“Seeing the realities of war”: Veteran Heals From PTSD
I think just seeing the realities of war, it definitely took a toll on me that I didn't expect. Fighting normal military age males, sometimes you fight guys that are younger. Coming back from that, definitely I had some mental scars.
Hi, my name is Connor. I'm a US Air Force combat controller. I served from 2013 to 2019. I had another one of my friends who I went through training with who died from an IED. He was on a special forces team. His MRAP drove over a bomb and he lost his life as well as a couple of his teammates.
As I was kinda getting myself back into normal society I decided that I kinda buried those feelings. it definitely took a more of a toll than I thought on myself. When I first came home from Afghanistan, I was kinda lost. I was having troubles just relaxing all the time. I was short tempered and I just wasn't myself. I had a paycheck coming from the military. Didn't have that anymore. I had no direction of just how to get back into normal civilian society. I felt like I was making people around me who I loved and I cared about feel uncomfortable, so I feel like I needed to just go to somebody to talk to, to help, to find out what direction I can go to, to not hurt people that are around me.
The main symptoms I had was issues sleeping, like waking up and just kinda being on edge and sound triggers. So like if I was driving down the street and I heard a big bang or, it kind of brought me back to that feeling of either getting shot at or getting an IED going off or something like that. Eventually I ended up talking to the VA and they kinda pushed me into the right direction. I'd tell 'em the things that were happening to me about my sleep and my short temper and they kind of explained to me why I was feeling these ways. My coping mechanisms that I learned through dealing with PTSD and stress, my breathing and meditating. I go back to those whenever I start feeling high sets of stress just to calm myself down and deal with what I have to get done ahead of me. So box breathing is when you inhale for four seconds, you hold your breath for four seconds, you exhale for four seconds and then you breathe in back in for four seconds. So it's like you're breathing in a box. So I still use those tools all the time.
I seeked out a community through martial arts that was outside of my military. I think that was the number one thing that helped me through those hard times. I still connected to my martial arts community and I now try to help out other Veterans who are struggling with PTSD in my own community, in my gym, and I train them for free. I feel like martial arts was a huge help to me as a tool to use that I can always rely on and go back to. Anything I can do to get outside, whether it's walking my dog, going surfing, going snowboarding, any kind of physical activity for me helps me for my mental health. I feel like physical activity is always the main thing. Sometimes Veterans, we get into this mindset of hiding our feelings and our emotions or whatever we're dealing with. It's just kind of necessary to get our job done.
Now my relationships are a lot better. I feel like I've definitely taken a step back and I feel like I have a lot better control how I express myself to my family and friends. If I was to talking to a Veteran, I would tell him get involved into a community. I think communities are the main thing. Positive people around you, you should see some better results.
