I feel like a monster to you

I have dreams where I am seen the way I feel to the rest of the world, I am a monster. These dreams are full of mundane activities, like shopping, laundry and weekend chores. I am myself, just not. Darkness flows from my chest, all life is gone from my eyes, everything I touch withers and crumbles as life is sucked out of it to feed my empty soul. Fear and death follow me as I go about my day.

I have spoken with several veterans who has similar feelings and have come to a conclusion.

We are not monsters. We are the guardians, we are the select few who have kept those we love from the terrors they know not exist in this world.

Even though I have spent a long time dwelling on these feelings and come to this conclusion, it does not dispel the fear I have that I am a monster. On days that are particularly hard for me, I avoid looking in the mirror because I am afraid to find out horns have grown, pupils split, and fangs sprung up.

On the better days, I feel the monster within just below the surface, clawing at my chest. But I remind myself that I am not an animal. I am not that which howls in the night, I am not that which stalks in the dark. I am the guardian of those I love from those that seek to harm my way of life.

PTSD is a swirling, churning, torrent of fear, nightmares, anxieties, and darkness. We may find ourselves burdened by these over baring feelings of hopelessness, and abandonment. But we can not allow these feelings to take root, those are seeds of self-destruction. Those are the voices and words of the monsters we fear we are. When we are at our worst, it is not because we are at our weakest. No, it is those demons we carry trying to make a move against us, when they think we are vulnerable.

IF you have PTSD, it is not because you are weak, but because you are strong. PTSD and all our unseen scars are the scars left by the fires of tribulations that made you stronger than you ever could have any other way. PTSD is not a weakness, it does not have any magical powers to make you a beast that small children will run from in fear.

PTSD is proof you faced evil head on and were strong enough to fight your way through it. PTSD is just the next battle we must face in life, never allow yourself to lose. Death is not, and never will be an option. If you or anyone you know is in a bad place, thinking of letting PTSD win, and taking another life.

I beg you, please get help, you are not alone, you never were and never will be alone. PTSD is not a battle that can be won alone, we all need help sometimes.