Page 798 - Total War on PTSD

“When we adopt a dog or any pet, we know it is going to end with us having to say goodbye, but we still do it. And we do it for a very good reason: They bring so much joy and optimism and happiness. They attack every moment of every day with that attitude.” - Bruce Cameron
Courtenay: Geoffrey and his Service Dog Bridget went from a chance encounter when Bridget was a stray found outside his work at Sabolich Prosthetics to becoming his Service Dog and embarking on the path towards certification as a Therapy/Companion Dog so that she can visit hospitals and nursing homes and help make others happy.
I am still in the process of finding my own path and sometimes just feel completely lost. The heat of the sun above barely heats my face and I am in the bottom of a hole. The only way out is to claw my way up through the dirt but it crumbles in my and falls at my feet.
When panic attacks and nightmares don’t let me sleep at night I return to that dark hole, furtively clawing my way upward. When I am overwhelmed and digging myself out of that hole, filing in under my fingernails with dark, moist dirt, I know nothing changes, like what I am trying to do is pointless and that my thoughts are taking me nowhere.
I do my best to keep my issues to myself because that way I am probably safer and less at risk than being stuck back in an inpatient program. Having to be in one of those places won’t help me, or at least I won’t admit that it will. My whole life, but especially so in my military and my civilian federal jobs, you are always expected to do your job well, with minimal assistance, and to ask for help only when absolutely necessary.
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