Just call me Joe

I decided to title my first post by the name of my blog. I've spent the greater part of my life living by titles of various types: "Joe the swimmer" , "Joe the bad student",  "Joe the trouble maker", "Joe the bike racer", "Joe the husband", "Joe the Senior Chief". There are many more I could name but these illustrate my meaning. Haven't we all lived by our titles? They define us, say who we are, who we're not, and maybe worst of all, who we don't want to be.
Having just completed a twenty two year military career:

 I am just about done living by titles. I just want to live life for life's sake. Gone are the days I lived to please others. I must live in a new way.  I dare you to say I am being selfish. Lets cut to the chase, I triple dog dare you. I must first love myself, if I can do this then I can love my family and friends all the better.  I've weighed success and failure by what others have thought of me, thinking that was the way to be happy. The problem is this: trying to live up to others expectations, be they real or imagined, will always leave you wanting.  I've learned this simple fact: if you do what is in your heart, it will always measure up the the most important standard, your own!  This didn't come to me out of the blue, I've spent years beating my head against a wall.  I would do everything possible to make sure that others were pleased with me. I sought out approval, always left to feel I wasn't good enough. I had this feeling in my gut that I was faking everything I did and that any moment people would find me out, I would be done, ruined, and shamed.

As I said, I now live in a new way; I also said this self-realization didn't exactly come over night. About the time I returned from my deployment to Iraq I started to have problems, both, at home and at work. Having been in arguably one of the most dangerous places in the world at the time, everything started to feel wrong. I no longer liked my job, I thought it meaningless compared to the life and death situations I previously faced, there's nothing like seeing the vehicle directly ahead of you suddenly disappear in an explosion to make you realize there are truly important things, and conversely, things that don't mean much. Of course, this "ah-ha" moment arrives after you crap your pants and think you are going to die. You figure out quickly that in that moment nothing matters more than you and your buddies. To see them hurt or worse, dead, it is the worst feeling you can ever imagine. Back to my job that no longer seemed important, preparing PowerPoint presentations, attending three hour long staff meetings, listening to your boss drone on and on about "stupid shit...sorry, stuff" becomes a mind numbing experience. I figured out quickly that I would rather go back to war than do what I was now doing for another ten years to reach my thirty year retirement. About April of this year (2011) My house of cards came crashing down. I had a disagreement with my boss that went very badly. I was left in a homicidal/suicidal rage.  I was going to strangle the life out of this guy, then go suck start a 9 mm. Well, actually, I was going to go and drive my car as fast as I could into a telephone pole. Long story less long, I was "hospitalized" with clinical depression, severe anxiety, sleep disorder, all this was caused by what would become my constant, chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. for months, after returning from yet another deployment, my wife kept telling me something wasn't right, I needed help, I did what any good sailor or soldier would do, I denied, denied, denied. Until I could no longer ignore the symptoms. My shrink told me PTSD was a normal reaction to an abnormal circumstance. Meaning:

When you are in a combat zone it's perfectly normal to believee every one wants to kill you and in general, does not have your best interests at heart. The problem is you can't just shut this off. Here in safe Jacksonville, FL, I get in my car and start driving down the road and I start to imagine, no, I see things, things that I know are going to hurt me. trash becomes an hidden Improvised Explosive Device (IED), the number one killer of soldiers in Iraq. So naturally, I swerve, drive onto the median, anything to avoid being blown up! I see people as my enemy, I'm paranoid, fidgety, and always looking for the exit. It's just a crappy way to be.
I mean, how can you go from this:

To This:

It just felt perverse. Which take me back to where I started, I felt like a fake, any moment, people would see me for who I really was. Only now I added something new to my bag of insecurity and invalidation, I thought of myself as a truly bad person. How could anyone who was in essence, a trained killer, be worthy of anyone's love?  Let alone my family's?  I went out of my way to try and earn love, never understanding that you don't earn it, either it's there or it's not.  Looking back in hindsight, my wife and I have always had a co-dependent and enmeshed relationship.  In defense of what is fair to my wife, I will only speak of my self since she is not here to speak for herself.  Anytime I felt my wife was unhappy in our relationship, I tried my best to find the solution and fix it.  If she didn't like our house because the kitchen was to old, I'd feel bad and have it gutted and a new one put in its place. What ever the problem, I always thought I could fix it. Problem is, either a person is happy or they're not! What ever was going on with my wife, then and now, is not because of me. She has to fix "it" herself. What ever "it" is. For my part, I have never established boundaries in my relationships so that I could create my own identity. I see now that this type of behavior is so unfair on so many levels. It doesn't allow either person to figure things out for themselves, it causes bitterness and eventually, if not solved, will lead to an end to a relationship. This is kind of where I am at now. My wife will soon be heading to her sister's, and with her, my son. It is what's best, at least for now. I need to learn how to love myself, to accept that though I may have done bad things, I am not a bad person. That I have worth, and no matter what, it can not be taken from me. I also need to work on my friend PTSD, I need to quiet the nightmares, lessen the symptoms and figure out a new way of being me. And I think I can, with the help of a wonderful group of people who are working as members of my treatment team, who always believe in me, even when I don't, who see my potential.

This takes me full circle, just call me Joe. Who ever I was in the past, that is no longer me. I now live my life for now, no longer do I look to far ahead. I will always remember my past, but it will not define me. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: " there is no history, only biography." Meaning history is made by the teller of the tale, not by the event itself. It is in effect, a distortion that grows like a ripple on a pond that grows as it gradually moves outward. This is my story. If you like it, then I am happy for you, if not, I am still happy for you. And remember: "just call me Joe."