Page 38 - Total War on PTSD

to overcome their PTSD on their own and if they reached out for help. Regardless, my thoughts drag me down and I wish that someone, anyone, could have made a difference in their life before it was lost. Walking down the dusty streets and alleys on Kandahar Airfield between my work and my barracks, whenever I saw service members getting ready to go out on convoy, I asked myself why I deserved to stay on base while they had to go off base and in harm's way. All of them had way too much of their lives still ahead of them, and I should have gone in their place because I was older and had lived more of my life than they had. I still feel the need to rescue as many people as I can even if saving them seems impossible. I ignore my own emotional needs, another thing that PTSD readily robs me of, and chose to take care of others instead of myself. Sometimes I think I try to help others because it is one of very few ways I am able to feel any sort of emotion. I got to the point that I realized I had to get help or I would lose everything...myself, my life, and my family. This realization, and this acceptance, cost me my Navy career but saved my life. One thing I always told my 'Sailors' when I mentored them was that they needed to recognize when the balance between their work and personal lives was off. The time came when I had to heed my own words, and those 'words' literally saved my life.
38 of 1063