John's Story - Part 2 ~ Michael Enright - PTSD

[mrrodneyalong]

I wish I had a big long story to tell but I don't- Just this,almost every night for about a year when I lived at Baghram Army airfield as a Soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division we would get motored. Now I cant sleep until I am just exhausted from being up for 20 to 22 hours a day. I hear the Air raid siren the AF used to sound and even hear and feel the impact. Then I am up looking out windows, chasing shadows- right now it 0519, slept for about 45 min last night.

[Thor990]

I only had a taste of this as a Marine but my life was full of ugly violence. I used to sit in waiting rooms thinking how best to kill everyone in the room and escape before the law arrived. I had to have a plan before I could rest. Just part of how my head functioned as a vet and a bipolar sufferer. Feeling like this made me miss my guys, my Marines. Nobody got what was going on in my head, worst of all, not even the doctors.

I overcame all of this but I know, in my way, what John felt.