A dear friend of mine shares his story.

As a way of helping people, and some friends of mine, I reached out to my buddies who I knew had PTSD as well. I asked them to write up a short description of the most memorable episodes they had, and if they were willing write about the event that caused PTSD. Here is one of my best and closest friends first step in joining the battle. 


Friend's Email to me:


The start of my PTSD:

I remember it like most people remember their fondest memories. The happiness, love and warm feelings are replaced with pain, fear, and loneliness. My first week in Iraq was a quiet one, almost too quiet. 

You could have cut the tension of the impending first attack with a knife, then it hit. Mortar and small arms fire crackled in the near distance, the unmistakable deep thud of mortars hitting the ground and the snapping crack of 7.62 rounds echoing in the air. That unmistakable incoming alarm that never leaves your head. It will forever be with me. It may have only lasted 30 seconds, but felt like a lifetime. 

My most memorable episode:

Saying 'goodbye' to my wife as she left for work, I went to brew some coffee. Tired from the sleepless night before, I sat on the couch waiting for the coffee. I passed out. Sometime later, forgetting her phone in the house, my wife comes crashing through the door, I jumped up and leaped off the couch. In one smooth motion, I swept up a knife from the kitchen and shut the lights off, without pause I ran down the hallway screaming. Obscenities and threats flew out of me, things like "I'm going to fucking kill you" and I almost did kill. The only thing stopping me was my wife. She screamed for her life, "It's me, IT'S ME! STOP!", looking up I saw my wife's face covered in fear, small rivers pouring out of her eyes, I dropped the knife and immediately broke down. 

What kind of a monster had I become? 

What dark force had such power over me, that I couldn't control myself? 

It was as if someone or something had taken the reigns, I was but marionette in the hands of something greater than myself. My wife stood over the man she thought was her husband, breathing heavily, still crying asking, "what's wrong? what just happened?" I couldn't put it into words or begin to describe to her what it was that I had just been through, what I had just felt.

PTSD destroyed me and my marriage. Even the strongest of marriages can only put up with waking up to their husbands or wives, choking them in their sleep, for so long. She could only deal with so many angry outbursts, so many missed family events and so much distance created to protect themselves from the monster they were married to. I got help, but it was too late, she was gone. She couldn't take it anymore. 

Losing my wife was the worst thing, this monster has done to me.