So, I've gone about a month without meeting with my counselor. The counselor has been out of town and finally returned this last week. I showed up for my normal appointment, but it was apparently booked for someone else. I didn't really think much about it at first, and calmly waited for some available time for me to have my visit.
I did some reading and chatted with another individual, but as time progressed I kept feeling more and more agitated. The person I was speaking with was trying to make my time a little less annoying and offered water and friendly discussion, but I just started getting angry. A second counselor showed up about the same time as their client and began their meeting. I had been waiting for about an hour total, 30 min since my counselor started meeting with another client, and I just didn't want to be there anymore. I went out to my car and as soon as I got in to drive off, I felt like just cancelling future appointments. I still want to. I called my wife to let her know what I was doing and to make sure I didn't over react (that's been my problem more and more lately). She told me to just call the office and reschedule and it would be alright. She did not want me to stop my visits. It seems she can see a change for the better when I make my normal visits. So, of course I listened to her voice of reason.
What I don't understand though, is Why am I so angry? Why does it matter? For a small amount of time, I actually felt really sad and depressed for some reason. It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, everyone knows that stuff happens. Things don't always work out like we'd like them to. So, why is something so small as a time conflict for an appointment that normally occurs every week at the same time, such a big deal?
I find I keep getting more and more angry over the smallest things. I was trying to get some tech support information regarding a bill I received the other day. The bill should never have been sent out, but the business created a false invoice for the wrong product and submitted it to my credit card. (I think it's outright fraud, but the credit card will decide that). The number I was given to contact them was of course to India. I'm not going to say "I know the Indian people are great but..." What I'm going to say is "I hate talking to people in India." I have the hardest time understanding their accents and the way they slur words together. I can understand most Paki, Afghani, and any far Eastern version of English, but for some reason I can never understand what the people from India, Nepal, and some people from Bangladesh are saying. Long story short, by the time I was done trying to get her to simply transfer me to the person that sent out the bill, I was ready to reach through the phone and slap her head off. It was as if she didn't hear a single word I said, and was incapable of putting together a single grammatically correct English sentence. (Given, my sentences on here aren't so great, they are at least manageable!).
I deal with a group in my office. They are all bright people, some of the smartest testers I'll probably ever meet, but sometimes the ideas of how things are supposed to be done, should be done, or are actually done, just floors me. Some of them will even pull out the protocols that are established, and argue that they aren't really needed because, what they are doing isn't really all that important. If it's not that important, then why are we doing it? Why not work on something that is important? The biggest problem is that we are all on the line for everything together. We either succeed or fail as a team. Maybe it's my OCD...
I don't' understand so many things. Another thing I wish I understood is, why is it that I get so drained of energy typing this stuff up? I feel like I just did an Iron man competition... My pulse is even up.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
A background
So, I guess I need to start from somewhere. Starting a conversation half way thru never makes sense. I don't believe that my specific story is much different than anyone else's. For that matter, I imagine that many others have suffered worse than me. I think that's why I don't like the idea of being labeled with PTSD.
I served in the military for about 10 years. I've had multiple deployments to several areas around the world and in that time I've seen a lot. I've seen people that live in squalor and think nothing of it. On the other hand I've known people that believe that anything under a 3 star hotel is unacceptable. While I was serving in Iraq I had the opportunity to investigate mass-casualty mass burial sites. Without jumping on to a political band wagon, lets just say, I have strong feelings regarding intifada and decisions that were made as far back as 1991. I met many people who were still looking for family members that went 'missing' during the intifada in Iraq, I was able to see reactions in people that were able to finally get the peace of knowing that their loved ones were finally dead as well as the grief of those that found the same. I think the most horrific thing to me was the vision of a childs body with minimal clothing still on, being shoveled out of a possible Mass grave site.
I couldn't believe that a child, an infant, was murdered in that manner. Sick enough as it is, the mother was also buried with the child. I never did find out whether or not the father was killed at the same time, or if that was just his punishment... I met men that had been sexually molested by Ouday and Qusay Hussein as well. It was just a common place occurence in Iraq at that time. There are so many stupid and unnecessary things that I both witnessed in person and reviewed in documentation. I obviously can't be too specific, but I remember a group of girls that was attacked when they were walking to school soon after the regime fell, and another time when a pregnant woman walking with her children was a victim of a roadside bomb. She and the child as well as severl of the other children were killed immediately, several other children were pretty banged up as well.
I remember the sense of dread I felt from day to day. My group was unable to acquire better equipment and weaponry, so we spent the majority of our time outside the wire without radio comms, heavy weapons, and any real armor. (polyvinyl side panneling barely stops dust let alone anything else). We never knew when it was going to be our turn to get hit. I remember once driving by another base as it was being hit with mortars. There wasn't much we could do, but keep on our mission.
When I returned home I returned by myself. My parents lived by, but other than that I was pretty much a lone. I started doing instruction and had a real hard time dealing with the fact that, while in the military, most of the time it's just you. I was left in charge of several teams in Iraq, and was expected to always take care of them, but was never given any support to do it with. If equipment broke, we were out of luck, if someone got sick, we were out of luck, if someone died... who knows... I'm just glad I was fortunate enough to have always planned well enough to keep us safe. When I started as an instructor, it was the same game. You were expected to spend 20+ hours a day 6-7 days a week ensuring that the instruction was the best possbile, with as little resources as possible. The students were expected to learn days worth of material each day and be able to regurgitate it several days later. It's not that it's all that uncommon for a military school to be demanding, but it helped me understand just a little bit more. It's like old JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". If a soldier/sailor/marine/airman dies, who cries? Who even notices? Only those servicemembers who know them well and their families. Some members though are so involved with their positions in the military that they've lost family members to begin with, whether it be loss of spouse and kids through divorce or just loss of siblings thru lack of time to keep involved. Sometimes that saddest thing to me is to know that someone sacrificed everything they could to include their life, and it was repaid by a system that is impossible to navigate and their death will be used as a number in a political war one way or another! The spouse the child, no one really cares, only the family.
I don't mean to be so dour, but really, even those of us who have lost friends close and dear, how well do we remember the child and spouse left behind? Those who do remember, and try to help are spurned by the system for taking on something they shouldn't and told " You can't fix the world." I've been told that phrase so many times it makes my blood boil!
I survived all of my activations, deployments, missions, etc.,. It took a safe job for me to finally be taken down. I was in an accident while driving to teach one day. I was immediately bombarded by paperwork (forget about asking how I was doing), and expected to be able to give a full account in full detail of everything that took place. My back, neck, head, and shoulder were all pretty well worked up. I was soon afterwards professionally attacked by my leadership for being injured, and later medically discharged because of them. I know what happens when you give your all for a cause that doesn't care for the parts that make it great. Don't get me wrong, I would do it again, I've even tried getting back in, but alas, I don't think it's a possibility anymore.
I'm empty for now, but perhaps later I'll continue...
I served in the military for about 10 years. I've had multiple deployments to several areas around the world and in that time I've seen a lot. I've seen people that live in squalor and think nothing of it. On the other hand I've known people that believe that anything under a 3 star hotel is unacceptable. While I was serving in Iraq I had the opportunity to investigate mass-casualty mass burial sites. Without jumping on to a political band wagon, lets just say, I have strong feelings regarding intifada and decisions that were made as far back as 1991. I met many people who were still looking for family members that went 'missing' during the intifada in Iraq, I was able to see reactions in people that were able to finally get the peace of knowing that their loved ones were finally dead as well as the grief of those that found the same. I think the most horrific thing to me was the vision of a childs body with minimal clothing still on, being shoveled out of a possible Mass grave site.
I couldn't believe that a child, an infant, was murdered in that manner. Sick enough as it is, the mother was also buried with the child. I never did find out whether or not the father was killed at the same time, or if that was just his punishment... I met men that had been sexually molested by Ouday and Qusay Hussein as well. It was just a common place occurence in Iraq at that time. There are so many stupid and unnecessary things that I both witnessed in person and reviewed in documentation. I obviously can't be too specific, but I remember a group of girls that was attacked when they were walking to school soon after the regime fell, and another time when a pregnant woman walking with her children was a victim of a roadside bomb. She and the child as well as severl of the other children were killed immediately, several other children were pretty banged up as well.
I remember the sense of dread I felt from day to day. My group was unable to acquire better equipment and weaponry, so we spent the majority of our time outside the wire without radio comms, heavy weapons, and any real armor. (polyvinyl side panneling barely stops dust let alone anything else). We never knew when it was going to be our turn to get hit. I remember once driving by another base as it was being hit with mortars. There wasn't much we could do, but keep on our mission.
When I returned home I returned by myself. My parents lived by, but other than that I was pretty much a lone. I started doing instruction and had a real hard time dealing with the fact that, while in the military, most of the time it's just you. I was left in charge of several teams in Iraq, and was expected to always take care of them, but was never given any support to do it with. If equipment broke, we were out of luck, if someone got sick, we were out of luck, if someone died... who knows... I'm just glad I was fortunate enough to have always planned well enough to keep us safe. When I started as an instructor, it was the same game. You were expected to spend 20+ hours a day 6-7 days a week ensuring that the instruction was the best possbile, with as little resources as possible. The students were expected to learn days worth of material each day and be able to regurgitate it several days later. It's not that it's all that uncommon for a military school to be demanding, but it helped me understand just a little bit more. It's like old JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". If a soldier/sailor/marine/airman dies, who cries? Who even notices? Only those servicemembers who know them well and their families. Some members though are so involved with their positions in the military that they've lost family members to begin with, whether it be loss of spouse and kids through divorce or just loss of siblings thru lack of time to keep involved. Sometimes that saddest thing to me is to know that someone sacrificed everything they could to include their life, and it was repaid by a system that is impossible to navigate and their death will be used as a number in a political war one way or another! The spouse the child, no one really cares, only the family.
I don't mean to be so dour, but really, even those of us who have lost friends close and dear, how well do we remember the child and spouse left behind? Those who do remember, and try to help are spurned by the system for taking on something they shouldn't and told " You can't fix the world." I've been told that phrase so many times it makes my blood boil!
I survived all of my activations, deployments, missions, etc.,. It took a safe job for me to finally be taken down. I was in an accident while driving to teach one day. I was immediately bombarded by paperwork (forget about asking how I was doing), and expected to be able to give a full account in full detail of everything that took place. My back, neck, head, and shoulder were all pretty well worked up. I was soon afterwards professionally attacked by my leadership for being injured, and later medically discharged because of them. I know what happens when you give your all for a cause that doesn't care for the parts that make it great. Don't get me wrong, I would do it again, I've even tried getting back in, but alas, I don't think it's a possibility anymore.
I'm empty for now, but perhaps later I'll continue...
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The first day
The first day. It's the most important day. By the choices made this day all other choices remaining are changed. The first day is the day that is most celebrated, yet most mourned. A child's first laugh, first smile, first step, to the son's/daughters first time using drugs, first crime, or first suicide attempt. No matter the age, No matter the stage of life, No matter what we may think, We all have our firsts, and we'll all have our lasts.
Today is my first. It is my first day that I will record my success, and record my failure, It is my first time I will address my problems, The first time I will fight back against that which fights with me! Everyone has problems, mine our no more severe, no more important, nor anymore difficult than anyone else's. I hope that by me sharing my experiences though, that it will give others strength with which they can use to fight whatever ails them. As well, it's a great way for me to perhaps unburden myself.
Today is a result of the last week, which is a result of the last month, which yes, was the result of years, and series of years. The difference is that on this day, I've decided to make a change, a change in myself, a change for MYSELF. I suffer from PTSD, Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. I don't know exactly when it started, but I imagine that I have a few good guesses. Today I had an Event, an event in which I no longer had control of me. For some people I imagine this type of event is probably normal, but for me it's not. My events normally include a bout of rage, but lately, and more often not, my anger has been substituted with emotional despair and sadness. I wonder why?
I don't know how much to go into things as of yet. I hope to find others over time that perhaps will find this blog and post their own thoughts or experiences. If not, that's o.k. I'll still get the benefit of returning someday to read of my thoughts.
Today is my first. It is my first day that I will record my success, and record my failure, It is my first time I will address my problems, The first time I will fight back against that which fights with me! Everyone has problems, mine our no more severe, no more important, nor anymore difficult than anyone else's. I hope that by me sharing my experiences though, that it will give others strength with which they can use to fight whatever ails them. As well, it's a great way for me to perhaps unburden myself.
Today is a result of the last week, which is a result of the last month, which yes, was the result of years, and series of years. The difference is that on this day, I've decided to make a change, a change in myself, a change for MYSELF. I suffer from PTSD, Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. I don't know exactly when it started, but I imagine that I have a few good guesses. Today I had an Event, an event in which I no longer had control of me. For some people I imagine this type of event is probably normal, but for me it's not. My events normally include a bout of rage, but lately, and more often not, my anger has been substituted with emotional despair and sadness. I wonder why?
I don't know how much to go into things as of yet. I hope to find others over time that perhaps will find this blog and post their own thoughts or experiences. If not, that's o.k. I'll still get the benefit of returning someday to read of my thoughts.
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