Page 499 - Total War on PTSD

Amazingly, within 10 hours, we were back on mission to the same area. No tears, no time to grieve. We still had a mission to accomplish. There is no time to process emotion in the midst of war. The mission always comes before grieving.
But even after my deployments ended, a war raged on. This was a battle for my own mind and spirit.
The first time I walked into REBOOT, I had spent the previous six months struggling day in and day out. My marriage was ending. I was angry and had no fuse. Physically I had been injured in Afghanistan and was so frustrated with my medical care I was on the brink of giving up. Frustrated and not improving, I couldn’t even sleep.
And that’s just a few of the issues I was struggling with. Needless to say, life was not as I had envisioned it would be as a kid growing up in a little town in North Carolina.
So as I walked into REBOOT for the first time, there stood a slightly chubby civilian and his do-gooder wife trying to help service members. Looking back, even as I stood up to introduce myself at the first group meeting, I can remember the anger that was still inside me. My identity still remained at war. I remember saying, “I’m SGT Bradford. I’m from the great southern state of North Carolina. I like to kill bad guys and look for IEDs.”
But over time, the consistent support, encouragement, and teaching began to sink in. My insides had become calloused and hardened by combat but were slowly returning to their warm and gooey state. I could feel the holes in my heart being filled. I began to see that I was in a battle that wasn’t against flesh and blood, and that I had the tools needed to regain my true identity. I was not sure that identity still existed.
499 of 1085