Another helpful idea for vets: get a pet! Not a goldfish or a hamster, I'm talking about something with more of a brain, like a cat, dog, ferret, or even a bird. Something that can give and receive love from you.

Why do I say this? The simple reason is that we all come from a place where we are used to taking care of things. Being responsible for other peoples lives, as well as our own. When we come back, if we are alone, we tend to miss that aspect of things. We can love our animals, and the animal then gives us some sort of love in return. Animals can sense emotions and react to them. They also listen quite well and don't talk back! I say this as I have my dog at my feet and my cat laying on my arm! I'm so feeling the love here.

Another reason that pets can be beneficial is that they can help with our hyper-vigilance. This is mainly true of a dog, but other animals can as well. You can rely on them to have your back, to warn you of danger if there is any. And the compainonship is a big thing, I couldn't have made it without my dog.
Again, these are just my ideas. Things that have worked for me in my long road to where i'm at now. Which isn't all that bad of a place all things considered. Take what you will and leave the rest! Thanks for reading!

I know a contributing factor to PTSD is the fact that we may be ashamed of what we have done at war. It may feel like we were fighting for a cause that was a lie, especially with the whole WMD scandal. But whatever the guise, whatever the cause, we should be proud of ourselves. Be proud that we served our country. Be proud of the good things we did do over there. We had a job to do and we did it, and did it well. While some things that happened weren't the greatest, we did what we had to do to survive. To come back in one piece. For that alone, we should be proud. 

What I felt like writing about today was some of the steps I've taken to start the healing process. Granted, these worked for me, and may only work for me. But I suspect that I'm not the only one who can benefit from these steps - all of them, or even just one or two. So here we go:

Acceptance: This is a hard pill to swallow for some, including me. When I returned I didn't like what I had become. I didn't like the fact I couldn't enjoy fireworks, or work on my jets. I didn't like the fact that I jumped at doors slamming or couldn't sleep. I didn't enjoy my mood changes, or the fact I couldn't handle stress like I used to. But if you can accept yourself, it gets easier. 

Making your new self: This one sounds a bit strange. Basically it means that you have control over what you want to happen with your life. It goes along with acceptance, once you accept what happened, then you can move on to making yourself into who you want. We've all been to war, and we're not the same people as we were when we left. You can't go through what we did and come out without scars. If you figure out what the new parts of you are, then intergrate them into your personality now, and accept them. Then you're ahead of the game. You may not be able to change it. It's hard to accept some of the changes, but if you make peace with it and can be O.K. with them. it will go a long way towards having peace within yourself.

Hobby: Find a hobby. Find something that makes you happy to do. A lot of us can't do the job we did when we were in the military, or even the job that we did before we joined. I was a mechanic. Due to the fact my brain seems to want to forget stuff, stuff that I should know by heart, doing the job of fixing trucks or cars is out of the question. So I found a hobby, I play Native American flute. I also make hand drums. Both of them provide a little extra money, but more importantly, it makes me happy to do it.

There are more to this, but I have to save something to write about later! So there will be more to follow on this. Take care all and remember we're all Warriors now, we're all part of the Warrior class.