How have you dealt with PTSD?

I almost went to jail, I about did something stupid - at work, luckily I had a someone I trusted there to see there were some changes going on and he asked me to get some help. So, I ask for help and end up take the pharmacy home with me! I followed the directions on the medicine bottle until I started getting close to the max tape....I was on pills to fall asleep, to stay asleep, to not remember my dreams, taking 3 valiums to make it thru the workday, pills to make me relax and pills to control anger and rage.

I knew there had to be a change so I bought a brand new mountain bike and started riding, everywhere. Back and forth to PT & work (12 miles each way), to every meeting and appointment, to the gym before heading home for the day...everywhere I had to go I was riding that bike. It really helped me to have alone time (without drugs) to just think, until I was cut off by a guy in a white Camry....he turned into a gas station and saw me heading his direction - I guess he could see I was enraged because he ran into the store and locked himself in the bathroom! I continued to ride that bike until I PCS'd....the mover forgot to load it in my household goods. For me, it took something physical, and alone for me to deal with it, I still have many days where unexpected booms, or smells trigger thoughts and feelings.

I quit drinking, smoking, I take 23 pills day and night. I don't read anything about war, I don't watch anything about war, and I don't discuss what I did in Nam, except through counciling.I try to stay busy and enjoy fishing out of my kayak. Now, I really enjoy RP and the people I've come in contact with. Because of RP, I am starting to open up a little and I really enjoy the topics and replies. Other than that, it's a great life.
I always worked shift work and I never turned down overtime. I used to drink as much as I could to get drunk. My family saw me come home many times at night and when I opened the door, I fell out and laid on the grass until my wife helped me up. We never argued because I was hardly ever there. Our marriage was our second marriage. I had two kids and she had two kids. We combined the family and almost all of the time my wife did everything by herself, with four kids. In 2002 I was reunited with a guy that I saved his life in Nam. The memories of the night he was rescued kept playing through my mind. If I stayed drunk I didn't dream anything about Nam because I usually passed out. In 2006 my wife went to work for an airlines as a flight attendant. I was home alone three weeks out of four. One night I decided I'd had enough and took a whole bottle of anti depressant pills and sleep medicine. My wife returned earlier than normal on her trips. She told me when she came in the bedroom, she thought I was sleeping until she saw the bottles and couldn't wake me up. She called 911 and I was taken to the VA emergency room. They were able to save me and when I woke up I realized what had happened and I was pissed off. My mind is still fuzzy about that night, but I did eventually go back to work. I was still drinking like a fish but my production at work was going down quick. One day at work I flipped out and started yelling and crying, throwing wall lockers around in the change room, until my supervisor came in. He got me calmed down and we went to the front office. They called my wife to come out I was forced to take medical retirement. As I contineud to go to VA counciling, I had to make a life or death decision. Did I want to continue drinking or did I want to be helped. I decide I wanted the help so I quit drinking, and later quit smoking. My entire outlook on life changed and I could actually smile sometimes. In November, 1994 one of our sons was killed in a car accident. Two people in the other car died also. When the blood tests came back it showed my sons alcohol content was .013. When I found out that, I felt like I was responsible because of all my drinking. Fourteen months later our house caught fire and burned down. All of these things plus Vietnam came to a head and that's when I tried to kill myself again We have always gone to church and are Christians, and I think that is the only reason I'm alive today and our marriage stayed together. Things aren't 100% now but as I'm getting older and have seven grandchildren, my thoughts are only about them. I still get depressed and down, but the medication helps me get throught it because I stopped drinking.

Officers aren't supposed to be affected by conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, right? I mean, PTSD is a mental health issue. Mental health issues are a sign of weakness; a defect of character, right? Of course, when our NCOs and Enlisted Soldiers come to us directly with a personal issue, or if their Battle brings it to us, we don't think any less of these good Soldiers; but Officers? Why, it's tantamount to Conduct Unbecoming...

Believe it or not, this was my mindset, once upon a time. And once upon a time, this way of thinking almost proved fatal to me.

I was a Company Commander of a Combat Support MP Company in the area of Bayji, Iraq, from November 2006 - November 2007. We were on the ground for the Surge and the violence that ensued. In addition to the violence and carnage I witnessed firsthand, there were other things going down behind the scenes that upon DEMOB, I felt like I had failed my Soldiers; let them all down. I started to blame myself personally for every casualty suffered; particularly the severely burned, the amputees, and the paraplegics. Of course, I also assumed full responsibility for our two KIA.

Following a winter of doing little more than drinking and ice-fishing, I had to find something to distance myself from this shitstorm of guilt and depression that was seeking to devour me. I hated sleep, as images from IED strikes and decapitated Iraqi Policemen kept running amok in my dreams. My wife urged me to go to the VA; "Fuck you!", was my bitter response. It would get better, I rationalized, once I got back to doing something productive. For a little while, I was right.

In June, I started a full-time Master's Program to get my Degree in Special Education. It felt good have something to focus all of my attention on; blocking out most of the outside world for several hours at a time. I was studying; surely I wasn't isolating! Yet that is precisely what it was. Before long, when studying (isolating) in the evenings, it felt relaxing to have a beer while working (Don't normal guys enjoy a beer while working into the night?). Gradually, the amount of beer consumed increased over time.

As the program increased in intensity, I was happy. I had found a way to outrun my nightmares; I was working every night to the point of exhaustion. I had schoolwork and research to do, so I had the perfect out to avoid most family functions and get-togethers. In an effort to convince myself that I wasn't a failure, I had become a perfectionist; striving for the highest grade possible on every assignment and test, and driving my poor classmates insane if it was their misfortune to end up assigned to a group project with me. Following two years of living the good life, and another year of student-teaching, I graduated with my Masters of Ed Degree from the University of Minnesota. I had even landed a job in one of the classrooms I had done one of my student-teaching placements in! At this point, I thought I had it beat.

My first year of teaching was great! I had the same support staff working for me that my mentor had the year prior, and the Principal who hired me was very pleased. Still, my evenings were no longer filled with the frantic activities of writing and studying, which left more time to devote to beer drinking. I was up to a 6-pack a night when I got the idea to switch up to the 16 ounce cans, but I stayed at the 6-pack a night quantity, of course. Thank God I had a comfortable place to sit and watch my hockey games at home; this is the only explanation as to why I never got a DUI; I never had to drink and drive! My wife and I would argue quite frequently about the drinking, but in my mind, I knew the drinking wasn't the real problem. I never wanted to talk about the real problem.

In my second year, my building had a new Principal and the District had hired a new Special Ed Director. Where I found support and positive reinforcement in everything I did the year prior, it seemed I could do no right at all in the eyes of my superiors in my second year. In November, I received a By Name Request for a mission to Afghanistan. I had worked for the O-5 and O-6 who had made the request in the past, so that part made it easy. The situation at work, when coupled with the sense of unfinished business from Iraq, made it even easier. I said I would go. A week later, I had a Mob Order. If all went according to plan, I would be leaving on 1 May 2013.

Within a week of submitting my Mob Order to my employer, I was out of a job. The end was abrupt, unexpected, and came the day before Christmas Break. Just prior to the start of the day, I was called to the Principal's Office. Sitting there was my Union Rep and the Special Ed Director. I was informed that in light of my "decision" to go to Afghanistan (I would have been involuntarily mob'ed anyway), the District was exercising it's right to buy-out my contract, effective immediately, and after the Union Rep had escorted me to collect my personal things, I was done. Never got to say good bye to my students or co-workers; gone!
That was a tough blow to absorb.

Oh well, at least we have Afghanistan, right? Wrong. A few weeks later, when the DOD was ordered to cut expenses in Afghanistan, the Reserve Component BDE I was to be a part of was scrubbed from the mission. Suddenly, I felt totally empty inside. I no longer had a job to go to nor a deployment to explain away why I wasn't at work right now. I sat and got good and drunk. When my wife came home, she got really pissed, because I was too drunk to go to a dinner party at her co-worker's house. I didn't really give a fuck, I explained, because people would only ask me what I was doing now, and what the Hell was I supposed to tell them? She left. I finished off the last three beers in the fridge. I then chambered one round in my .357 Ruger, spun the cylinder, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. I did it again. Nothing. Suddenly, this sense of sanity came over me, and I got really, really terrified. I unloaded the firearm and secured it. I called my wife, and told her to get home, at once. When she got home, I had a bag packed and ready to go to the VA Hospital. She asked me if we couldn't wait until tomorrow. I said I didn't want to take that chance.

That was two years ago this past February. Those were some very dark times. After two separate in-patient programs a bunch of out-patient sessions, and the discovery of a TBI that I was unaware of from one of our very first incidents in Theater, things are much better today than they were, still, there are costs. As a result of disclosing my issues, I am now in the process of going through a Medical Evaluation Board. I am at peace with that. I am still a leader, and if by my example, someone else who is struggling feels a little less stigmatized when they decide to seek care, then it will have been worth it. If anyone ever wants to talk to me about this, I will honor your privacy. Feel free to shoot me a PM.