I spend a lot of time here writing about abundance, love, and generosity. It’s been a long road to get to this place. All of us can get better.

Let’s go back to one of the older versions of me: proud, angry, hurt, resentful, hypervigilant, subject to flashbacks, plagued with night terrors, and duty-bound to be a better parent to my children than my parents were to me.

There was a time, not that long ago really, where I was as bitter and angry as most anyone you’re likely to meet. That bitterness and anger had its roots in pain. In my mind, I had done everything right. I had followed the rules. I had worked hard nearly every day of my life since elementary school. I didn’t drink to excess, in fact, I rarely drank at all. I wasn’t a criminal. I was a veteran. I didn’t have debt. I had gotten a college degree without any student loans or parental help. I had service-related PTSD. I stayed married for 16 years, and failed because I couldn’t make a marriage work all by myself. I hurt, and I wasn’t allowed to say so, or why. Court rules about alienating the non-custodial parent meant it was either lie or say nothing.

Yet after all of that, I was homeless and jobless. I believed that because I had checked all the boxes and worked hard that I should have earned something, anything, for my efforts. I was promised a good life if I just worked hard. I believed it because I saw it all around me. My parents were Silent Generation (1929 & 1931 Births). They told me, before I could walk, about how bad their childhoods were. There was no crying allowed in our house; no hugs, and no one said “I love you” either. They lived a materially comfortable life, upgrading homes over the years until they had what they wanted. They always had new cars. They complained about money but we never lacked money for hunting rifles, or a full bar. It was understood. If we worked hard, got a good job, got an education, and saved money, then we would have a home, a car, vacations, and a pension. Except, that wasn’t true. It was not going to work that way for us or anyone younger.

I kept trying to get back on my feet, but everywhere I turned, the door was closed in my face. Even my fellow veterans shunned my experiences. I didn’t have the right kind of PTSD, I wasn’t the right gender, or I hadn’t been involved in a foreign war; not that women were allowed on the front lines back then. Exclusion was, and is, easier than finding ways to let outsiders in.

Was I bitter? Most definitely. Disillusioned? Quite. That was 2009. I was far from being the only person bitter and disillusioned. There’s always been a darker side of society that calls to people who feel left behind, who feel unfairly judged, who feel that somehow someone is at fault for their predicament. The dark side never has cookies, but they’ll find you some company and someone to blame. As a veteran, there was an entire segment of the videos available that focused on the ghastly visuals of humans killing humans, usually in the bad guy vs good guy school of thought. Laughter was the goal, ridicule and dehumanization were appetizers. I didn’t fit that pipeline either. I had been a POG (Personnel Other than Grunt) which is a derogatory term. But falling down that hole of hatred was pretty easy if you were considered part of the group.

Thanks to the Universe, God, whatever your view of providence may be, by taking my children to therapy I ended up in therapy. The therapists appeared to have taken a few looks at me and went “oh my she needs help”. They talked me into it and I’m grateful that they did. The therapy was a beginning.

The reason I’m putting this out here is because there are a lot of people today that feel that same rage, and despair. They act on it, it is the world they experience, and they probably only find a seat at the tables over on the dark side. There aren’t any cookies over there. We all need to feel heard and understood, especially since what we’ve experienced can never be experienced exactly the same way by another human being.

Because the assumptions about military related PTSD are limited – If you really want to know, because I am not going to get into the history of me that deeply on here. I was assigned cleanup duty and stayed to help (prior medical training). I have never been the same since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein_air_show_disaster

Another day I’ll walk through how everything changed, but only in my head. The world is still the same. Be kind, we really don’t know what anyone else’s experiences have felt like. If, by any chance, you’re reading this and recognize yourself, drop a comment here, or find someone to talk to outside of the dark side. It can get better, even though the world refuses to upgrade itself.