Page 17 - Total War on PTSD

very day, waiting until the all-clear announcement came from the same British lady and we were allowed to exit the bunker and return to work. Then it was business as usual...as if nothing happened...more nonsense...at least to me. We didn’t get killed or wounded this time but our nervous systems were assaulted by fear doing subtle damage to physical and emotional systems that are routinely ignored by military physicians as a matter of policy. It was kind of like chipping away at mortar between bricks in a wall, just a little at a time, not expecting anything to happen...and then being surprised when a brick falls out. Eventually the wall is going to fall apart. Such is PTSD.
Early in the deployment I felt comfortable in my job, my position, as a leader of my small ‘department’ and the job itself, working in a war zone. It gave me more purpose than anything I’d ever done. Actually, if I was able, I would go back and do it again in a heartbeat. But after many life-or-death trips from the office to the bunkers with enemy rockets closing in, that comfort started peeling away like the skin of an onion, leaving me with the raw interior that is my PTSD. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’ve become the onion.
Other military Veterans will nod their heads as they read the next paragraphs. For any family members and civilians reading this, I hope the next words provide some help in understanding what your warfighter is going through because, while there is no single cookie-cutter ‘case’ of PTSD, what I go through is unfortunately typical for many of us.
Months after the official welcome home ceremony and returning to civilian life in the U.S., I began to feel betrayed — by the Navy, by my friends and co-workers who ‘weren't there’ for me when I started experiencing worsening PTSD. I even felt that way in my
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