Lets kick this story off.
It is the end of April 2018 and I am 30 000 ish feet in the air flying on a commercial flight to a meeting. I’ve settled in with my free coffee, head phones in and I decided to watch “American Sniper” by Clint Eastwood. seems like a good way to pass the flight away, or is it…..
As I would soon find out, Clint Eastwood can mess you up if you’re not expecting it. There I was, sitting in row 8, trying to cover up the fact that I am crying my eyes out and I have no idea why. After a few minutes I’m able to compose myself only to be plunged back into tears streaming down my face. I am panicked. Have people seen me crying? Why the hell am I crying? Screw you Clint Eastwood….. What he hell is going on?
Not sure what as happening, I composed myself and tried to figure out what was going on. Luckily, the flight was coming to an end and I was able to find an episode of Big Bang Theory to change things up. I was travelling with a co-worker and needed to get it together before landing as we still had a 2 hour drive to the meeting location.
The next day and a bit I kept it together, not letting on that something was wrong. Hell, I still didn’t know what was wrong so I just pretended like everything as okay. I guess it worked because nobody was the wiser. But, that’s actually something important to mention which I have come to learn. People dealing with PTSD are masters at hiding the fact that we are dealing with PTSD, or so we think. We tend to be able to throw on a masks and make everyone think all is good in the hood, so to speak. But those masks can only cover up for so long and only so much.
The morning before I flew back home I had a few moments of clarity partly brought on by a few glasses of beer, wine and the associated morning fuzzy head as a result. It hit me, February 2006. That’s what this is all about.
I then made the second hardest call of my life. I called the (Occupational Stress Injury) OSI Clinic to get help. I had cracked and I needed to get fixed, ASAP, before things got really out of hand. Luckily, I was guided by a few very awesome people who led me to make a call to Breakwater Institute (see my resource page) and it turned out to be the best call I could have made. So, you are thinking to yourself, if reaching out for help was only the second hardest call you made, what is the hardest?
Let me tell you what the hardest call to make was. It was the call I made from the airport to my wife to tell her I cracked and needed help. It was hard because I had to admit that I wasn’t strong enough to do this anymore. I had to tell one of the most important people in my life that I needed help. It was also in that moment that I made a decision to bring my family into this Journey. As it turns out, it was probably the best decision I would make.
Cracked Badge 