I'm a writer. So I should write.

It's been 107 days since I last opened this blog, and even then, it was just to post something "safe" I'd written while I was in the PTSD version of rehab. I had to look that number up. I actually had to look up today's date, which of course is a bit more confusing when it's well past 3am, and my circadian rhythm is lost somewhere between Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Germany. All places I've been in the past 12 days. If I counted from the beginning of this year alone, I could add Georgia, Florida, and England. If I project my count through the end of the second month of 2013, I could add France and who knows where else. I have 17 days left and, well, if the past almost two years have taught me anything, the lesson left is that anything is possible.

There's a lot I don't say in a public blog that's visible to the universe. There's a lot I won't say for a while longer. There's a lot I won't say ever. Maybe even to those who know me best. And before this one, there are 96 very factual posts, wherein I've been very careful not to allow feelings or emotions to seep in to muck everything up. And there are hundreds of other times where I skipped writing all together because it was easier than talking about what was truly happening around me. And how it felt to live in that moment.

But there are two things people have said to me during the past few weeks that made me want to write more than I've wanted to write since I was hunkered down in my shipping container in Afghanistan, feeling like a war reporter documenting the most precious seconds of the world's most exciting battle. Feeling important. And wanted. And significant.

I was standing on the East Orange platform, waiting for New Jersey Transit to whisk me away into Manhattan. I'd spent the evening before with a dear friend, perhaps one of my closest. The one who helped me accept the brutal fact that my Air Force career would have a Plan B ending vice the one I may have imagined 15 or so years ago when I started this journey. She and I reminisced over Indian food, sharing maybe 60 way-too-short minutes together, coming some three and a half years after our last in-person visit. I've learned not to think of time in that way. Calendars don't matter. But even in life experience, three and a half years (or perhaps three and a half hours) are a remarkably long measure of time for me. Though in that moment, or in those 360-odd moments, the world had somehow stood still, and I was the 23 year old girl who wanted to take on the world. It's amazing to have friends on whom such magical moments are not lost.

My friend's husband and their 5-year old son took me to the station in the morning to catch the 9:07. I was dragging an unreasonably shaped and sized piece of luggage...plum purple and as close to 70 pounds as the airlines would allow. Traveling terrifies me now, but there I was, standing on the platform with my trademark latte in one hand and this unruly disaster in the other. He could sense I was mortified by the idea of going into Manhattan. And he asked, innocently, "Are you writing? I loved reading your blog."

I can't remember how I responded. I can't remember if I managed to hold back the tears until I disappeared into the train car soon to become one of 1.6 million Manhattanites, if only for a few hours. But I do remember responding. "No, I just can't yet. It's still..." and then letting my voice fade off.

Just look at that one paragraph. Two sentences. Both of them say "I can't." That's the easy answer. I can't. But the hard answer, the true answer, is that I won't. Because I am fully armed with every damn excuse in the book on why I deserve a break, and then another break, and then even one more after that. PTSD has become my excuse to stop being, instead giving me permission to rely on how content I am to just slide by. To survive. I let it, this stupid "illness" and the corresponding medications, consume me. And on the other end, I'm no better than any alcoholic or addict, waiting for my next fix. Counting the 12 hours until the next set of pills, and blaming my self-destruction, though relatively harmless all things considered (unless we're talking about the fat, medium and skinny sized jean collection I've now amassed), on "side effects." And I have found a "side effect" for damn near anything.

Closer to 10 days ago, I was in an elevator in San Antonio wearing my Wounded Warrior jacket. I was in Texas to take care of some final business with the Air Force...to look at my official personnel record and talk with a few experts about the future (or quite honestly, the end) of my career. San Antonio is the epicenter of my profession, and also home to the Air Force's largest hospital, with tremendous programs to support our Airmen who come home from Afghanistan suffering the physical wounds of war. The girl in the elevator was maybe eight or nine years old. She looked at me, looked at my jacket, and asked, innocently, "Why are you a Wounded Warrior?"

Simple enough question. But what it felt like she was asking was "How long are you going to hide behind the logo on your jacket and the diagnosis in your record?" And I guess then, in due course, my answer should have been "Until a nine year old calls me out on it."

Which happened approximately 10 days ago, and I suppose is truly sinking in now that I've spent at least 60 of the past 72 hours asleep in bed, overwhelmed by self-induced exhaustion. Exhaustion that came as a result of running like hell to pretend like the last two years never happened. That if "the doctors" would just find the right combination of pills, or "the Air Force" would just figure out how to take better care of me, or "my friends" would stop disappearing. It was always "them." "They" needed to fix this because "they" made it happen. I didn't take any blame because, well, there was none there for me to claim. In my mind, that is.

This morning feels like the beginning of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. "My name is Lisa and I have PTSD." Then people respond with "Hi, Lisa" and we all move on. Somewhere in Utah, a therapist named Amy just heard me say that, and I heard her squeal with excitement from several thousand miles away.

No, I'm not going to walk around making that proclamation to everyone I meet. I said it here. That's enough. It's an illness. Not an excuse. So this game of chicken I'm playing with the blog. Enough. Writers write. And I'm a writer. So I should write. Runners run. I'm a runner so I should run. And humans, we make mistakes. I've made plenty. Not the least of which is neglecting one of the things that held me together through all of this madness...my words. Time to move on.

So there. I have a voice. And I found it. Again. Writers write. And I'm a writer. So I should write.

Thank you, Mr. Ebert

Written 4 October 2012 while in treatment in Salt Lake City. Some names have been adjusted (or omitted) to respect the privacy of those with whom I have spent my life, my deployment, or my time in treatment

Paging my Inner Critic. Maybe that's all I've done (or even all I've known) for ages. Ages sounds vague. It's all I've known for the past 25 years, give or take. It was originally some type of covenant I entered into with myself..."good enough", "smart enough", skinny enough." None of them had definite solutions to solve the equation...and perhaps that was on purpose. It was never "all 'As' plus valedictorian of my high school equals smart enough." It, I, was all about leaving enough room to deem myself a complete failure due to lack of proper goal-setting (without knowing that was in fact what I was doing). My definite "valedictorian" thought would fit too nicely into a box where it was possible to either succeed or fail. Black or white. But quickly I discovered I would fail repeatedly if I agreed to live in the grey...where there were no feelings of failure or inadequacy...just a tiny bit of sadness for not being "perfect." Tiny. That even looks funny. I was (and maybe partially still am) too strong to have emotions. And I still live in the grey, judging myself in the black and white...my own personal prison.

That's the critic. If I show emotions, I'm a failure. It's my fault if people get annoyed with me, and I'll take it personally every single time. The critic is also the person who points out the problems (the obvious problems) in ugly situations...and then points them out again and again until I think someone is getting the message. They (the "people") never seem to get "it," whatever "it" is. Then I become critical of myself for not communicating "it" properly. "Is it just me who thinks 14 mental health patients wandering a zoo full of people and animals under the supervision of one, single (inexperienced) therapist is unsafe?"

The answer is no, it's not just me. That is actually unsafe. Stupidly unsafe and scary, when I was one of those patients, prone to an anxiety attack at any time with no access to either a therapist or proper medication. And when I have a thought like that ("This is irresponsible"), I won't let it go (whatever the thought is) go unless someone else (who I trust...which leaves the list unbearably short) validates it. I am my own worst critic. I made decisions in Afghanistan for which I still punish myself. Every day. Even though I know the decisions were made with honest intentions and led to positive outcomes that were impossible through any other means (or anyone else's decision making). I thought I would die in combat. Some days I wished for that. So I figured doing what felt like the right thing was worth the risk 100% of the time. I see now that was a bit extreme, though quite suiting.

That Inner Critic is a strong, willful son-of-a-bitch. And taming that thing will take...is taking...significant effort (and will also, perhaps, require some type of miracle).

Only 1% of the United States population has served in our nation's Armed Forces. Of those, far fewer have ever seen combat up-close-and-personal (on the ground, looking into the eyes of family members whose families and friends have been killed by NATO bombs dropping from fighter aircraft in the sky). Not many people, particularly those of a female persuasion, have been outside-the-wire regularly, hanging out around landmines and human bombs. Of those significantly limiting factors, so many fewer are in the United States Air Force. Now that we're down to a tiny, almost impossible to capture under any circumstances, kind of number, it's time for me to admit that not a single anyone lived in my exact same circumstances in either training or Afghanistan itself, had an identical past and could possibly understand why I chose to make (m)any of the decisions I did while I was there. Forming the closest team on the camp. Running humanitarian missions on our days off. Hosting Hell's Kitchen nights. Creating team dinners. Working with Julia, my interpreter (and her family). Meeting with local families, especially the widowed women managing households of up to 30 young children where running water, electricity and even furniture didn't exist.

I'm the only (or perhaps my worst) critic over the implosion of my (second) marriage. Those who know and love me best understand (somewhat) how I got to this place (admittedly not entirely through "good" and "traditional" decisions) and understand that I'm here because that's what I needed to do for myself...not because I wanted to hurt someone who cared for me deeply. There are some people (okay, many people) to whom I have not told the full story (and perhaps I never will), because I fear their criticism (or rejection) when in fact the truth is that if those people chose to leave me based on my decision (or my recent string of decisions) to make myself happy, they probably should not have been an intimate part of my life in the first place. And I need to be able to say that and mean it. With absolute certainty. Full confidence, as Julia called it. I'm not there yet. I'm hiding behind a protective veil of silence. And that may continue for some time.

It still feels like I always need to be the smartest. Like that's the only way I will "matter." Or maybe it's that I need to be the most clever...that's a bit more likely. I found the funniest book about a guy who tried to read the Encyclopedia Britannica page-to-page from volumes A - Z. While I commend him for making the choice to read the written, verified version (vice relying on Wikipedia) it was through that book I could recognize that being a "know it all" is a show without a star. I know a little bit about a lot of things. I wish I knew more about a few things. There are tons of people who are less intelligent than I...and likewise there are plenty of people whose intelligence I could never dream to match. I know that. My brain knows that. But when I find myself in a bad situation, feeling powerless and helpless, I suddenly define myself as the stupidest ("why don't I know what to do here?"), fattest ("I look terrible in this outfit and no one is saying anything because they don't want to hurt me") and meanest ("I bet her life is worse than mine.") I hate those natural reactions.

I have plenty of flaws, and it's easy for me to overlook the reality that other people have flaws (and are allowed and expected to have flaws), too. I criticize myself for my "imperfections" rather than embracing them. ("What's to embrace about imperfection?") I think any personal failure is marked with big red and white target so that everyone can see the ugly flaw just as clear as day. It's not like that for real (is it?) But to me, it's as real as real can be. I need to get over that. I want to get over that.

I also need (and want) my Inner Critic to learn how to see (and to embrace) the good things in other people and situations. Before I came to Salt Lake City, I could see the good in people for a fleeting moment. During my stay, I've learned to see the good for a few minutes at a time. In the future, I hope to be able to find the good before I find (and get stuck on) the bad. Or to hold on to the good for more than a fleeting moment.

So that's the Inner Critic. The one who sees the fleeting moment and lets it go. And what I want more than most things in the world is to turn the volume down on the Inner Critic and to embrace the positive, fleeting moments so that they're a little less fleeting. Okay, so they're a lot less fleeting.

I want to understand that it's okay to accept things (any kind of things) the way they are in the moment. To accept that my unrelenting standards need not apply to every (or really any) situation or person in my life. Actually, I should probably also stop applying then to myself. I really love a line I came across at some point during my treatment: "What if I accepted that the 80% solution provided me with more time to pursue the things I love?" It just never occurred to me that such imperfection was possible, acceptable, and (God forbid) productive.

It also never occurred to me that my truest, closest friends don't need to know every single detail about me or my life. Even if I think they're my closest friends in the universe. I don't need their affirmation that pursuing a second divorce was the right (albeit painful) decision to make for myself. I love him. I will always love him for his determination to give me the life he wanted to give me (and that I thought I wanted). A life full of beautiful things. Beautiful experiences and marvelous adventures. I love him for trying to figure out how to make me happy (when I refused to tell him what would truly make me happy because I didn't know how to express such "normal" feelings). How to buy me the happiness I couldn't seem to find on my own. I love him for trying as hard as he knew how to be a good companion. He's a good person who married and lived with a partner he could and would not ever be able to understand (in retrospect, because I wasn't able or willing to be understood by him). The critic in me wants to blame the whole collapse on him. But it's not just him. It might not be any bit his fault. It's not fair for me, the ultimate critic, to assign blame and fault here or ever.

The critic in me calls that a failed marriage. The critic in me assumes that everyone, any stranger on the street, will judge me for failing. And sure, maybe it was failure. But it's only failure if I let it be, and if I let the feeling of failure define me. The details will only be known (and potentially criticized) if I talk about them. And really, there's no reason to judge my past decisions unless I want to keep paying for them forever. Yes, I've made bad decisions. I'm human. And I don't want (or deserve) to keep paying for them. I say that now, after being  on the outside of reality for six weeks, isolated from the "regular" critical traps of Facebook, email, work, and separated from those critics in my life who tend to make me feel like my life is a movie written and produced for their enjoyment.

I have held onto the Inner (and outer) Critic since that dinner around age, maybe, seven. Then I felt powerless, hurt and weak. Feelings I didn't know how to explain at the time. Someone who was suppose to love me and take care of me didn't know how to show or feel emotion, and had no idea what a huge impact criticism had on me. I look like me father. I think like my father. And to my father, I was an invisible child. I feel hints of the same now. The Inner Critic developed to protect me from feeling even more hurt. To fill a void that no one would ever be able to fill because I would never allow such a thing to happen.

That critic constantly reminds me that I am not good enough. Encourages me to point out the gaps in my knowledge about the world. Reminds me of how, even though I have disliked Air Force culture since the first year I joined, I've still never worked hard enough. Never achieved enough. Scolds me for being 33, twice divorced and childless...all by choice. Punishes me for not knowing how to express emotion. Blocks out feelings of longing, sadness, frustration and disappointment for the things I haven't done as well as I should have. As I could have. As other people have done.

I've held onto the critic for 30 something conscious years to give myself an excuse to avoid pursuing my dreams. For giving up my dream of photographing the world. For giving up my dream of writing. For giving up my dream of practicing yoga regularly or going to cooking school. For surrendering my dream to empower women who live in situations I could never fathom...at least before Afghanistan. Hard to imagine that in about eight months, I may be able ("allowed") to do all those things...and more...in my post-Air Force life.

I've criticized myself for years. Decades. For trying to please other people. For giving up on my own hopes and dreams and relying instead on others...most of whom I've never met...to draw the road map to my future. For making my decisions. For monitoring me as I toe the line.

For years, I've handed my power over to whoever wanted to take it. To my parents. To my friends. Or "friends." To the Air Force. Sometimes to perfect strangers. Those aren't toasts...they're lamentations. When I didn't want to commit to making my own decisions, plenty of others were standing by ready to pounce like lions, roaring in my face (though maybe just in my head) about how every decision I made (or was making)  was "wrong"...and I let them be correct. I couldn't defend my decisions because I'd never consciously made them. So I took the criticism. And I gave it back to the world through anger.

I can't wait to leave here. To leave Salt Lake City. I can't wait to drive through the streets, up the mountains, sprinkling the ashes of the cremated inner critic and trying to learn how to live past that person. That negative energy. That overwhelming, heartbreakingly heavy sadness. And to abandon it here, so that I can hope to fill that empty, lonely space with the happiness and worthiness I had always imagined but could never really comprehend.

It won't appear tomorrow...that happiness. But not there's an empty space (available, even). A framework. Into which happiness has a place (and the permission) to grow.

I don't miss (or I should say I won't miss) the Inner Critic. I won't miss the feeling of my heart being ripped out of my chest over each "wrong" decision. Instead, I look forward to the warmth, the passion, the contentment I can feel when I make decisions that feel "right." At least right by me. And in the end, now that I'm 33 and finally ready, my own "right" decisions are what are most important to me.

The Road to Somewhere

I'm really struggling to positively summarize the past six weeks of my life (spent in an inpatient treatment facility for PTSD in Salt Lake City) after gaining a reputation of being overly negative. I'm not so sure that's actually the problem. I'm far more confident that the reason I'm struggling for words is that I'm absolutely heartbroken that I used every chip in my power to come to a center that became (or that I allowed to become) a disappointment. Or maybe it wasn't. I'm hurting in ways I've never hurt before, I've excavated deep-seeded emotions I'd buried for years and years, and most significantly I fear I've let myself, my command and even Tricare down for costing them such a huge fortune (over $2,200 a day) for me to receive care over the past few weeks.

Unlike the girls whose final statements (their parting words before leaving the treatment program) I heard a week or two after I arrived here, mine is incredibly unsupportive and untrustworthy of "the process" of treatment (how me) and much more determined that the only way I survived in a flawed institution was to rely on my own internal strength and to allow myself push like crazy.

To force myself not to give up. In this all-female military unit, I dug into my reservoir of internal strength to ignore the "teenage drama queens," constantly passing notes during the 8 daily hours of classes. I wish I could have learned from them. Instead I learned that when military women are wounded early in their careers, they respond by acting out like children, and it breaks my heart to be an audience to such sadness.

I watched an over-tasked program director take the same feedback from us, her patients, for the past five weeks (the treadmill's broken, we can't call Germany, and how much is this "treatment" actually costing my government, plus about 20 more...) and not solve or follow-up on a single one of them. The person in whose care the Department of Defense has placed me in my most vulnerable state did not make any visible effort to show that she genuinely cared about what we, the girls who brought in almost $40,000 a day to her program, begged her to address. Another round of heartbreak.

That's a tough cookie to swallow for me, a girl wounded by war, sexual trauma, and finally willing to face some long-lingering abandonment issues. To feel forgotten in a hospital with absolutely no way to leave was scary and isolating to an extreme I'd never envisioned. Or felt. To be dumped by my best friend while I've been here (by email, of course, saying that our 18 year friendship interfered with his marriage) and to sign final divorce papers after a very tumultuous past few months. And to be willing to rip my heart open every day in class only to re-discover each day that the program didn't have (or want to have) the resources I so desperately wanted to put myself back together into anything resembling an organized fashion.

I can now recognize that good things have happened here, and I truly believe they happened as a result of the Cognitive Processing Therapy (the fancy name for teaching PTSD patients to change their thinking patterns) and because of Amy, my therapist's, unrelenting determination to push me past every limit I thought I had. How I never ran out of tears blows my mind. That goodness happened in spite of the broken system in which she works. It's all out on the table now. I know. I believe my trauma is no better (or worse) than any one else's. But it is mine. And I guess now it's wrapped in a package with a nicer bow.

I came here feeling like a failure, and there are certainly still hints of that. But just hints. Looking back, there are times in the past when I wish I would have been stronger. Or weaker. Or cried. Or just let it go. I started doing that here. There have been times (even here) when I've felt defective, like every patient (all 17 of them) was "getting it" (whatever "it" was, anyway) and I was stuck alone in a dark, empty place. Perhaps by choice.

There were times here when I slept for hours, somehow allowing the burden of the past 10 years or so slide through my toes and out from under my thin, white institutional bed sheets. Or when I've been in yoga, holding downward facing dog or shavasana, tears streaming down my face, knowing that it's not strength that's kept these feelings of hurt, betrayal, sadness and frustration buried so deep. It's been fear. Fear of not knowing how to deal with feelings in a constructive way. Fear of allowing...maybe even inviting...someone to love me unconditionally. Fear that when I admitted to signing divorce paperwork served to me by a man I may always love for his good intentions, I would be viewed as a failure (a two time failure) in everyone's eyes. Thinking. Always thinking that the opinions of other are more important than my own.

I've let that go. That stays in Salt Lake City, a place that after this Friday (today), I never plan to re-visit. I want my hurt and sadness to stay here. I'm done being chased by sadness.

I didn't come here to change my life. I came here to match the me I felt in Afghanistan, living simply and loving every second of my job, to the me I want to feel every day in the future. I'm leaving here confirming what I knew when  had my first post-Afghanistan panic attack...that going to Afghanistan was the best thing that ever happened to me...and also the scariest. ("It won't ever feel worse than this" Amy said to me over and over...and I hope she's right).

It is in this moment that I've reached (rather, allowed myself to reach) a turning point in my life. Learning to live with the scars, the emotions, the regrets and the fear I accumulated both pre-and post-Afghanistan. Making that connection was my goal in Salt Lake City. I wasn't here to make friends or help others. Because I feared if I took that approach, I'd stay here for years and never talk about myself. I came here to challenge the unhealthy beliefs I've clung to for months, years and even decades...I came here with a dream to live a healthier life. To put even a two inch gap in the door jam (therapy-speak for slowing down my immediate response to an outside stimulant). To at least take a brief mental pause when my brain tells me "I don't deserve to receive benefits from the military" merely because my war scars are internal and others had it far worse. If I can think to myself at least 1% of the time that "I deserve compensation for the unique and dangerous service I performed in Afghanistan and my resulting PTSD" than maybe six weeks of fighting my own guttural reaction was worth my time. No, it was surely worth it. I have to learn not to resent the system for trying to help me after it's failed me in so many ways.

If I can accept "Medication will help me through this rough patch and then my life has the potential to be so much happier" or "If I forgive myself for past mistakes, those who care about me are apt to do the same." If I believe those statements can ever be true (whereas when I arrived here, I believed they were always false), then I've made progress. And even an inch is progress.

I found my voice again. I never, ever thought it could be so cathartic to drag and actual pencil across an actual piece of paper, cut off from the internet for six weeks. I cry when I write, not out of fear of the description and circumstances of the situation, but because I've learned to attach emotion and feeling to  situations. On paper. The true test...the next step...is to give myself permission to speak the way I now allow myself to write.

Physically, I judge myself and think I've had an atrocious and infuriating stay here. With no access to physical activity, I've gained weight, I've eaten a lifetime's worth of fried institutional cafeteria food, and I've felt the wrath of condescending nurse technicians threaten me if I didn't behave in their directed way. I'll leave all that crap here. And hopefully I can leave most of these 10 new pounds here as well. Or somewhere.

But again physically, this institution, this tall building, locked doors, void of any aerobic exercise capacity, has taught me more about how to survive in the "real" world than perhaps I even learned in Afghanistan. I've literally lived like a snared wild animal learning to survive in captivity. Each night, I sat at my desk either reading or watching the sun set over the glorious Rocky Mountains. Trapped in a cage with up to 17 other overly-restless-pseudo-prisoners with little to no official programming from the time we returned from dinner at 5.45pm until we started to drift into a highly-medicated slumber around 9pm. There was no avoiding noise. Or crowds. Or stray hairs all over the floor. Shoes strewn across the living room. Class books tucked frantically into every nook and cranny on the ward.

Physically, there is no safe, quiet place for me here. There is no escape. I've felt trapped, overwhelmed and anxious to all new levels, generously reflected in the new medications I've been prescribed and the new symptoms I've developed in treatment. And the difference, the magical difference now, is my extremely well-honed ability to mentally slip out from the walls of hell to find myself performing the 12-count cleansing breaths that begin every Bikram Yoga practice in any language in any country in the world.

I'll spend the next three-and-a-half days driving through Salt Lake City, with 25 notecards listing my most troubling stuck points (again, therapy-speak for negative patterns of thinking that magnify my PTSD and depression) tucked into my purse. The big ones. The thoughts that haunt me the most and that have haunted me here. The ones that seem to force me to feel isolated, frustrated, ashamed, scared and confused. And I'll do my best to leave my evil stuck point cards all over the city. In coffee shops. Yoga studios. Restaurants, Hiking trails. National Parks. Churches. Temples. I won't litter them...I'll mindfully place them in locations best suited for such a purpose...garbage cans.

I'm giving myself time to do that, and I used many of my remaining chips to transition back to work in such a unique way. To continue healing myself now that I think the hospital itself has given me all it's capable of giving. And maybe I'm not sad about that after all. I'm sad that getting a mental institution to do the right thing (focus on patient care) felt like a huge struggle. It was an extra brick on my already overbearing load. But even that was a great lesson to me. I picked fewer battles than I usually do.

I've admitted before to expecting this hospital to "fix" me one delicious bite at a time. Such a thing...a dream...is completely unreasonable for any institution. But there were also a few people here (and at home) who cared so deeply that I now feel an overwhelming desire to make my best attempt to go live an amazing, happy life because I've been so inspired. Their joy was contagious. They know who they are.

Six weeks is not enough to alone change the trajectory of my future. But six weeks, ugliness and all, has been enough to awaken me from my self-loathing pity party and to get me marching in the direction of a happier future. And for the first time in as long as I can remember, I believe in the idea of a happier future. I have a backup plan. And a backup to the backup plan. And I guess in the end if I lose my compass, I'll just try to remember ow the old version of me would have responded, and I'll run like hell in the opposite direction.


** This is the first entry in a retrospective series of life in a mental health institution. A special thanks to Keith Hudson Photography for perfectly capturing my post-Afghanistan self.

Silent Lucidity

I'm in the middle of week seven of an eight week treatment program, and while the progress I've made over the past few weeks in particular is tremendous, my brain continues to focus on my personal failures rather than my many successes. I guess the difference now is that I recognize this character flaw as it's happening, and my negative way of thinking is evolving. Slowly, sure, but evolving.

Every day here, I've walked into a classroom that feels like a minefield, and I've constantly feared the one misstep that would detonate the first in a series of daisy-chained bombs. Moreover, I was a thousand percent confident that my body wouldn't be able to withstand the blast. Except, well, those "bombs" are actually real-life events, and they're daisy-chained because the impact of one event radically distorted my response to the next similar event, which would unfold at some future unknown period time. I lived my life in fear of how my "body" might respond to the next traumatic impact, conveniently disregarding the fact that most impacts would be emotional (not physical) and that I actually had the power and ability to control my own reactions.

The greatest opportunity the Air Force has provided me is the chance to lead people in all kinds of situations. Once I discovered my fondness for leadership, I looked for other opportunities to lead. I found the perfect opportunity when in 2006 the local high school sent a base-wide email asking for a volunteer cross country coach. I'd been a runner for more than a dozen years, I love teaching, and I genuinely enjoyed sharing my passion for running with others. The head coach of the program was the most popular teacher in school, Mr. Turner, and though he had significant experience coaching basketball, he knew little to nothing about running. My experience and his personality were the perfect fit, and for an entire season, we watched a group of non-athletes develop into inspirational young runners.

In September of 2007, I returned to the high school to coach again with Mr. Turner. I'd spent the previous nine months studying coaching techniques, developing training plans to help our talented runners meet their potential, and testing ways to inspire our runners to become lifelong athletes. Mr. Turner had returned to school that year determined to change his own life, and asked me to also coach him into better physical condition. I was thrilled.

During our first practice of the season, Mr. Turner headed out on a run with the team for the very first time. He died of a heart attack about one mile into a three mile run. Two of our youngest runners heard him gasp "Oh God," grab his heart, and watched as he collapsed to the ground. He fell directly outside the school's perimeter fence, which was locked for security and angled with barbed wire at the top to prevent intruders. The only problem was that this time, the so-called intruders were the people running on the school's track who watched Mr. Turner fall and were unable to help him because of the fence, instead watching in aggravated horror.

We arrived at the track following our run, and I collected the kids in our gazebo, telling them that I didn't know what happened to Mr. Turner, but that as soon as I knew, I would tell them. By now, the school's administration was buzzing with activity, chasing the 150 or so students (football players, cheerleaders, runners) into the cafeteria because they couldn't figure out a way to shield them from the sight of their favorite teacher laying on the pavement 400 meters away. Mr. Turner, an American, had collapsed in downtown Germany, outside of the base, and it took the American and German authorities almost four hours to determine jurisdictional authority. In the meantime, Mr. Turner rested peacefully on the sidewalk, covered in a black sheet, his wife kneeling by his side.

The school principal walked into the cafeteria, nonchalantly declared "Mr. Turner is dead" into the microphone, and started to walk away. The cafeteria erupted into absolute chaos. My runners were in complete shock, as were each one of the students in that room. And every adult in the room.

I watched, in baffled silence, and took it all in. "This is my fault," I kept telling myself. "All last season, I teased Mr. Turner for not running with the team. And on his first day of running with us, he dropped dead."

The kids were all picked up by their families. I sat on the track in complete silence, tears streaming down my face, and watched for three hours, apologizing to Mr. Turner as his body remained in the exact position as it had been when he fell. By maybe 8:30pm his body was taken away, and I no longer felt obligated to stand watch. I walked to my car, hopeless and shaking while the clouds opened up and delivered a tremendous rainstorm. I got into the car and thought about the 45 minute drive home. I couldn't do it. So I called the Chaplain and begged for them to send someone to the chapel on this base to help me.

I never really talked about how I felt about what happened that day to anyone until this week. At the time, it was obvious to me that the kids needed a coach and leader, and I was proud to have such an incredible opportunity to help them transform adversity into strength. That season, I watched my runners, who named themselves Turner's Burners in honor of their fallen coach, take on the world. The girls were recognized as the fastest team in Europe. One of our boys finished in the top five fastest in Europe despite being weighed down by the flu on the day of the biggest race of his high school career. How could I possibly need help when the kids I was coaching were so talented and strong?

Turner's Burners were then and are now truly inspiring, and so many of them and their parents still touch base with me four years later. I've been thinking about them in particular this week as I've watched one of the senior girls from that season graduate from college, another senior boy (and his wife) have their first baby, two of the younger runners join the Air Force and Navy respectively, and my lone eighth grader from that year apply to and be accepted into college.

That ten week season was, until Afghanistan, both the most challenging and the most rewarding professional experience in my career...and it had nothing to do with the Air Force except a majority of my runners have Air Force parents. It leveraged everything I love about the Air Force into a series of some my very favorite memories.

And now I look back four years later, amazed at the strength those incredible kids demonstrated during such a challenging time, and draw from their strength as I continue reassemble my own life into some version of manageable. Each day of these eight weeks feels like a Saturday morning cross country race...I know I've trained properly, I know that my body is prepared for the task, but when the horn sounds the beginning of the race, my brain seems to respond in a shock-filled paralysis instead of with a graceful stride.

At the end of each race, regardless of my performance, I imagine my teammates commending me for making a solid effort, which then inspires me to train harder...which is exactly what I watched the kids do for each other instinctively that season. And at the end of the season, I hope that I, like Turner's Burners in 2007, will have the personal courage to set and achieve magnificent personal goals in the face of daunting adversity.

Every Girl Like Me

My life is colored by so many of the incredible people and experiences I've encountered in my 32 years of globetrotting adventures. But sometimes, and yes I am admitting this, I have a knack for looking all over the world for inspiration when in fact the most mesmerizing events are unfolding right under my nose. And such has certainly been the case as three unbelievably strong women have made brief (yet dramatic) appearances in my life over the past few weeks. My therapist likes to tell me that we have friends for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Below are the stories of three women who walked into my life for a reason...and whose stories will always be a reminder of inner strength and resiliency.

1. Jenny. She was a nursing school student in Iowa in 2004 when her young husband, an Army Specialist, was hit in Iraq. And by hit, I mean his body was torn apart in his unarmored HMMWV, burning 80% of his skin and changing every minute of the future they had imagined together. Unphased, she visited him at the Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas every month for two years using frequent flier miles donated by community members from her hometown. Jenny stood by his side as other wives, overwhelmed by grief, left their battle-scarred husbands to fend for themselves in the maze of an underprepared military medicine beaurocracy. She shared her story as we overlooked a beautifully green golf course in Germany, the trees swaying in the gentle March breeze, and the sun bouncing off of her Ray-Ban rockstar sunglasses. Jenny glowed as she told me about her husband, bragging that he still "spoils me rotten" more than eight years later, and just that morning he'd woken up early to make her coffee. He left her a travel mug with a quick note wishing her a great weekend, which she was spending out of town on a work project. She's stunningly beautiful in a way that exudes confidence and inner peace. I had to coerce the story out of her...she just didn't think it was a big deal that she'd stood by the man she loved through his traumatic journey from the battlefields of Iraq, through the medical system, and then back into life as an Army transition expert still on active duty today. "I can't believe how lucky I am," she told me, with her genuine smile. "I appreciate him more now than I ever did before. He might look different now to other people, but to me, he's just as attractive as he ever was." I sat there, across the wooden picnic table from her, staring at my lunch and trying to put my own life into a perspective even one bit as healthy as the one that seemed to come so naturally to Jenny.

2. Charlotte. On our second week in the program, we participated in a retreat called Project Odyssey, a tribute to Homer's epic play in which Odysseus takes ten years to return to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War (and no, the irony of the city name is not lost on me). The retreat is sponsored by an organization called the Wounded Warrior Project, arguably the best kept secret for war veterans of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Charlotte, a social worker based in Florida, organized our retreat (which is sponsored entirely by public donations to the Wounded Warrior Project) with the primary intent of exposing us to healthy, new, adrenaline inducing activities at a lake not far from Landstuhl. We spent three days and two nights learning to golf, climb, scuba dive, shoot a bow and arrow and fly fish in classes all taught by local veterans, and she watched me like a hawk as I resisted every new activity. The thought of putting a mask on my face, jumping into the water and breathing through a tank was absolutely overwhelming...until, well, I stopped thinking about the worst thing that could possibly happen ("only fish breathe under water," I repeated over and over to myself) and just jumped in. As it turned out, scuba diving at the bottom of a dirty pool in Germany wasn't so bad after all (though next time I'd prefer to see colorful fish instead of human hairballs), and I had a knack for fly fishing, which I found to be both unexpectedly relaxing and incredibly thrilling at once. Charlotte and I didn't really talk much during the weekend...she just observed from the sidelines...but at the end of the weekend, she came up to me, looked directly at me and said "I'm so proud of you. You can do this, girl!" And in that moment, and after those excruciating first two weeks of treatment, she gave me the push I needed to buckle down and get serious.

3. Emily. Until the past year or so, I'd never found a way to incorporate yoga into my life. I'd tried a bunch of classes (and DVDs and Podcasts and everything else under the sun), but nothing had really stuck. When Jane and her best friend were in Europe over Christmas about 18 months ago, they dragged me, terrified, into a Bikram Yoga studio in Berlin where we practiced 26 poses in 105 degree heat for 90 minutes. Now we're talking! When I start to feel things spiraling into chaos, I drive the 90 or so minutes to Frankfurt and sweat myself silly, feel cleansed, and walk away beaming. I just figured that once I knew Bikram, nothing else would do. Then I met Emily...and she introduced me to Power Yoga. Like me, she's an Air Force veteran, and was a young cop when she was raped by a fellow Airman in her squadron. It was our final day of the retreat and she sat on her yoga mat in front of a room of 30 or so perfect strangers and told her story. She hadn't reported the rape at the time, and for 12 years the haunting memory of that day drove her every life decision. It was yoga that in her words "brought me back to life" so many years later. Connecting the mind, body and breath gave her control over 60 or so minutes of her life at a time, and as I sat there, I thought to myself "that's her equivalent of learning to breathe underwater," a skill I'd acquired just one day prior. I watched, transfixed, as she continued to talk, and eventually her words bled into my own internal monologue. I knew in that moment why I'd been "stuck" for so long, and for the first time I recognized that my journey back to being myself needed to start with a public admission of my own experience, and the impact I've allowed one bad night to have on every minute of my subsequent life in (and out of) the Air Force.

I never imagined myself in an eight-week mental health program...it just didn't make sense. But tucked under the public shroud of self confidence and determination were some very painful and emotionally charged memories acting like a demagnitized compass and driving my every day into total unrest. So here I am, finding calm from the storm, and preparing at the same time to navigate my way safely through the changing weather when I leave the program in a few short weeks.

There's a Better Life for Me and You

It's been a tricky past few days, which is to say I've invested a huge amount of emotional energy trying to render my black and white perception of reality into a full color tour de force. And in classic fashion, it only made sense to me that such an undertaking would consume no longer than one weekend, or perhaps three weeks of my life at the absolute most. It's now been three weeks and one day and I'm nowhere close to done...in fact, it feels like I've hardly started. Luckily I'm here five more weeks (and unluckily patience is my weakest virtue).

Deciphering the monochrome is daunting because the shapes are perplexingly intertwined, making my task of injecting a bit of color into particular sections feel much like a game of Jenga. Under routine circumstances, it may be possible to inspect each individual block, determine the structural significance and act accordingly. But under the current conditions (and given the perceived time constraints), my game of Jenga has been repositioned from the stable dining room table to the San Andreas Fault, the 54 wooden blocks infested with termites, and the object of the game is now to remove the most critical rotting pieces before time runs out. Along the way, I need to start some type of extermination regimen, prevent future decay by laquering the newly freed blocks with a brightly colored waterproof paint, and gingerly re-insert them into the tower.

The purpose of group therapy is to play this impractical game as a member of a team. As I look at the tower and start to consider which block to pull next, there are ideally five other players ready to help me see the three blind sides of the tower. But lately, I think I'm all alone (by choice or by chance), and the more isolated I let myself feel, the more willing I am to start tugging on one of the weight-bearing blocks just to see who (if anyone) will stop me, hardly considering the traumatic impact of such a choice.

I pulled one of those critical pieces out last Thursday, and told a story to five near-strangers that before that day was known to less than five people in the world, if I include the Air Force Colonel who taught me early in my career that such things would be normal (and therefore acceptable). What I didn't consider was my audience...at least my in-person audience...that morning. I had dropped a grenade, pulled the pin, and ducked for cover. It took about five hours before detonation, and by the time it hit that afternoon, I was extracting shrapnel from unmentionable places...a process I continued throughout the weekend.

The decisions leading to my personal disclosure last week were a profound lesson on why my journey through Landstuhl, triggered by post-traumatic stress, applies in every aspect of my life. It's taken me 32 years to sketch this picture, and I've relied primarily on a thick-lined black Sharpie. I now see how perhaps drafting first in pencil may have been more, well, practical, and how shading would have also been appropriate.

Last week, I trusted five people with one of my most haunting memories, which could have been okay, except I'd distanced myself from said audience since the day I arrived here. I came into the program with the flawed notion that our group table is a community landfill, where organic and non-organic trash would decompose at the same rate. It's not that I tossed in a plastic bottle and everyone else has been dumping banana peels. The flawed quantum leap I made was thinking the mere act of sitting six people in a room automatically builds a community under these circumstances, knowing full well (through hard-earned experience) that such is not the case in the real, non-treatment world.

Somehow, and I'm still not sure how, I decided that I deserved access to the landfill without paying the requisite taxes. And that, right there, is the perfect metaphor to explain the combustion of so many things in my own little reality since my return from Afghanistan.

I came to Landstuhl three weeks ago, proud of myself for claiming eight weeks of "me" time. In truth, what I'd signed up for is an eight week exercise in laying the foundation then framing my dream house...and helping five other people do the same. I assumed, and wrongfully so, that I could contract out the difficult parts, watching from the sidelines as the "experts" did all of the heavy lifting. What I know now is the very thing that makes my new house so special is the investment of blood, sweat and tears. Not only my own, but also those shared by five fellow warriors who have also been to hell and back, each in his own way, and each returning with his unique perspective.

It's taken three weeks to see the three blind sides of the Jenga tower. Just now I'm starting to see similarities between the blocks erroding in my tower and those in the towers of the guys on my left and on my right. So maybe...no definitely...the best way for us to start to transform these termite-infested time-bombs into liveable homes is to take it one small step at a time.

Somebody that I used to know

I've never been in a position to analyze every aspect of my life for eight hours a day, five days a week for eight weeks in a row. And now, after 10 years of complaining how I gave my soul to the Air Force and got very little in return, I must admit that the support I've received from across the Air Force (including, for the first time in my career, from my chain of command) has been overwhelming in a positive way.

Picture standing in an enclosed room and kicking a hornet's nest while wearing the sweetest perfume imagineable. There's nowhere to hide from the angry critters newly (and unexpectedly) unleashed from their comfortable nest. At first, there's a sense of shock..."oh my God what have I done," followed by "this is gonna hurt," and then finally a realization (at least in my case) that "I kicked that nest on purpose, so this is clearly happening for a reason."

Those hornets are memories (some quite traumatic), spanning some 30-odd years, 16 household moves on three continents, and a tour in Afghanistan. When I say it that way, it's daunting to think that I survived this long without a mental break. I did, and that's good. But a little more than two weeks ago, I recognized that the level of help I needed return to the world as a productive member of society was well beyond what one hour of therapy one day a week could provide.

My therapy assignment for this week is much more challenging than anything I've tackled before, and is possible only because of the incredible treatment I've received since arriving at Landstuhl's Evolution Program...write a letter to someone you lost. And the person I've lost who I've missed the most for the past 13 or so years is...myself.

Dear Lisa,

It's been too long since we made time to talk, and I've missed the joy and passion you shared with everyone around you for so many years. Sometimes I think you forget what an incredible person you were before you headed to college, and I think it's time to remind you of the you I remember so fondly.

You were always an athlete, playing softball, basketball, gymnastics, swimming, riding your bike, and leading other neighborhood kids in outdoor games. Remember the schoolhouse you built for Maria in our basement, where you patiently taught your little sister everything you knew, sitting her at the desk, and drawing lessons on the chalkboard? I knew then that you'd pick a career where you felt like you could make a difference...and you have.

I know that growing up in a Navy family was hard, and I'm sure that if we all had it to do over again, we'd make more time to spend together as a family admidst Dad going out to sea for six months at a time and Mom managing the house as the Navy moved us from place to place.

What I admire about you is ever since you were a teenager, you've always kept a tight-knit circle of friends by your side, and many of them remain your closest friends today...a true testament to your ability to reach out and connect with others.

But it's in high school, particularly your junior and senior years, when you blossomed and were the happiest I've seen you. Pieces of your art and photography hung in museums in Washington DC and you were recognized for your exceptional talent by teachers and later college admissions officers who lured you to their universities by offering you scholarships to study at their institutions. Teachers praised your writing skills, and you took great pride in everything you created. That same year, Loren challenged you to run on the high school's distance track team. You'd never run further than down the street, and by the end of the season, you were running 7 and 8 miles a day. You left for college glowing and confident...determined to face whatever the world had to offer.

And just as clearly as I can recall those great joys, I also remember exactly when we lost touch. It was your second year in college. There was no way to predict that your first serious romantic relationship, and one with a fellow Air Force ROTC cadet, would end in a date rape in your dorm room early that spring. Though your military leadership said over and over that it was your fault, and I think you recognize now, 13 years later, that nothing you ever said, did or wore made you deserving of such a crime.

As you entered active duty, I watched as you found solace in helping the Air Force establish their Sexual Assault Prevention program, meeting with more than 2,000 military women, hearing their stories, and filling a void by building a support community where there was previously nothing. But then I watched as you gave up on the things that brought you the greatest joy...art, photography, writing, sports...instead, drowning yourself in work you found unfulfilling, in relationships with no future potential, and in your personal quest to be "the best" at everything you attempted at all cost. You ran, just as you did in high school, this time not for enjoyment, but rather as a way to escape the pain and remind yourself of happier times.

For some reason, and maybe I'll never understand exactly why, Afghanistan brought back the you I'd missed for so long...the one who finds joy in little things jumping on trampolines, who isn't afraid to say what she means, and who makes choices that lead to personal happiness, instead of basing so many decisions on what others may think and feel.

You know who you are, and you've known that person for as long as anyone who loves you can remember...but now the challenge is to embrace that true, gleeful, intelligent and passionate version of yourself. Don't lose sight of your ultimate goal...to live a happy and fulfilling life. One with no regrets being surrounded by people who love and appreciate you for who you are and not who they wish you could be.

Watching you come back to life is like discovering the volume switch on the radio. A beautiful song has been playing quietly for years and years, and just recently did the crescendo begin. Use these next five weeks, then five months, then five years...and then a lifetime...living in the way that keeps you the happiest, making choices that keep you happy, and dreaming of all the great things to come.

It's a tough world out there, but you've taken the first step. You see what you've been missing. Now just get out there and do what you do best...make it happen.

I'll be watching. And cheering.

-- me