War Fighters Dont Let Ptsd Keep You Up At Night

Sometimes you need your traumatic self to step in. But not usually. Usually you need your actual self. The person that you are. The person that embodies all of you and it's integrated. And you do not assimilate. I still say the same thing. We do not assimilate. We are war fighters. We infiltrate. We're not trying to become like civilians. We're just going to infiltrate their community and change them. We have the power. We have the respect. America's lost faith in politicians, what they used to see, the heroes of the holidays. They've lost faith in it all. But they haven't lost faith in us. And what are we going to do with that? As a warfighter, you get off active duty, here's what happens. I'll tell you right now. About 10 months after you get off active duty, woohoo, I'm off active duty, sleeping in, eating pizza, and playing a whole lot of video games. about 10 months down the line, it's not so much fun anymore. And all that PTSD you didn't think you had, well now it's keeping you up at night. And you're looking 10 months. That means in two months, you're going to be out a year. That's an anniversary. And what have you done with your life in the last year? Not much. And that PTSD I didn't think I had, now I'm pretty sure I got it and I don't know what to do. That person right there in that situation has just hit the red zone. And pretty soon, things start popping into your head like, the world will be a better place without me. Shake your head. Just let me see around here. Who's ever thought themselves the world would be better without them? Tell me. Couple of you? Yeah? That's a distortion. Whenever that happens, you have to realize you're in a distorted state of mind that's completely false. It's a cue. It's a trigger. That means that's the time you need to make a call because you're becoming distorted. It's a histrionic state of mind. The world is never going to be without you, better without you. And what did we learn in the military? Two is one and one is none. So if you're not battle-buddied up, you're nothing. You got nobody to call, nobody to lean on. And when you hit that state of mind, those distortions start hitting. Start getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. It's a distortion. Do not forget that. Tell everybody you know. If they ever think to themselves, the world will be better without me, they're distorted. It's not true. It's a lie. It's a lie. And your squad leader needs to tell you it's a lie when it happens. And your squad leader needs to tell you, hey, maybe you took the Spartan Pledge. Battle drill. Go. That's what happens. No hesitation. Just do it. The Spartan Pledge was written in two sentences. Just two. You don't have to memorize it perfectly. We've got to get the gist of it. Now let me explain it to you. Right after that photograph was taken, I was talking to my brother from Iraq. Subject to suicide came up. This was before 22 anything. This was back when the number was 18, with only eight states reporting, by the way. And I said, hey, brother, you ever thought about suicide? And he goes, every day, every day, every day? Man, this is where we're thick as thieves. I mean, we did stuff. I knew everything about him. I knew if he moved this way, it meant that. I knew if he moved this way, it meant this. Every single thing I knew about him. But I didn't know he wants to kill himself every day. How could I not know that?