Rock Bottom

Coming Home

I flew back through Baltimore. In civilian clothes, but pulling huge sand-colored seabags. It was late. Quiet. People noticed.

“Welcome home.”

“Thank you for your service.”

 I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t grateful. I wasn’t proud. I wasn’t anything. Just tired. And suspicious. Every time someone spoke to me, my brain went: Who are you? What’s your angle? Which is ridiculous, but that’s what happened.

When I landed in San Diego the next day, it really hit me. People everywhere. Families hugging. Kids running. Noise. Chaos. I don’t even remember if I hugged anyone. Pretty sure I just said: “Let’s go. Get me out of here.”

Going back to the hospital was just as bad. Every morning felt like walking into a beehive. Noise. Movement. People talking over each other. Too much. Even years later, standing at the nurses’ station, I felt like I needed to get out. Immediately.

I didn’t think: “PTSD.” But looking back, it was all there. Hypervigilance, paranoia. I was easily startled, I couldn’t handle crowds, I was short-tempered, snapping at people for nothing, and numb most of the time. I went hiking once, a couple of months after I got back. Heard a tornado siren test. My first instinct? Find a bunker. I laughed at myself. I mean, it is pretty funny to be searching for a bunker in the SoCal hills. But I was also thinking, what the fuck?

I thought it would just go away. And it didn’t make sense to me. We never really experienced an attack. We weren’t inundated with patients. I honestly didn’t think I had the right to feel these things. Over time, some of it faded. I could function. But it never fully went away. It just stayed. Simmering.

Guantanamo

I’m not going to say much about GTMO. There are plenty of books, articles, and opinions about it from people with far more intimate knowledge than I have. But I have to include it because it broke me.

I was already in a bad place when I arrived on GTMO. I just hadn’t admitted it yet. I was functioning, working, pushing through. But the anxiety, hypervigilance, and nightmares were already there. GTMO didn’t create it. It just took all my shit, amplified it, put it in a blender, and wouldn’t let me escape from it. Nowhere to run. Literally.

Some people had a high tolerance for this place. Even thrived. Treated it like any other island. Spending off-duty time diving or fishing. I couldn’t. I hated it. How can you relax fishing in a fishbowl with snipers watching you? If you don’t like fishing, you can drive in a circle for half an hour and look at some iguanas.

I fucking hate iguanas. In a heaping helping of irony, they were protected. And therefore, huge. They’d sit in the middle of the road staring at me in my Jeep. I’d slowly start to creep around, and they’d shift just enough to stay in the way. Toying with me.

And here I was taking care of detainees again. Again, responsible for keeping someone alive who might kill you if given the opportunity.  

They started showing up in my dreams. Just people with hateful eyes sort of floating in my head, staring at me. Sometimes I’d dream I was on the walkway around the bachelor officers’ quarters where I slept. I was pinned down, trying to get into any of the doors while detainees ran towards me. But they were all locked, and I was on the fourth floor with nowhere to run.

Breaking Point

 And then, August 26th, 2021. The Abbey Gate bombing during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. I was watching the whole chaotic evacuation on the news: desperate Afghans clinging to planes, the attack. That same day, the command tested our pagers—over and over. The last time I carried a pager was in Kandahar. Even though the screen said “test,” all I could see was the mass casualty page from Afghanistan.

I snapped. I threw the pager at the wall—it didn’t break—so I ripped out the batteries. I sat on the floor, crying, hugging my knees, repeating, “I’m not okay. I’m not okay.”

 It was the first time I admitted it. Not to a doctor. Not on a form. Not in passing. Out loud. To myself.

A friend came and sat with me, brought some whiskey, and calmed me down. It helped in the moment. But something had shifted. After that day, everything got worse. The paranoia. The anger. The noise in my head. I couldn’t function normally anymore. I spiraled.

Things unraveled fast. Simple interactions could send me spiraling. I couldn’t even go to mail call. Too many people. I’d wait until everyone else left. If the gym was crowded, I turned around and walked out.  I was still showing up to work, still playing the role, but barely holding it together.

Finally, I went to mental health.  I had to hit rock bottom to even ask for help. I still couldn’t talk about any of it. I could barely get through the intake appointment. Didn’t tell the full story. Mostly I cried.

When it was over, I went back to my office. Closed the door. Waited for my face to look normal again so I could go back to work.