Is is was, am is were. I say it’s okay but that’s disingenuous, it fucking hurts. My career is just a job now because if I stay home and hide I’ll go crazy, but I won’t be returning to the road either so doing anything else but has become what’s best. The new high water mark for my life is regularly leaving the house more. I’m working real hard to acknowledge purpose is mindset but sometimes I think I’m just tricking myself.

This past weekend I did the Wounded Warriors’ TRP 1 program (phenomenal) and the main focus was connection. There was psychoeducation and what-not but connecting with others and the self was the real focus. That and how personal experiential filters, not events cause emotions. This is the part where ‘why’ gets put under the microscope. The part that makes me squirm, that I want to escape. The part that’s not about the superficial shock. The part I’ve mostly still been avoiding but pretending to work on. The part I’ll be facing in 3 weeks when I do phase 2 of the program. The part my psychologist and wife are probably shaking their heads at me for. One of those “obvious” things.

I’m scared. Shocking for someone with an anxiety disorder I know. Anyway. It’s expected in the program that I expose my weakness and shame. My gut instinct is to get angry at myself for feeling then get wasted out of righteous indignation at my own emotions. Band-aid applied, what’s cooking for dinner? These feelings are a betrayal of an image that was itself a betrayal of those feelings. No one is human only when they want to be. That’s the whole problem with my line of work, isn’t it? I used to quip to friends about how my job was great because I didn’t have to bring it home with me. Fast forward to now where if I don’t fall asleep high I’ll spend the night working in my dreams. Fucking hilarious.

A friend of ours recently passed and his parting words to me were to “keep on keeping on”. He was right. Survival bias is pretty compelling. I want to return to my workplace, even if it is only ever going to be for modified duties. I want to make this experience normal. I’m not looking for a choir but if someone sings I’ll preach. The calls that cause problems are not always the calls you’re taught to expect problems from. That compounds the shame and makes seeking help even harder. That needs to be recognized.

Besides, to be honest, if I must participate in the world I would rather face losing my emotional shit in front of a bunch of paramedics than the general public any day. At worst the medics will at least have fleetingly felt what I’m always struggling with.