I think I've already met some of you in the chat room. I don't really like forums all that much, but I've found a lot of the things and resources on here to be really helpful, and I figured that I might benefit a little bit from the forum, too?
Anyway. I'm in my late twenties and I'm an OIF/OEF vet. It's only been kind of recent that I've really opened up and started asking myself the hard questions about who I am, what I want, why I want, those sorts of things. I own my own (mostly unsuccessful?) business. I've been in a sort of...silent, unconscious awareness of things for a long time. There are specific things in my history that raised questions to me, but I never really dwelled on them, especially in my teenage years. I was raised southern Baptist, so I learned early on that it was better to shove everything down, I think, than to actually confront myself. I don't think that joining the Army was a way of overcompensating (though I'm sure on some subconscious level it was), it was more a means to an end. I've also been diagnosed with PTSD, and honestly? I think it's helped me to deal with, identify, and process other emotions. I had a really good therapist that helped me work through some anger/anxiety issues related to that, and all of this has really come about as a result of me applying some of the little things that he taught me about analyzing my emotions. I think I've made some progress in accepting things, but I've had a pretty hard time with dysphoria lately. I feel like all the denial and repression was a sort of protection mechanism, and now that I've finally stripped it away, every day I feel exponentially more and more uncomfortable with my body. There's been some scary suicidal thoughts and images in my head lately, but they've been gone for a few days now (No worries, I've been through suicidal ideation before - I'm not a danger to myself, it's just reaaaaalllllyyy annoying).
I've got a healthy bit of fear related to my next steps, but I think that that's born mostly out of not having a plan. My bigger fears revolve mostly about how this is going to impact the other people in my life and their perception of me, all things I'm working out in therapy.
And, I wanted to thank all of you for being wonderful, warm people. :]
Oh! If there are any other veterans out there? I could really use some help and encouragement, and any information on how to navigate the VA with these issues - I want to be able to use their therapy instead of coming out of pocket, but I'm really, really, really scared they'll try to somehow link this to my PTSD as a pre-existing condition and pull my disability.
