I feel like I spent a lot of time preparing for our union.  I read the books and went to the classes.  I tried to prepare myself, but when it came down to actually meeting you head on, I was scared.  I felt like that 5 year old waiting to open the door to the classroom that very first day of class.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I assumed we would have our brief encounter and then I could move on and carry on with my life.  I never knew how much you would affect my life.  And now, as I read about how we are over, I am sad and I am mourning, and yet, I am also proud to say I was one whose life was touched by you.

In January 2003 I deployed right outside of Iraq.  I was so nervous about what was about to be happening.  We all knew what was going to happen as far as another war breaking out.  I felt proud to have been selected to join the first wave of the war.  I remember vividly sitting to dinner in the chow hall watching on the local TV (not in english obviously!) the first bombings on Baghdad.  I felt a little conflicted.  I looked around at the third country nationals who worked at the chow hall to see their reactions.  I was concerned about them and how they would be looking at us.  I assume that some had families over there since we were so close to the border.  I remember watching the days leading up to the “shock and awe” and the interviews we saw on BBC of the Iraqi people who doubted that they would be bombed.  I felt a pang of hurt in my chest knowing that there were probably a lot of families greatly affected by the events I was watching.  We sat in disbelief that March evening.

My relationship with the war in Iraq has been draining.  I left my little white house in Georgia as a 22 year old woman, and some how, I left something behind on each deployment.  I left some of the innocence I see in other women my age.  I came back home with the realization that anyone, and everyone, has a capacity to be cruel, hurtful, spiteful, cold, callus, and completely void of characteristics which make us decent humans.  I have witnessed otherwise faithful men throw out their sacred vows, I have felt the wrath of an otherwise decent person.  I have heard the slurs that most wouldn’t dare let pass their lips.  I feel like I have seen true hate and true evil.

Now, here I am 9 years later, a 31 year old woman.  I am bitter and angry.  I am emotionally numb to almost everyone (my children get what little love I have inside to share).  I have a hard time feeling the pain of others.  I feel both owed, and undeserving.  I destroy relationships, including the one with myself.  I have nightmares, I scream in my sleep.  I wake up almost every morning trying to recover from my night.  Whenever you see me out, I could tell you all the ways we could die in that location.  I know what it is like to write your last letter home because you are pretty sure you are going to die soon (right before our communications black out at the start).  To say I am changed is an understatement.  I am gone.  I am lost.  I am alone.

Watching the recent news about the war being over has brought up so many feelings and emotions in me.  If the war is over then why are so many people (my brother included) still deployed?  I realize this “war is over” business is just a way to make the American people feel better.  Give them nice warm fuzzy feelings.  It doesn’t actually mean anything.  You don’t honestly think we are completely out do you?  And this also brings up my question, what has changed in these 9 years that can justify all those who didn’t make it home?  Maybe things are better for the people there, I don’t know, but what was the cost to us?

So I guess, like with all relationships, there comes a time when one changes.  I suppose that this is the big change.  What do I do now?  It’s so weird and twisted to grieve over the end of a war that has caused so much pain and heartache for those who were touched by it.

My big brother is deployed which I am having a hard time with.  I go from avoiding and being in denial about it, to uncontrollably crying, to trying to figure out what I can send him to make life a little easier for him.  So much has changed since I last deployed though!  I am heartbroken for his wife and kids too.  I couldn’t imagine leaving my kids for a year.  It has to be hard.

We just purchased another house too so we get to move again.  This should be the last move for a while though.. I hope!  While I am excited about the move, I am stressed about the commitment of buying the house and I am stressed about how much it will cost every month.  Bear should LOVE it though because it has a pool!  I will have to take and post video when summer hits and he gets to jump in and play!

I was supposed to go back to school too but with Jonah not sleeping through the night, I just don’t see how it would be possible to go to school with little to no sleep every night!  On top of that, I wanted to change my major to Early Childhood education so that when Jonah starts school I can try my hand at substitute teaching.  I would like the flexibility of taking jobs when I need them without being tied down to a full time position.  I figure that having a BA in education would open more doors at schools and I would have a better chance at picking my jobs.  I don’t know.

I will try to post again on New Years Eve (as I have done in the past few years) to recap our year.  And what a year it has been!  I will also get some Bear pictures up.  I think maybe some nice pictures at his new home will be nice.  We are set to close on our house on the 28th of this month.  **fingers crossed**

The article is long but there looks to be a lot of hope for those of us who have tried all other routes (or many other routes anyway).  If I thought he would do it (the shots) then I would pack up my car and drive to Chicago for them.  The idea of having less stress without relying on benzodiazepines is very appealing to me.  I tend to have a high tolerance for most medications to start with so it seemed like I was taking a decent amount with not a whole lot of relief from the start with the benzos.

So, please check out the article here- http://www.stripes.com/doctor-ptsd-injection-can-work-miracles-but-dod-won-t-fund-it-1.156866, and let me know what you think… Is this the future of PTSD?  Or no?

I do hope that those who come here leave with more knowledge, compassion, and understanding the daily workings of post traumatic stress and those who live with it.  I hope that someone who is in denial (as I was for so long) may come here and find that what they are going through does have a name, and that it’s not “just them”.

With all that being said, I am about to close this post and start a new one about the possible future of PTSD treatments.  Thank you to all those who read this blog and share it.  :o)

The best example I have of this is when I pray.  I have never been an overly religious person and wasn’t raised in a house that was either, so I have no idea how to talk to God or how to pray.  I went to church on 9.11.11 because I was certainly spiritually on empty (despite attending church regularly).  We were asked to bow our heads in silent prayer.  I hate those times because I spend the entire time not know what to say or how to say it.  This time though, we were asked to pray for those who were killed and pray for their families.  When I had no words, I just pictured a huge angel with its wings wrapped around a large mass of people.  From that time, I really felt like I could just picture the angel embracing whoever I am praying for.  The embrace signifies warmth and comfort and protection.. I feel like everything that I could have said is summed up in that mental image of the large angel.

I realized this morning though, I have never imagined or pictured any angels with their wings wrapped around me.  I feel so emotionally raw right now, and I think that the idea of such a pure embrace would be equivalent of how my newborn feels when he is tired and hungry and his mommy picks him up, wraps him snug, and attends to his needs.  He feels safe and comfortable and he can feel my love through my arms.  Much the same as how I come to God scared and hungry and tired.  I need him embrace but don’t know how to ask for it.  I don’t know why I always get embarrassed speaking of God or religious things.  I guess because I wasn’t really exposed to it much.  The most religious I got prior to this past year (Since January when we started at church) was on my deployments.  But it isn’t right to only be religious when you think you are going to die.  You should be religious when things are good and when things are happy.  You shouldn’t just turn to God when everything falls apart, you should be there when things are going great as well, at least to give thanks!

Today, and hopefully for a while, I will try to include myself in the warm embrace.

This time around I am again breastfeeding and I am attending church twice a week, (one for the main Sunday service and another day doing a Mom’s group for 2 hours on Wednesdays).  I am trying to take care of myself the best I can and I am of course taking good care of my newborn boy.  However, I have this sinking feeling that I will not be so lucky this time as to escape it.

I seem to have this thirst for companionship.  I don’t want to be alone, it is too sad.  I want so much for my significant other to want to be with me and to spend time with me.  I feel like he should just know that this is such a delicate time for me and that he should just want to spend the time with me.  I hardly see him as it is though.  I also find it more hurtful that it seems like so few people care to see my baby or even so much as ask about it.  I am sure it’s the hormones, but when we went through everything in the hospital, I guess I just thought more people would call or something to make sure both of us were okay.  I had an iron level in the 6′s and honestly felt like a horse in a pasture looking for a place to lay down and die.  I am sad that no one seemed to care.  Or that no one cared when my baby had to stay an extra day.  I am thankful that we are both fine, but it still makes me sad.  It makes me sad that we are home and everyone is just sort of going on about their business like nothing happened… Like I didn’t just bring a baby home.  I feel like everyone sees him as my responsibility, as though I went to the pet store and brought home a puppy to take care of.  I feel like I am asking a huge favor when I get other people to change his diaper.  **I must add this, my mother has been great about all of this, pretty much spending every spare minute at my house helping me with him!**

I am running on so little sleep and so many emotions.  I am sure that is why I feel this way.  I feel like every day I have to make the choice to stay here.  Every day I want to get in my car and drive away and not look back.  This in turn makes me feel even worse because who would leave their three kids behind?  Not me!  I just keep thinking in the back of my head how they deserve a better mother than me and that if I just left, then their dad could find a better replacement.  Then they could just grow up to hate me, but at least they will have had a normal childhood.

My oldest son asks me all the time if I got this scar or that scar in the war.  I don’t know why he is on this kick.  I think his dad said something to him, possibly about how I was acting at some point or something, but he probably told my son more than I am comfortable with a 6 year old knowing.  It is so easy for this group of people in my life to forget (or simply not care) that I was a different person before.  I did things differently.  I woke up and went to work every day.  I went to shop parties, squadron picnics.  We played pranks on the new Airmen (like going in the dark room, opening film, placing a hand on it, flipping the light on quick and processing it.. Showing it to newbie and convince them that we must have x-rayed our hand.. haha!  Or NDIing a new sheet metal guys boots and telling him the steel toe was cracked and he needed a new pair). I bowled on our squadron bowling league.  I even attempted to play basketball during one of the family fun days!  <- My co-worker Shakon and I signed up but oh darn.. we were late… lol!  I had my group of friends I hung out with on weekends.  I threw pretty cool keg parties (I think they were cool anyway!) and I really enjoyed my life.  My transition from active duty to this has been very hard and having almost no connection to my old life is even harder.

I love my three kids and couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without them, and I wouldn’t even want to imagine it… but I can’t help but wonder how I got so lost in all of this.  Had I not had the kids, where would I be?  I probably wouldn’t be married or even living in the state I am living in.  I think I would have gone back home to Colorado.  Would I have found my old high school friends?  Would I have reconnected with people from my past?  I don’t necessarily think that I would have been happier or better off.  I think I have an amazing life here with my husband and kids, but I can’t help but wonder.  This is certainly NOT the life I would have expected for myself.  I saw myself, by 31, in a great and secure job.  I thought I would have a group of friends that I would go after work and grab dinner with or something.  I never thought I would be sitting around, at home, with three kids.  I never thought my life would reach the point where going to get coffee from the Target snack bar was the highlight of my day.  God I just get teary eyed realizing how absolutely pathetic that is.

I don’t think I will ever be a suicide risk.  I have always been more concerned that I would just leave and not come back.  I love life too much to end it.  I get sad, and I get down, but I do love life.  I just don’t know where I am going with mine.  I feel so lost and there’s no map for me… I think about what would happen if I did just up and leave.  I can always think of a reason to stay though, which is probably why I am still here.  I know it would break my kids hearts and probably give them some issues of abandonment.  That’s pretty much all that has kept me from leaving.  I couldn’t take them because I know they need their dad.

I am constantly trying to get work.  I apply and interview, but not having worked in over 6 years makes it pretty hard to get my foot in the door.  I also don’t want to get a “job”… I am looking for what I had in the Air Force.  A family type environment.  I have been in and out of college and still have no clue what I want to do.  Every year that passes makes it that much harder for me.  Knowing I have wasted even more time.

I wish I had some sort of talent or some sort of skill.  I feel like I don’t have the respect of some family because I am not employed.  I feel like it is all too easy to look at me and wonder why I don’t work.  I feel like people (not just family) think I married who I married so I wouldn’t have to work.  I feel like a leach in my family and I feel like I drain resources.  This all takes me back full circle wishing I had been there when we were hit in Iraq.  I really should have been checking my inventory like I always did on deployments or TDYs.  I was so anal about my equipment (anyone who has been around Bear and I KNOWS I am anal about my responsibilities!!) and although I was the one who packed it, I always, first thing, took out my things, checked that everything was still working, made sure I still had everything.  I was somewhat organized like that.  Why I walked away when I did I will never know, but it has been one of the things I regret the most.  It probably saved my life, but it is still one of my biggest regrets.  If I hadn’t walked away, and managed to live, then I feel like people would be able to SEE the damage that was done to me.  I feel like if the hurt was visible, then people wouldn’t think some of the things they think.

Sometimes I think I would fit in better with a different crowd.  Not the crowd I am in now.  Not in one where everyone is so highly educated.  My husband holds a doctorates and I dropped out after 10th grade.  I feel like I keep striving to fit in to a group I will never belong in.  I feel like it is painfully obvious how much I don’t belong here.  His other kids both hold degrees.  He comes from a family where everyone went to college.. I come from a family that has very few degree holding members (though I think my family is amazing.. even if it is a somewhat different breed!).  I belong in the group where I can be me without having to beg.  If I want to dye my hair pink, people who truly KNOW me, know how normal that is for me.  Until I joined the Air Force I sported black or purple hair and wore an eyebrow ring.  I got tattoos and rode on backs of motorcycles.  Now I am wearing penny loafers (got them at a consignment store), driving a minivan (btw, my minivan rocks, so that’s not a stab at it.. I have THREE different screens to watch TV in there, sunroof, in car TV, a million buttons for things I haven’t even figured out yet.. lol!), buying Banana Republic and trying to make home cooked meals.  This is NOT the Aimee that any of my friends know!!  This isn’t even an Aimee I know!

Well my newest family member is calling my name (“whaah”) so I should put an end to this post.  Congrats if you made it through it all.

I am certainly a fighter for things, but at some point, I give up.  I accept it is what it is.  I retreat into myself.  There is no more time or opportunity to talk because I have already made up my mind who is “safe” and who isn’t.  I have yet to find the “safe” person (if Bear were a person, he would certainly be “safe”).  Part of me is sad that the fight is gone in me, but part of me just can’t take it any more.  When I am able to stop begging for things to be different, and I am able to just worry about myself (and obviously my kids) then I know I will feel a weight lifted.  I know many think I am a selfish person, and I agree to a point that I am selfish.  I want to make peace with myself and it seems I will do that at all costs, but I am also selfless a lot of the time.  I don’t speak up when some things bother me because I feel like it isn’t my place to stop people from enjoying what it is they enjoy.  But when my silence leads to so much pain, I just have to speak my peace, and move on- realizing that I cannot change people.  I can’t live in this never ending cycle.  I stepped off the merry-go-round and am now just focusing on myself and my family.

I think in the short term, being close with someone or having a group of people I am close to can be beneficial but I feel in the long term, it isn’t plausible for me.  I will always be waiting for my weaknesses to be used against me (even if it never happens) or I will spend so much time concerned about who I am not and not enough time nurturing who I am.

I apologize if this blog post is rambling, I am going on 2 hours or so of sleep. (newborn at home..)