With the passing of a friend today, I
have been left thinking about some heavy shit. You see not all the
wounds that people get leave scars we can see. Somethings just sit in
the back of your head, and good or bad they alter you forever. You
can never be who you were before. You can never get that back. This
is not some aging maturity bullshit either. It is not about
recapturing your childhood, but rather being fundamentally changed on
the deepest level of your psyche. Now this is tied into this thing we
call PTSD. Its a disorder that I think is more dangerous than cancer.
I do not mean to talk about the things
people see, like the health effects that PTSD can have. It is not
about the insomnia, or the lowered immune system. I am thinking more
about how little bits of you die, and the changes in your personality
lead to death in many people that suffer from it. Its about losing
one of the biggest factors in your health, that most people ignore.
Hell losing the part of me that gives a fuck actually has benefits,
but in most cases it can be very harmful.
When you see a dude drinking shots
chased by beer, with a dip in, smoking a cigarette, you get a bit of
the attitude. Its not that he doesn't know he might get cancer, its
that he truly does not give two shits and a fuck about cancer. It is
not a death wish by any means though. It truly is not giving a shit.
Not really depression per-say, and a bit hard to explain to people.
It is a part of the mind that just does not work anymore, and the
sense of self preservation takes on a whole other meaning.
In this I wonder how many people die
from PTSD each year. Over a decade of straight fighting. Most of this
done on two fronts. Rotations in and out of theater that hold the
frequency and resemble a place of expected normalcy. Add to this a
lower standard in recruitment, the paradigm shift of social morality,
and this unending pressure from the 98% of people that have never and
will never put on a uniform. Then you look at how people expect
veterans to act. You see them brush off behavior, or praise things
that would otherwise have gotten somebody committed a few years ago.
Now you look at the guys that get
bored, or overwhelmed, and suck start a pistol. Or maybe those guys
that do what they are trained to do, and violently assist others over
to their train of thought before they suck start a pistol; then think
about would they have done that if their give a fuck had not been
damaged? Would they take that next shot ten years ago? Or would their
personal regard for all life and the survival instinct still intact,
prevented them from going over that line into alcohol poisoning?
Would that still healthy give a fuck have prevented them from driving
in that state of mind years before?
Why is it that we can see crossing that
line between hard and retard, and brush it off as just something that
happens now? What part of our brain is so altered that we can not see
these consequences as something of value? Maybe it is not depression
but an understanding; an understanding that all things will
eventually die, and being afraid of it is not going to change that
fact. We all stop breathing at one point or another. All bleeding
stops. All pain ends.
So in this how many Service Members die
from the long term effects of PTSD? If it is by their own hand, is it
still a manifestation of their illness? Is it possible to restore or
heal a broken give a fuck, and if so is it even worth it? I would be
interested in seeing how many vets have died over the years because
of what could be considered self destructive behavior that in a time
before would not have been engaged, or at least engaged with such
eager abandonment? These are the thoughts running through my head
today. You did this to yourself brother, but I am still gonna miss
you Bat Man.
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