We are thrilled to share another piece from one of our writers who submitted to the annual WGI Invite to Write Challenge!
For this year, we asked our talented cohort to create a new piece on this prompt: Write a story where the end is also the beginning.
Next up, we will share Neil Chandler’s piece entitled, “Still Alive.” Stay tuned, as we will continue sharing the submissions throughout the fall!
Still Alive
It was June 2008; I had recently returned from deployment into Afghanistan where I worked at the Base Airport handling all cargo and passengers in and out of country and the surrounding Forward Operating Base. I had the opportunity to witness many great things that the US was doing for the people and the infrastructure, things that you never saw or heard in the news. During my time there we were under constant attacks, and it was nerve wrecking. We were still required to conduct operations as normal even through some of these attacks, running to the bunkers became a daily drill and after a while some individuals to include myself became numb to these daily attacks and didn’t bother running to the bunkers anymore.
When I got home, a lot of things didn’t make sense to me anymore, unbeknownst to me at the time I was super vigilant and nervous around crowds, I also started drinking heavily as a coping mechanism, it got to the point that in 2009 my family and I went to Disney on a family vacation and I ruined that vacation for them because I was so paranoid about the crowds and everyone having backpacks. Eventually my wife asked me to go to marriage therapy to which I was shocked. I didn’t believe that there was anything wrong with me or our marriage but finally I agreed to attend the marriage counseling appointment whereby at the first visit the Therapist diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)…this was something that I vehemently denied and fought against as it could mean the end of my military career! In November of 2009 I was in a very bad state of mind, and it would eventually lead to me wanting to end my life. I had it all planned out, I went in my closet with a shower curtain on the floor and had my rifle in my mouth ready to pull the trigger when I heard my kids school bus pull up in front of the house to let them off and I realized that they would hear the sound of the gun and would be the ones to find me, I had somehow forgot that the kids would be home before their mom. This stopped me from pulling the trigger as I didn’t want them to find me like that. I quickly put everything away and hid the gun. I never told anyone about that for a very long time.
I didn’t know this at the time but there was an order that came down through military channels that PTSD was not an acceptable diagnosis and that records should contain Anxiety and Depression as the diagnosis instead as the military was not admitting that service members were coming home with PTSD. I have two pieces of paper with the original diagnosis of PTSD then every record after that for the next few years stated that I was being treated for anxiety and depression. After the attempted suicide I accepted the fact that I needed help desperately and actively sought help. I was eventually placed on seven different medications to help with the nightmares, anxiety, depression and numbness.
This started my journey of being over medicated, soon I was just plugging along not being present mentally and the drinking continued though I was now hiding it. I was home for a period so I always made sure that the house was cleaned and supper was made then I would drink until I passed out. I would argue with my wife and yell at the kids constantly, I couldn’t function at home. I never mentioned this to my wife (she probably still doesn’t know) but I started actively looking for opportunities to deploy again, I needed to get back to some type of functionality and I thought that I could only do this away from her and the kids, I was broken and didn’t know it or didn’t want to admit it at the time.
2010 the military moved us to a different State, I thought this would be a fresh start for us, new location, new friends, new house sounded great. I was experiencing physical and mental pain, I didn’t know what to do. I suffered from an untreated injury from Afghanistan and had lost all feelings in my right arm, I was now on 12 different prescribed medication and was misusing it to deal with the mental and physical anguish on top of the alcohol. June of 2011, I underwent surgery to fuse C5-C6 in my neck, this was a painful recovery, but I got through it and did all the recommended physical therapy to get back to military status. Dec 2011, I received orders to deploy again into Afghanistan.
I left my family 3 days before Christmas and flew into Afghanistan, the very first day I was there we came under attack, I was in full blown panic mode but thankfully no one saw me in that state of mind. I quickly pulled myself together and made it through the rest to the deployment. Immediately upon returning home I sought help for I didn’t want a reoccurrence with happened with my family and I after the last deployment. I got in trouble with my Command for seeking help as they didn’t agree with me doing so. This started a new round of therapy and would eventually lead to another suicide attempt as old wounds were reopened at a time when I didn’t know how to deal with it. This time I talked to my wife and my therapist about it and we processed it together. After that last attempt in 2014 I made a promise to my wife that I would never do that again and has kept that promise. To this day I’m glad I made that decision as it started me down a path of healing and allowed me to rebuild relationships with my wife and kids.
