one of the split second decisions, no time for questions, just obey or give orders.

How does one apologize for this? Is this even something you can say sorry for?

For a long time, I was angry and wanted "THEM" to apologize to me. For a long time, I felt like a chunk of my brain had been removed, and the person I once was, was no more. The part of me, everyone liked, and remembered, carried off in a mason jar, and stored in some evil person office so they could watch all the lives they had destroyed. For a long time, I was angry. Angry at the world, angry at my wife. Angry at my family, all of them so damn happy all the time. Not knowing what I knew, never having seen what I saw.

But all the time asking, "So What is it like over there?"

You reply with something, humdrum. "Oh, you know, not bad, there's a lot of sand."

Something evasive, and obvious. Something to make light of the subject matter at hand. Something to remind yourself that they don't really want to hear what it is really like. Because you know what it is really like, and you don't want to know. That something is enough to make the trigger go away. Well, temporarily because you may have fooled them. But the one closest to you isn't fooled.

They'll be back later with a backhoe, ready to dig into that subject til you explode.

And explode you do, on them, and everything you and they love and hold dear. They say they want you home, cause you never came back from there. And you try to understand that, but you can't cause you remember the flight back, you remember walking off the plane and seeing everyone, you remember leaving and coming back and your wife was swollen. You remember having to put your bags down, so you wrap your arms around her cause when you last saw her she wasn't ten month pregnant. You remember coming home.
She swears you're not, everything inside of you wants to be home, you want to be home. Then you start to think, what if I am not home? You lose your foundation you were holding on to the fact you'd come home, it held you here.

You lose yourself.

You make mistakes, and hurt people.

You say you're sorry. But sorry doesn't fix it.

So is sorry enough, or even the right thing to say? I don't know.

But I know this, I am a broken man, on a journey to find out. I did not ask to be this way, but I will stand tall and proud. Because my body may be broken, my mind may be fractured, but I know my spirit is still whole, and as long as I have that, no enemy foreign or domestic will stand before me, and what I want.

So demon deep within, darkness that invades my thoughts, and memories I can not be rid of, watch out. I am coming for you, you are my enemy.

I am stronger than you.