Not all disabilities are visible. Currently an intense montage of photos of returned US service members diagnosed with PTSD staring at themselves in the mirror is making its way around FB. What we see, the actual image of the person, shows a put together, functioning individual, reintegrating into the society they’ve volunteered to defend. But what these men and women see in the mirror (and so do we) is someone with a gun pointed at their own forehead ready to pull the trigger or downing a bottle of liquor or any other number of horrific things. You see, these men and women, who apparently have fought through their own corner of Hell and came through the other side looking like the same individual who left simply mere months before is not. That before person disappeared somewhere in the quagmire of their service to our nation, their service to us.
I saw the FB post, knew the pictures would be heart wrenching, but I couldn’t not look. So, I did, and predictably, the tears ran down my face and neck. I left them unchecked; they’d only be replaced by more. I felt the agony of those men and women. I know that agony. I have a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, not received through a combat wound or deployment to a war-riddled city, but from much different circumstances sustained during my military service, which I shall not share. But at the root of the dry rotted tree of self-imposed isolation, desolation, and despair, you find the same questions: who am I now? What have I become? How will I survive this? And then at least for me, a whispered, prayer, afraid of the answer or even worse – no answer: God help me.
I’d love to give a pat reply, but there’s little truth in any of those. The fact is, PTSD is an utter loss of self and a plunge into an abyss of unconquerable fears and memories, no matter how the original trauma occurred. And those of us who have PTSD walk through life, standing beside you at cocktail parties, eating lunch with you, having coffee with you, laughing with you, even loving you with the pieces of ourselves God has knit back together. The thing I find truly astounding is that mostly you have no idea that you’re speaking to, or laughing with only half a person.
If you saw me on most days you’d not believe I was in any way disabled aside from a gigantic yellow lab, Jug, who never leaves my side. His whole purpose in life is to never let me fall, literally pick me up if I do, and tell me when I need to take migraine meds. He has no expectations of who I should be or what I should be doing (Other than feed him and rub his belly). And that lack of expectations is the most amazing gift with which I’ve been blessed. Before Jug, and sometimes even now, well a lot of times even now, I put so much pressure on myself to be the me before, the one who disappeared when I was injured and was replaced with the me that I don’t quite recognize.
I believe in miracles. I believe God could change my circumstances, and that in His time, should it be His will, I will be healed. I pray for it everyday: He does tell us to pray unceasingly. But for me that prayer is a life preserver tossed out onto the swells into which I have plunged. I know He hears me; He always hears our deepest needs and desires even those left unspoken. I believe I was meant for more than what my life has become, and so were those men and women in the FB photo montage. Please believe me when I say that PTSD is real, and it can drain every last drop of hope from your soul. It can eat away at your faith until you’re not sure what you believe. No one should be doomed to a life without hope and faith. Without hope and faith there is no life.
The Unexpected Life 