To the Combat PTSD Caregiver

Reach out to other spouses in your area or online to help educate and support one another. There are many benefits you can apply for today such as the Caregiver Benefit of service-connected veterans. An organization I highly recommend is Family of a Vet, you can find their link on the upper right hand of this blog.

When things between you two become confusing it is due to his perception of reality has been profoundly shaken. Everything he thought of himself has been shattered to the core including his spirit. I often speak of coming home in body starting as we disembark the aircraft to our home soil. Coming home in mind is a completely different experience and mine happened when I was able to be present all day without dissociating or loosing time to spacing out. This happened in 2010 twenty years after my combat experience. I still loose time, in the last several months my stress level has risen and remained constant and my dissociative features of Combat PTSD have been kicking.

Know that when his reality has been high-jacked, you are the means of his reality testing. When this other reality bleeds over into yours, it is real in his mind. Knowing this will help you communicate with him, his comments or behavior can give you clues to his mental state and in what reality his mind thinks its in.

When my kids where around and I was having hallucinations I included them sometimes as combat operations. To them they were playing war with dad, to me the intensity was dulled. I was able to tether myself to my kids and not succumb to the all encompassing flashbacks where the reality of today disappears as the horror of yesteryear rains.

He is in there and will come home in mind when he is ready, his mind trying to sort out the absurdity and brutality of war. It is a long process. I want to thank you for your spirit and knowledge seeking to understand your veteran, you are important to him if he doesn't say it. That's that part of him that cannot reconcile war, killing and the sacrifices your family experiences daily. This part of him is broken, how can we use something effectually rendered inoperable? You are in my prayers.

Combat PTSD Prayer

God, my faith had been lacking this last year and yet you still hold me in your hand. I curse your plan for me and tell you that I am not ready and you bless me further. I resist the path with detours and you place Angels in my life to guide me back. I have ignored you long enough, thank you God for the blessings in my life and I pledge to work on my humbleness and thankfulness to honor your presence in my life. When the darkness threatens to engulf me, I will turn to my faith. I love you God, Amen.

The Intimacy of War

Reclaiming parts of my memory has helped to regain lost bits and pieces of myself; by putting together this Combat Narrative I will regain a significant part of my life that has influenced me in many negative ways otherwise. This recording of my narrative will assist me further in reclaiming my past and coming to terms with my complete Combat Narrative over time. Watch it unfold here and at the Graffiti of War Project Blog.

Our second engagement commenced within the 100 Hour Ground War, but to get there I had to drive balls to the wall as part of the Army’s VII Corps mission to cut off the Iraqi forces before our hail Mary pass into Kuwait. As I was blazing 50 MPH across the sands towards the front line my 32 ton combat loaded Bradley drove over a sand dune and straight into a landmine field. Sgt T flipped out and started cussing and I could hear my captain in the background cursing and asking why we had stopped. As they both continued the barrage of swearing and demanding I screamed, “Shut the fuck up and look out your window, we are in a landmine field!” As the reality of situation sunk in, I assessed our trajectory into the field and found we had landed at an angle and missed detonating a single mine stopping us in our tracks.