PTSD (POEM), page
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reply posted on 13-1-2011 @ 08:57 PM by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by queenofsheba



Very well written and moving. I'm pleased to give you the first flag.

PTSD. Perhaps those who have it, don't find others unworthy of love, but themselves. Or perhaps they are too damaged to experience it. They have a certain numbness, at times. A loss of drive and motivations change.

I'm glad you shared your poem. I like it, although it's sad.


reply posted on 13-1-2011 @ 09:19 PM by AdAbsurdum
reply to post by queenofsheba



As a sufferer of PTSD, this is very well written, and I am sorry that you have also had to deal with it in your own way.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting



To kind of shed some light on this from my experiences...

It isn't that people are unworthy of love. It's that we feel numb.

One day we can feel that love for our significant others and the next we feel absolutely nothing. That numbness, that loss of connection, makes us hate ourselves. Every attempt to find that connection again and to dig up those feelings just makes us more frustrated with ourselves until we reach the point of only expressing anger.

It becomes a cycle we can't break out of and we end up leaving because we are just trying to stop hurting the people around us. We care, so deeply, we just can't feel it like we used to.

Spending the night sleeping in the bath tub with your .45, waking up screaming every 45 minutes, having flashbacks that you try to chase away with alcohol and other vices, we just feel broken and incapable.

So please understand that it is not your failings or his change of heart. From my experience it is just the emotional toll all that damage takes.


reply posted on 13-1-2011 @ 10:51 PM by queenofsheba
reply to post by MMPI2



It's about a WW2 vet who fought in the Battle of the Bulge as an Army Infantry (foot soldier as he called it) where he stepped on a land mine and had to have several amputations due to gangrene and most likely "butcher" medical care. He eventually was amputated right above his knee. He was my stepdad who was angry and bitter about his plight and he targeted me for whatever reason, I don't know. He bestowed his hurt and anger upon me as a young kid and he used alcohol heavily to self-medicate I imagine. Tonight I was watching Born on the Fourth of July and the scene where Ron K. made his mom cry and she told her son he had to leave made me feel the need to write, hence my poem. My stepdad was one of those that comprised the "Greatest Generation," a book that was written by Tom Brokaw to describe the people that lived during the Great Depression and then WW2. They were described as being stoic and non-complaining people according to his book. My poem expressed my feelings of how the survivers of war somehow pass down their horrific experiences to their loved ones, eventually hurting them as they have been hurt and how that then gets passed down to the next generation. This is simply my experience, I'm sure there have been those that survived who lived more graceful lives. My experience with him has stayed with me into adulthood and his anxiety/depression/anger has come to live in me because it was passed down to me; for whatever reason. It is my hope that those who come home from war get the help they need to put the horrors behind them. Whether that is a real possiblity or not, I don't know but it is a hope that I have. America is still at war and I would think veterans coming home now have similar issues. It doesn't make them bad people, it just is an emotional effect of war. I am not being disrespectful to vets in any way, I simply wrote about my experience.


reply posted on 19-1-2011 @ 07:01 AM by B.Morrison
reply to post by queenofsheba



not only was the poem brilliant but you explanation was too thankyou for sharing
S+F

-B.M
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