PTSD and Me

When I returned home from Iraq, where I served as a gunner on a Humvee and a rifleman in an airborne infantry company from 2004 to 2005, I automatically knew things would never be quite the same, but it was not until an incident while on leave that I realized the extent of it.

My best friend walked up behind me and pinched the back of my neck. I immediately turned on him and threw him across the room knocking over a table and chairs. I knew who it was, but I could not stop myself.

I told myself that this was only temporary and that it would go away. I was wrong. It only got worse.

I became angrier and more paranoid than ever. I began fighting all the time and on several occasions pulled my knife on these people. Fortunately on these occasions my friends were there to stop me from killing someone.

I am not the only one like this. A Marine who had served in the War on Terror got in a bar fight in 2007 and killed a Rice University basketball player by stabbing him with a pocket knife similar to the one that my paranoia will not let me be without.

Violent incidences involving war veterans occur more often than one might think. Maybe not to the degree of killing someone or even almost killing someone, but fighting happens all the time. I already have one assault charge on my record from a bar fight and could easily have several more.

Most of the returning vets I know drink heavily which can lead to many types of violence. On the website ptsdcombat.com it is reported that 25 percent of the nation’s suicides over the time of these two wars have been veterans.

These things are caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. According to the Department of Defense 1 in 6 returning veterans return with symptoms of PTSD. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD says that as many as 20 percent have or will develop symptoms of PTSD.

Since, according to ptsdcombat.com, over 1.4 million troops have served in either OIF or OEF,  this is a staggering statistic especially since most who serve are in support positions and never leave the base or see any combat. Those who do see combat have a much larger risk of PTSD symptoms.

I have seen this in many of my friends. Even in the ones that think they are the same. To some extent we are all different than we were before going to war.

Everyday I feel a little worse, and this is the way it is for many OIF and OEF veterans.

I have worked with doctors at the local Veterans Affairs hospital on finding a way to fight against this disorder which every veteran needs to do. I have tried several medications of different quantities. Presently the ones I am on seem to control severe depression and anger, but the problem is that they control my other emotions as well. I may not be angry and depressed, but I feel nothing at all.

Most of the time I no longer feel happy, sad, hate or love. I am emotionally numb. I have no desire to date or make new friends. I do not know if that is a symptom of PTSD or if my pills are causing it. Either way it is a problem I would not have if I had not been to war.

On a positive note my hopes and dreams keep me alive, and I am about to start a new pill regime that is supposed to combat my lack of feeling. I am very positive that these next pills are the right ones.

Veterans of war who saw combat need to seek help for what they went through just as I have been. They need to understand that it may take awhile to find the treatment that is right for them, but they need to keep hope alive because we deserve to find a peace that is absent in war.

We have come home from war, and there is no reason to stop living now.

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