For the followers and regulars.

As of late I have made a change to my blog. I have stopped advertising it, and spending endless hours sharing it.

That doesn't mean that I have stopped writing or taking an interest in the readers of my blogs. It means that I no longer have it in me to tirelessly spread this blog around. If you've ever jumped on the self marketing train you know what I mean. I feel that close to 70k views in my first 3 month of writing is an achievement I can be proud of. I learned more then I thought I could from my first 3 months.

I have met so many amazingly strong people. And I have gained a new respect for old friends that I had no idea were fighting along side me. I even made an impact in my life, my family, and myself.

For that I am deeply thankful and will continue to write. This blog is not ending anytime soon, nor is my fight. What is ending though is the work involved in it. I am shifting focus from reaching people, to reaching with people.

Thank you to all who have and will continue to walk with me down this path.

Stress can kill, and be killed.

Sometimes in life we are able to manage stress, sometimes we laugh it off. Other times stress can bring us to the brink of sanity, and leave us there to titter.

Today was a day where stress was something in the middle for me.

My job is on a contract basis, and that contract is ending soon. I haven't had a call in months for an interview, and I am submitting my resume for up to 80 jobs a day. My tire blew out yesterday, not just pop and I had to change it. Oh, no. Something ripped a hole in the side wall of the tire as I was driving to a doctors appointment that I was 2 hours late too, after it taking 4 months to finally get. I was late because after I spent 10 mins changing it and putting the spare on I pulled back out into traffic and the spare tire came off the rim.

Amazing luck right? lol

Well I woke up today, with all that on my mind, and I went to work. Then it hit me, in two weeks time, I will once again be jobless. I had some money saved up for this, but with missing work and bills piling up it disappeared, magically.

I have had some dark thoughts today, but the stress hasn't made it impossible to function. Now that I am thinking clearer, I am able to think back and realize that as stress increased, so did my symptoms of PTSD. I know this seems like pretty common sense things here. But that is just it, when PTSD has you, there is no such thing as common sense. Because common PTSD sense says that THERE REALLY is someone following you. Common PTSD sense says, "Yes they are talking about you, they are plotting against you". Your logical voice can yell and scream all it wants, but it won't win.

All that bad luck, and all that stress, and I didn't lose it. I didn't break down. I wanted to, oh I wanted to so bad. I still had thoughts that if I ever shared I may have eyebrows raised, and have my medication increased to a steady drip of tranquilizers lolol

But I didn't give into those thoughts. I set them aside and made them wait their turn for my  attention. The demons had to wait their turn today. I was beyond exhausted when I left work, I had spent my day racing to get things done, and fighting my demons. Physically, and mentally I was not able to carry on. But I did.

And I will. Each day is a new battle, and each night is a new victory. Every night I make it to my bed, and lay my head down, I know I've won today. If you've read my previous posts you'd know how partial I am to my pillows. Every day I wake up and my first thought is "here we go again".

"Here we go again."

What a powerful phrase, here I am again to wrestle my demons one more time. Here I am again standing above my scars, and wounds. Here I am again, today. Here I am again, ready and willing. Here I am again breathing, and spending my time alive.

So here's to all your "again's". May we share them for a long time coming. May we wake up everyday after our tires explode, and our jobs end. May I always be able to connect with you and write. 

The day I became a man

We are all presented with choices. From the first choice we make in the morning, to the last at night our day is filled with "what if's" and "coulda been's".

I remember the day I realized I was a man. It wasn't the day I lost my virginity, as some men consider their coming of age ceremony. No, the day i became a man was the day I realized I had made a decision that was bigger than myself. A decision that would not only effect others, but effect my entire life. The day that you make that decision on your own, and never look back. That was the day i became a boy.

I made a decision, a choice, and I did not  look back. As a child things like "take backs" and "do overs" are common place. Things like "I don't like this" matter. When you are an adult, there are no "take backs" you deal with the choices you made and you roll on. There are no do overs, you do it right the first time, or you try again and again til you do. As an adult it doesn't matter what you like or don't like, there is only what you HAVE to do to survive. No one is going to hold your hand.

But today, as a man, I claim my "Do Over".

I am not asking for it. I am taking it. I am not requesting it. I am demanding it.

I have made terrible choices in life, some have even been awful and hurtful to others. I have trampled people I saw as weak to get what I want. I have used people to get ahead, and to better myself and what I have.

I am laying my "Do Over" card down on the table, and I am calling it in. I don't want to redo all of my past mistakes, I don't want to relive all my nightmares. I don't want to go back to school, and change my major for a 4th time. No, I am claiming my "Do Over" on life, it is my time to live. It is my time to stop making decisions that are hurtful to others, or myself. My do over is a do over on myself.

I am choices to do me over, to grow past my past, and leave my PTSD where it should be. In my past. I am claiming my future for myself. Every day i talk with my readers, and I realize that we are all in need of a "Do Over".

We all wish we could go back and make our events never happen. Well, we can't". We can't be un-raped, we can't be unbeaten, we can't be un-scarred. But we can be un-burdened, un-effected, unrelenting.

I remember the day I became a man, but I also remember the day I became the new me.

Today. And everyday after this.

It is simmering, once again.

I feel it again. That burning itch, that heroin addiction like craving for it. My mouth salivates for it. My veins itch for it. My flesh craws for it. My fingers curl, refusing to be anything but balled up stones. My eyes have dropped the lense that fuels it. I see red, and its getting deeper.

It is my rage.

I was doing so well. I felt so normal for once. I was writing more, I was posting more. I was taking my meds like I was supposed to, I was even taking risks and trusting people. Why is this happening?

What is this growing inside of me?

Didn't they fix me? Am I so broken I can never be fixed?

How much space can I ask for til I am no longer over whelmed? How lonely can I be til you are happy? how miserable must I be to make you happy?

Must I grind my teeth and starve to feed your hunger for my misery? My I claw at my own skin, and break it to quench your thirst?

What must I do to make you leave? Tell me and it will be your, I swear it.

I can not harbor directionless rage within me, my walls can not hold it. What has come over me is not who I am, I am suffocating, and drowning.

I am angry for no reason, and every reason. The confusion is spreading, making nothing make sense. The confusion makes every thought frustrating to process, and a struggle to share.

The more you ask what is wrong the more angry I become, because I can not find and form the words to express myself. All I can say is "give me a second", and we both know I need more than that, but that is all I can say. 

I was laughed AT today

Today I was made the blunt of a joke. It has taken me years to get to the point where I am now. The point where I am writing everyday. I may not post here, but I write everyday. I was asked what I was doing with my career, and for the first time outside of my home I was able to say "I am working on becoming a writer."

Up til now I have only said it around close friends and in my own home. My PTSD keeps me from sharing details about myself. In public, or online. I keep details about myself very secret. I keep my life out of conversations, my own family doesn't know where I live. I have a fear that if details are known about me then people can find me, and hurt me. But if I remain hidden to the world, then I remain hidden to the pain. When I was reborn in the army, the first thing I remember them teaching us is OPSEC. Operational Security. The lesson was easy enough to learn, any details the enemy finds out about you the easier it is for them to defeat you. Travel plans, favorite bar, mother's name, future station after you PCS (Permanent Change of Station).

That lesson carried on into the civilian world, and then some. There are details of my life I keep from everyone. No one knows everything about me, they can't, and won't. I keep people close enough that they feel connected, and far enough away that I am able to control the flow of information about myself to them. My life story can be written by no one person.

Opening up today, to two strangers, was beyond a challenge. I felt the words slip out before I had a chance to stop and sift through them. I was unable to analyze my thoughts to ensure they couldn't be followed back to me. I said it, again though. The first time I said it, I was shocked, the second I was hating myself for saying it again.

"I am working on becoming a published writer."

Before I could finish my sentence the laughter started. I was poked and prodded, I was judged, and I knew what was coming. The stream of questions, I had given these strangers the keys to a vault I had kept a secret, and they laughed all the way to my core.

But something happened, I didn't crumble. I didn't die, I was attacked, but I lived. As they were laughing, I stood there, and I had an episode. The trigger was an odd one, it was the accent of a middle eastern man. My hands tightened, blazing sweat ran down my face, and my vision went white. I was in a store room, full of pallets of boxes, they were gone. Replaced with the warm tan colored towers of the Mosques, the boxes were now stones piled high, the voices and laughter were now the prayers blasted across the landscape seven times a day. Everyday.

They called it a hobby, and laughed. But I was no where near them, I had taken the fastest flight to another land. A land I have been to far too many times. A land everyone in that room had been. Then I was shot back, back into my body, back into that store room.

A small laughter came from the dark recesses of my mind.

A laughter I have not heard in many years. It was me. It was my laughter.

It was the same laughter I had before I joined. the laughter that would fight to escape whenever someone used to tell me, that I was too fat to join the army, or too dumb to get a degree. It was the laughter of a challenge being accepted. I may be fat, I may be dumb, I may even be too broken to live up to your standards. But there is one thing I love, and that is a challenge. And there isn't anything in this world that can stop me from proving you wrong. I was told by the recruiter I was too fat for the army, two months later I showed up 90 lbs lighter. I was told I was too dumb to get a degree and make it in life, I have a Bachelors in Computer Sciences with an emphasis on Networking, and an Associates in Graphic Design. My mind may be shattered, and I forget way too much but I live on my own, and I take care of my own.

Their laughter was met with my own, they trampled my dreams, they betrayed my trust. That was OK with me, I just got the motivation I needed to watch you choke on those words.

I bid you all a good night, I have midnight oils to burn, and a challenge to defeat. 

Helpless romantic

I can't remember a time when I wasn't having a lurid love affair with life. I am either higher than I have ever imagined, or I am wanting to end my time with my mistress for the last time. When it is good, my god is it goooood. But when it's bad, watch out.

Like a bad relationship with another person, we have our good times, and our bad times. I romanticize how beautiful life can be, and I exaggerate how much of a b*#@h life can be as well. When life is good, I want to take it all in, I want to roll in the sheets with her until early in the morning.

But when my mind gets too comfortable for its own good, it turns on itself. Memories surface, fears grow, and my heart races. In those moments I can not stand the sight of my paramour a moment longer. I can not bare the weight of life upon my chest and I wish that each breath is my last. When we are at odds, when the taste of her lips upon my mouth is bitter, I spat upon man. I crave the burning of the world. I feel terrible for being one of the ones that made it back. I feel awful for being one of the ones that couldn't endure. Morose, doesn't touch how I feel when life and I are in a lovers quarrel. The world is not even dark when I hate life, it is a dull boring gray. My distaste for life is the only color I see. It is the only beauty I can see in an ocean of gray.

When life is good my heart swells for those I see in pain, and I reach out to them asking to help them. Asking to be of service to my fellow man, so that together we can share in the bliss that is life. Some days, I find myself just breathing, just focusing on the simple act of inhaling. And I realize that, that feeling is peace. Pure bliss. I want to share that with others when I am in the throes of passion with my mistress. There is no pill, no medication that cause give you the love for life. You have to find it on your own. And find it I do, and Find it I shall, again and again. Life my be my fickle mistress, she may be my ill-tempered lover, but I am addicted to the drug that is life. 

Medication may keep the darkness at bay, but only we can choose to love life. Only we can choose to seize the day, and make life happen. Going to work everyday, sitting in traffic, sleeping in on the weekends, watching 19 hours of Netflix IS NOT LIVING (I know that last one hurt, I do loves me some flix of the net lol). None of that is seizing life, grabbing her by the shoulders and breathing her in with ever fiber of your being. 

Life may have shown you her darker side, and now you have been granted the scars of PTSD. But that doesn't mean you have to run. Charge forward, and make your life your own. Show life that you are as much in love with her, as much as you have been hurt by life.

Dedicated to those we need

We all meet people everyday, I know it sounds terrible :) But we do, whether we want to or not, we still interact with new people everyday. Some of those people come and go, like a leaf drifting down a river. Others effect us positively and negatively.

Those who effect us positively quickly become those we love and trust. When we have PTSD, that is a rare thing for us. We love like any other person, but we trust so little. When those we love and trust are on our side, we are unstoppable, even if we are having a bad day. During those bad days, the ones we love and trust cause us to hold onto hope.

But when those we hold dear turn on us, or leave us, we are left with a void. A growing, self consuming void. That void can lead to darkness, and dark thoughts. When these thoughts take hold it can be hard to see through all of the pain and self loathing. It can be hard to see the light. 

It is so rare to find a support system that we fight for the ones that may or may not be healthy for us. We can confuse love, with the love of the drugs (the chemicals in our system that are created when you touch someone you love, not actual drugs) they give us. We can confuse our feelings of being alone, with our feelings of missing them. 

This is not meant as a warning, or a deterrent from meeting new people, or meant to cut out the people you know now. It is meant as a commentary on the relationships we have, and can continue to have that may not be the best for us. A person that is good for you is the one that yells right back with you when you're lost in a bout of rage. Not yelling at you, but yelling to get through to you. The ones that fight for you, not with you. 

While I was off my medication, I was able to see who that person was. It was the person standing there in line at the VA, yelling at the doctors when I was so beaten down. It wasn't the people beating me down, or yelling at me. It was the person who knew who I was, and knew I was in a bad place. These are the people we need around us. These are the people who can be our life raft in the storm that is PTSD. 

Find these people, love these people, trust these people. Never let them go, and cherish them.