Avoidance...

So for those of you new to my blog, lets sum up. I went to Afghanistan in 2008, got back in 2009. Saw a whole bunch of really fun stuff over there, did a lot of really fun things over there. Came back, started a family, damn near got divorced, still hanging on by a thread and now I live in Pennsylvania while my wife and daughters live in Michigan. I know, that's a very brief overview but the cherry on top to all of that is that since 2009, I've been dealing with a pretty pronounced case of PTSD. I've had my ups and my downs. But that is enough to bring you up to speed on what I'm about to cover.

Avoidance: The action of keeping away from or not doing something.

How many of us (vets) can see that in our daily lives. I'm going to take a wild guess and say just about all of us. Even the ones who don't have PTSD.

Just a thought, I could be wrong, but at least for me who is the only person I can speak for with any kind of certainty, avoidance is the order of the day. Has been for years. Its like it became my first general order.

I will avoid everything within the limits of my life and quit my avoidance only when properly relieved.

 That fit in there pretty good. For those of you who don't know, the first general order is I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved.

So anyways, avoidance is mother fucker. Because if you're avoiding everything in your life you're really not solving anything or getting anywhere. Avoidance is all about comfort. You avoid things so you're not uncomfortable. You don't want to deal with crowds because they make your hands sweat. You don't want to be near hajis because they make your heart race. You don't want to smell diesel because it just smells so damn good. Seriously they need to make cologne out of that shit.

In my case, I've been known to hide out in my house or work for months at a time. Basically, if it is not required to maintain my employment or my life I don't do it. Just enough to make sure I don't get fired and I don't die. I can't really explain it any more succinctly than that.

Now there's a lot of issues with that, chief among them is basically being dead. For all intents and purposes I believe that acting like that is tantamount to volunteering to be dead.

If that's not dumb as a box of shit I don't know what is.

But what do you do about it? I mean you can spout a few platitudes about whatever but that doesn't really help anyone who is right in the thick of this shit. Truly it doesn't. I always love it when people say shit like, "Oh you just need to get out there and do things, once you do that it'll go away."

How about this, the idea isn't to get it to go away. Truthfully, I don' think it will ever go away. Those feelings will always be just one little step away. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I them to go away. If they did, I might be losing a major part of my life. Something that I am ridiculously proud of.  When my country called, I answered. I fought, and I made it home. I don't want to suppress that or forget it.

So how do we get to being able to live with it and not drive myself and/or everyone around me fucking insane? That's the $64,000 question.

Enter Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Stage Left!

CBT to my fat ass's rescue.

Is it a miracle cure? I suppose initially I thought so. But you have to get in your own head, which is someplace I imagine the majority of us combat vets aren't real keen on going most times.

So I dreamed up an imaginary friend to help me out. Okay, I might have had a little help from my adolescent fantasy land that I lived in from about 9-15 years of age, but whatever works right. Just imagine Ronda Rousey with tiggle bitties. That's my imaginary friend. A better characterization might be the woman who calls out all my destructive thought patterns and is nice enough to call me a "bitch" when I need to hear it. I do need to hear that quite a bit.

Basically, the way that I understand it (and I'm not a shrink so I may get it wrong, I'm only talking about me) is that the basis of CBT is to catch yourself thinking the bullshit that makes you unhappy, anxious, depressed, lazy or anything else you don't want to be and when you catch yourself, challenge that shit and find the fallacious thinking that you are doing and show yourself that you're full of shit.

Its hard to do. Its not easy to spend your day examining your thoughts and checking them. Especially when you're like me. I've got to challenge just about every thought that runs through my head. But it gets easier, and you learn different things to adapt your mind to the rigors of thinking about thinking. In my case, I created my imaginary friend. So in my head its almost like someone else is in there watching my thoughts and when a bad one comes by it grabs it, shakes it in my face and says, "What is this shit, bitch?"

It works. No one can tell me it doesn't. I do it every day and if I didn't do it everyday I would most likely have eaten a bullet many many years ago. So my existence is a testament to how well this stuff works.

See for yourself. Talk to a shrink. Tell them you want to do CBT, most of them will be all over that shit. If you don't want to go to a shrink, then you gotta read. So decide which one you hate less and if it you elect to read, this is the book you should start with FEELING GOOD

Okay, that's enough of my shit for one day.

Book Recommendation: The Coddling of the American Mind.

Here's a website all about it.

Now, I got a remote start installed on my truck today. Mostly because its starting to get F-ing cold around here and I don't want to have to get in a cold truck every morning. I want to get in a warm truck. So $339 later here I am.

But I had to take it in to the shop this morning to get it put in, and I didn't have anyone to give me a ride home so instead of waiting there I figured I'd head over to Barnes & Noble and see what I could dig up. First book I picked up was "The Coddling of the American Mind"

Its no big secret that college campuses are bastions of leftist thought. That in and of itself is not earth shattering at all. The problem with it is that they have gotten to the point where the free exchange of ideas is tantamount to violence in their minds. The idea being that, if you think differently than they do, and you have the nerve to speak, then you're being violent.

I am about midway through the book and I got it this morning so I can tell you the prose is excellent and it keeps you interested. I haven't gotten to the last part of the book where they are going to delve into some solutions to this mental illness that seems to be pervasive in all these kids.

That is one thing that I think they did exceptionally well. They recommend CBT, which anyone who has been through my wonderful history with PTSD knows is a Godsend. Its basically, a thought modification project you do in your own head. For the most part, works like a charm. So, if you find yourself in a depressed state, do some reading on CBT, do some of the thought worksheets and start catching your bullshit thoughts before they spill out into your life. Its what I did. If you need a place to start reading here it is.

Also, I don't think I'm the only one who finds the fact that these guys posit that these college kids who can't seem to hear certain words without having a conniption, need to do some cognitive behavioral therapy. They may not have meant it this way, I cannot speak to their motives, but in my mind the implication there is that these kids are on some level, fucking nuts.

Now I'm not one for bashing generations. Okay, that's not true. But I normally do it up, not down. I train the majority of ire onto the boomers. Additionally, I work in a profession where younger people are needed, and my profession is having exceptional problems attracting and keeping quality kids nowadays. This doesn't bode well for the future of my job. Which, unfortunately isn't going anywhere. So we need to figure out how to work with this younger generation and be able to hand this off to someone when I'm too old for this shit.

Typically, older folks love to bash the kids. I'm not really too interested in that on a macro level. On a micro-level, I think its great. These chuckle-heads are endlessly entertaining to me. But when you think about it big picture, whether we like it or not, its the old who have to adjust to the young. Pretty soon we'll be senior citizens drawing our non-existent social security and belly aching about the discount we get at the Cracker Barrel, and they'll be running...well everything.

I also would like to point out how each generation always manages to forget that the generations that they love to talk shit about are their own damn kids. Take some fucking responsibility. My kids are 5 and 3. So I'm going to have to answer for them in a couple decades.

That went all over the place didn't it? Anyway, pick up a copy if you're looking for something to read.

Today, She Put The Dog Down...

And I wasn't there. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was coming today. I picked that dog out. When he came up and laid on my feet years ago I said, This one.

Now after that he became a royal pain in the ass. He was a spaz. He had to be medicated and toward the end of his life he peed everywhere. But he was a dog, and that by itself made him good.

My wife tells me she did it while I wasn't home because I didn't even like the dog. Which is partly true. I didn't really like him, but there were times when he grew on me. But that's not what I'm getting at here. I picked him out. I am part of the family, I'm supposed to be the head of the family. I wanted to be there. Not just for the dog, but for her.

She calls me up crying to let me know that Ranger is gone and while I felt for him, I felt for her too. I felt for my little girls. My little girls who are going to ask where the dog is later. I didn't want to miss this. I want to be there for my family. But I can't. My job, and our future won't allow that right now.

But it doesn't hurt any less.

I'm sorry I wasn't there to at least say goodbye Ranger.

I'm sorry I wasn't there to comfort you Princess.

I'm sorry I won't be there to answer your questions girls.

I'm so so sorry.