After All These Years

A couple of posts ago I commented on what I called my old man ADD. I certainly was not trying to make light out of anyone’s health issues, or what they have to deal with; I was trying to poke fun at myself.

I have friends who deal with what are literally life threatening issues; cancer, high blood pressure, respiratory issues -- and the list goes on. So far, I’ve dodged most of that stuff, although I do have to watch my sugar and cholesterol. A friend of mine says those two ailments come from growing up in the south. Maybe he’s right.

Obviously, some things are harder to deal with than others, but every one of those people has my respect and admiration for how they handle situations that would probably drive me to my knees. And sometimes you run into things that didn’t have to develop into what they did, but did anyway.

I knew a guy in the Air Force that suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. It wasn’t from being shot at, or from shooting at someone else, in fact, he was never in harm’s way; but it was PTSD just the same. What made it doubly tough was the guilt he felt from dealing with something he said he didn’t “earn”.

Out of respect for him, I won’t go into the details of what kicked it off, but believe me when I say it was fairly common. A lot of military men and women go through it, but maybe he was spread just a little too thin and the consequences were too hard for him to deal with so the results of it all pushed him over some edge.

Then, to make matters worse, there was no support for him. No doctor or nurse or psychologist ever said, “Hey, he is showing signs somewhat similar to soldiers after combat, so maybe he is suffering from something like that.” Nope, he said instead when he sought help they accused him of “goldbricking”, lying about his symptoms as a way to get out of work. So, as Pink Floyd would say, it became just another brick in the wall. Why go see a doctor when all you got was ridicule?

So things piled up. He told me little things became a chore. Things like driving, grocery shopping, even getting a haircut would cause him to panic, so he started avoiding things, walling himself up in his room. He developed agoraphobia, among other things, or just another brick in the wall.

Over time, anxiety disorders and depression set in, and the guy who was once never at a loss of something to say became a shell of the man he used to be. There was a time when he was the life of the party, joking and laughing, but eventually became of ghost of sorts.

He told me recently that he is still dealing with it. He goes through periods of feeling great and other periods of feeling like hell, and it’s been nearly 30 years since it all started. Sometimes the pills help and sometimes they don’t.

That’s got to be hard, dragging something like that around with you for years and years, knowing that the only real end of it all is when you breathe your last.

I’ll settle for watching my sugar and cholesterol.