The nice thing about having a blog is that even though it's a public space, if people don't know where to look then they won't find it - depending on how private you want your thoughts to be, it could be the perfect niche.
I think I can diagnose when I started thinking about my buried anger: at one of the Yellow Ribbon workshops this past weekend, there was an "Anger Self-Assessment Test." The metrics themselves were irritating me because most of them are legitimate in my eyes: of course it's true that I still get angry when I think of the bad things people did to me in the past, because it happened recently!
I feel like it's something I've been trying to hide, especially because no one wants to listen, but I can't set it aside any longer - yes, I did mean it when I said Iraq was an eye-opening experience and good overall, but there was a lot of shit that happened while I was there, and I simply can't talk to people about it because no one wants to hear about it or understands. Maybe it was being back in an Army-related setting, maybe it was a lack of access to my normal outlets for this kind of thing, or maybe it was the shitty plane rides there and back, but something snapped on the way back home.
I don't need someone lecturing me that I'm being melodramatic about being lonely, far from home, in a country where the natives are trying to kill me - this conversation actually happened early on in the tour, right at its loneliest point. I've tried to play it off cool, but the experience was a rude awakening to how human nature really is - shitty terrorists, abandonment by friends, leaders pawning off responsibilities, etc. I could go on and on, but no one wants to hear that shit!
I've constructed a clever, logical narrative, but I think the facade is starting to wear on me. I'm pretty sure I don't have PTSD or any of that shit, but one of the things I find incredibly frustrating is being unable/reluctant to articulate my true feelings about the deployment and how my values have changed to my closest friends... might as well hint at it on a blog!
I think I can diagnose when I started thinking about my buried anger: at one of the Yellow Ribbon workshops this past weekend, there was an "Anger Self-Assessment Test." The metrics themselves were irritating me because most of them are legitimate in my eyes: of course it's true that I still get angry when I think of the bad things people did to me in the past, because it happened recently!
I feel like it's something I've been trying to hide, especially because no one wants to listen, but I can't set it aside any longer - yes, I did mean it when I said Iraq was an eye-opening experience and good overall, but there was a lot of shit that happened while I was there, and I simply can't talk to people about it because no one wants to hear about it or understands. Maybe it was being back in an Army-related setting, maybe it was a lack of access to my normal outlets for this kind of thing, or maybe it was the shitty plane rides there and back, but something snapped on the way back home.
I don't need someone lecturing me that I'm being melodramatic about being lonely, far from home, in a country where the natives are trying to kill me - this conversation actually happened early on in the tour, right at its loneliest point. I've tried to play it off cool, but the experience was a rude awakening to how human nature really is - shitty terrorists, abandonment by friends, leaders pawning off responsibilities, etc. I could go on and on, but no one wants to hear that shit!
I've constructed a clever, logical narrative, but I think the facade is starting to wear on me. I'm pretty sure I don't have PTSD or any of that shit, but one of the things I find incredibly frustrating is being unable/reluctant to articulate my true feelings about the deployment and how my values have changed to my closest friends... might as well hint at it on a blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment