Life sucks. Life is
difficult and unfair, day in and day out we struggle. We all have good days and bad days and we
hope on hope on hope that our good days always outnumber the bad ones. The only way to get through is by trying, it’s
not something to be done alone. You have
to be open, to help, to change, and always understanding that nothing is
permanent. It’s important to have
friends to go through things with. There
have been a lot of military suicides lately and I’ve known a few of them. It may be scary to the average American that
we soldiers, the ones who are supposed to be tough, can have a moment of so
much weakness. It is infinitely scarier
for us. You have lifted us up and put us
on a pedestal and we relished in the idea so much so that when we have a moment
of weakness we have no idea how to handle it.
We lose our friends in combat and we understand it. It’s a death we know how to handle. When we lose them at home we don’t have any
way to deal with it, we don’t know how to understand it. We grieve for them but also wonder how they
got to a point so low that they saw no way out.
We wonder if it’s something that could happen to us. Some of us may even get to a point where our
thoughts are dark and our emotions are untethered and we’re frightened and
alone. We may be surrounded by people
but like a wounded animal, we will hide and seek solitude. We may make it through that rough night to
the morning but it drains us. It leaves
us mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. It’s not something you can do over and over
by yourself but even surrounded by people we still feel completely alone. This is when we have to make a decision, a
decision to reach out. Just like the
wounded animal, we heal much faster with help.
How can we convince ourselves to do this? We have a belief that the people who would
care would never understand and the people who would understand would never care. Sometimes we do things in our line of work
that are not in our nature as human beings.
That’s where we get the idea that people won’t understand, how could
they? We have to retrain ourselves to
know what the truth is and to believe it.
Those that understand will care greatly, because at some point they
reached out to someone too. I’ve had so
many highs and lows that I clearly see that no matter how trivial you may think
it is, there is someone out there who is concerned for your well-being. We suffer in silence and it’s a disservice to
the people who care about us. I struggle
with being an open enough person as well.
I am plenty open with the trivial things in my life until my low points
and then I don’t want to bother people with my problems. I realize it’s wrong but it’s what we all
do.
