I would like to start out by saying that I do not have PTSD nor have I ever had any traumatic incidents in my life that were above or beyond what the average person encounters over sixty years of life on earth. I spent almost nine years in the U.S. Navy and I'm a deacon in a small Baptist church, I have been around people who have suffered tragedy and some who have been severely traumatized, that is the extent of my experience.

Having said that, I wanted to comment on your blog because I did notice some similarities between us, and I noted how my thinking and the way that I view things differs from how you are seeing those same or similar things. So I thought that by highlighting these differences you might be able to find some answers for yourself, answers that possibly only could come from someone such as yourself that has suffered such life-altering events.

"PTSD is a constant voice in your head telling you that you are no good."

This is something that I found true about myself also. I'm pretty much thought of as a good person, even my siblings think of me as a good person and who knows me better than those who were eyewitnesses to what I have been like through the years. The fact is that I am probably pretty good on the outside, I did tell you that I am a deacon right? But my problem has rarely been on the outward appearance of me, the problem was what I knew about the inward reality of me. On the inside, I have the same temptations, the same imaginings, the same terrible desires and feelings as anyone else. In fact, I find no good in me at all save one thing, that is the part of me that God Himself put in there. That part of me is good and pure and I strive to let it lead the way for my life. If I were to let my flesh lead I would surely be dead or in jail, and If I were to let my soul lead I would be a liar and a thief and I would be all about only doing what was best for me. But if I follow the spirit of obedience and humility that God put in me, then I can live a good and pure life.

"When you do go out to try and feel like a normal person, you can't sit with your back to the exit and you size up everyone in the area, constantly scanning for potential threats."

I found this very interesting because I also do this naturally, no one trained me to think like that I just have done it for as long as I can remember. But there are some big differences in my motivation and the motivation that you exhibit in your description. Where you identify the threats and think about how you can kill them before they kill you, I look at the threats and try to decide the best way that I can protect my family and others in the room. I look at those that would be in the most exposed position, and at those who would be helpless if attacked. What would be my best defense?, Which direction would provide the best escape routes? What angle should I take if I need to attack, and what would be my best chance for success in turning the tables on the assailant? The thoughts of my own safety are at the back of the line and not at the front. For me, the reason is because I know where I will go when I die, but I don't have that same confidence for others in the room. What might be their fate if they lost their lives today? You started off by talking about your own life as though it was worthless and forfeit, but then tyou dwell on ways to preserve it even if it meant using extreme violence, so these two ideas stand in contradiction to each other. On the day that I turned my life over to Christ Jesus, I could no longer consider it my own. My life belongs to Him now and I trust Him to decide my fate, knowing that whatever happens will be for the best not just for me, but for all others that are affected by my life or my death.

"PTSD is unexplainable explosive anger."

When I was a child I would often lose my temper. At nine-years-old, I picked up a broomstick and beat my fifteen-year-old brother up with it, to this day he is afraid to cross me. At school I got in a fight with another boy, he ran behind my favorite teacher trying to get away from my wrath and I ended up hitting her while trying to get to him. Something that shocked me to my core because I wouldn't even talk back to an adult, much less hit a teacher that I loved and admired. But even after I recognized the problem I could not control it, when I lost my temper, I lost it and was like a wild animal. As I got older I learned how to better control it, but anger was always right under the surface awaiting an opportunity to show itself. The thing with anger is that it is a spirit and it has its rightful place, there is a thing called righteous anger and there is anger without a cause. One day God taught me a huge lesson about my anger, what I learned about myself was that this anger stemmed from pride. Someone challenged my manhood, called me a name, falsely accused me, or any number of other excuses that caused me to well up with pride and strike back. When I took pride off of the throne of my life and made humility king I defeated these fits of anger and rage once and for all. Now I know that I am a man and I don't have to prove that to anyone. The point is that you need to identify where your anger comes from, if you are not angry over spilled milk then what are you angry about? Is it because you came home when others didn't? If so would this not also be a form of pride in that you are saying that you would be a better judge of who should live and die than God? Or perhaps you are angry with God for allowing these events to happen in the first place. If you do believe in God then how far do you think you're going to get by fighting with Him? Why not find out what He has to say about the whole thing? If you don't believe in God then who else could your blame be leveled at, the Government? I could better go along with that but you have almost the same problem, what good is it going to do you?

"the voices in your head telling you that you don't deserve to be here."

I don't know anyone who could tell you adequately why they deserve to be here, I could tell you a few reasons why someone doesn't deserve to be here, but it's harder to decide why a person does deserve to live. Why are any of us here? What purpose do we serve? If you believe that life just happened by chance and that we all just evolved from Jellyfish or some other such beast, then I can see why you might think that life means nothing and that it has little or no value. But for those of us who believe that we were created by God, or even just an intelligent designer, then it stands to reason that our lives have meaning and purpose. I became disabled about twenty-five years ago and my doctors told me then that I was dying, they said that if I managed to live for ten years I would be a very old man. In other words, there was an outside chance that I could live that long but don't get your hopes up. So I went through the whole anger and the meaning of my life thing at that time. I had a wife and baby and I thought, well if I'm just going to be sick for a few years and die miserably then why not live dangerously and see if we could just get it over with. So I started driving recklessly, I no longer stopped and looked both ways at railroad crossings, I was trying to do something that I had never done before, I was living on the edge. But I didn't die, I just kept on living. I didn't get better but I didn't get worse either. And I never got hit by a train or die in any other accident from my carelessness. Then one day I was in the right place at the right time to help someone that was in dire need, that's when it hit me. For as long as I'm alive my life has purpose and meaning. In twenty-five years I have helped hundreds if not thousands of people in one way or another. There are without a doubt some cases that if I had not been there terrible consequences would have occurred. Because of my being available, lives were changed or altered in some way for good. And how do we even count lives that were changed because of the charities that we have supported? I live my life in service to God and I let him decide my worth, and when he takes me out then I will know that my work here is complete.

"Post-Traumatic Stress is a curse upon those that are unfortunate to have been through terrible experiences, a curse that, no matter how many pills you are prescribed or group therapy sessions you sit through, you will have with you for the rest of your time."

I saved this for last because I had a couple of important observations here that I wanted you to see. The first is that you have dubbed your disorder a "Curse," which indicates to me that in your heart you believe that this burden was placed on you by someone or something else. If cursed, then there must be a curser. Who could have such power and for what reason would they want you to be cursed? Have you committed a sin so terrible that you deserve such punishment, or is someone just having fun at your expense? I'm not trying to make light of what you are saying or make fun of you, I'm just trying to lead you to the root of your problems. If you recognize where you are placing the blame then you are closer to finding help. I also see in this statement that you have surrendered, no matter what you do there will never be a cure, you are thus cursed and damned and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it. You have zero hope then, and without hope, a person has no reason to live but no reason to die either. But are you truly hopeless or have you just given up hope? You have lost hope in yourself, in doctors, in the Government, and even in your family and friends. So have you exhausted all possible sources of hope? Only you can decide that but I'm confident that there is at least one other source of hope that you could turn to.

I know that this was long and I've been sitting here writing this out on the fly, so I'm not even sure that it will make sense. I don't know you well enough to know whether this will help you any at all, I just hope that because of this lack of full knowledge that I have not harmed or offended you in any way. If that turns out to be the case then I sincerely apologize for my ignorance. On the other hand, if you find anything here that helps in some small way then we can both be thankful that we each made an effort to that end and that it wasn't all in vain.