The Hole

I was there against my will, and I knew it was the place that I needed to be. See, I asked for help and protection from myself. I didn't trust myself anymore because I had a plan, a workable plan, and I intended to put that plan into motion three days ago. My plan consisted of a wooded area, a hose, a car exhaust and a sunny final day of my life.

The pillow and the mattress were both made of crunchy, loud plastic, I suppose it was to cut down on communicable diseases that patients often pass on to each other while living in close quarters. The lights were always on and the nurses walked past the window in my door and took notes every 15 minutes like I was some kind of strange experiment that they wanted to track and report on. It was hard to sleep but I managed with the drugs and the exhaustion and the silence. Smokes every four hours, but only if my family would accompany me to the smoke pit...so it was kind of like they were in "jail" too, taking time from their busy day in order to be there for me every break to get out and get some fresh smoky air.

I met a lot of lost souls there. One that would walk the halls and tell everyone that he was going home today. He had been doing that for weeks I was told. Another who swallowed sharp objects in the hopes that they would die. So many of them, all broken by life, all lost in their own minds. Meeting them made me realize that I was very blessed in this life, blessed with my comparably tame demons in this hurtful world.

I am still sad and profoundly depressed but I am alive, I am here and I will carry on, although I am not sure how.

I have another plan now. I plan to live this morning. I plan to get up, show up, and not hide from my world. Just my world though, this small world that I live in now. That's all that I can muster. My small circle of friends that I trust, my small yard, my small life.

I am still questioning my truth that I have lived with for the last seven years. That I have PTSD. It's hard, you know. When the world tells you are lying and malingering its hard to know your own truth, and trying to find out what that truth means will drive you into the psych ward for an involuntary stay, or it can drive you into death. So very many people have turned against me, and that's ok. They don't matter to me anymore. What I think matters to me, and I just have to know my own truth, know my own life.

I think this was visit number 11, and I still have not learned anything yet. I still dance with the devil, I still struggle, I still hate myself for the things I had to do in Afghanistan, even if no one understands or believes me. That is my reality. I don't know why I do, everyone tells me I shouldn't be affected but I am. And now I think people have tried to back me into a corner so I won't write about it anymore, so I won't be believed, so I will just hide. And I am hiding, in my own way, hiding in plain sight, on my last legs, bloodied and broken, but I will keep going, keep writing, keep talking. That's the only way to fight you know, to not give in to the urge to be silent, to not isolate, to reach out and ask for help, even though there aren't many people to ask. It's hard. It's hard to reach out with both hands when you are being kicked and beaten by massive amounts of people. But if I can then you can too.

If you need help, if you need someone to reach down through the crowd and take your hand you just have to ask. I will help you, others will help you. It may be the hardest thing you have ever done, it may be the scariest, but it's also the bravest. The bravest thing you can do, sometimes, is live when everything in you tells you it's time to die. Life, living, takes great strength. You must find it within yourself, find that small kernel of hope and ask for help to live to see another day.

You can do this one small thing, you can.

A minute at a time, an hour, a morning, a day, a week, whatever you can muster. Just do that. Stay alive, ask for help, don't go another minute because you might not have another minute. Stay safe, stay alive, move forward and live your life that you have been blessed with, even if it seems more like a curse.