It’s sunny outside and the dead baby girl is fading. I’ve been living with her day and night for three months because of a horrific relapse. PTSD knows no sense of the passing of time. It will return full force, even as your doctors tell you progress is being made. That’s what happened to me, and that’s what brought her back to me. I met the poor child on a mountaintop in Honduras. She was piled atop a mound of dead adults in a shaded corner of forest. They were all killed in the same disaster. They were nude. At first that puzzled me and then it made so much sense. The village was the s ..read more

So what the hell is a flashback. It’s not what you might think. Not what Hollywood shows us; some violent or grotesque image that fills the mind’s inner screen. The image, smell, sound or invasive thought that causes the flashback is just the trigger. The trigger doesn’t always linger, thank God. The flood of body numbing emotion it sets off does. It’s fear, anguish and regret turned up to ten. Emotion so strong you lose control of yourself and give way to its immense power. Your adrenaline races trough your body and then boils inside with nowhere to go and nothing to do. You become emotion ..read more

“It feels like I’m falling away, I’m getting deeper and deeper everyday. like nothing has changed or ever will. It seems like I’m going insane, getting farther and farther every day. I just swallow the pain and always will.” Ivan’s refrain triggered a flashback early this morning. I don’t share flashbacks because they can harm both of us, yet I can break the rule here because this incident was far from gruesome or horrific. Just briefly terrifying, and perhaps appropriate to where I find myself now. I’ve been trying to come to the metallog for the past couple of weeks but can’t even accomplis ..read more

It’s Death Punch in the headset at three am. I’ve been using 5FDP to stoke a white hot anger during my library road trip. “Ive been hated by better, I’ve been beaten by the best.” Indeed yes Ivan, I have been beaten by the best. PTSD put me down for the ten count and left the arena with me still out on the mat. Yet, I find myself trying to scare it away with a little overly polished death metal. Now there’s a phrase I never saw coming. True though, the harmonies and chord structures with this band are a tiny bit too cute for a core death metal band. Ahh digression, usually a sign of trouble ..read more

“I’ve been thrown down, run around, beaten till I hit the ground.” I feel that Ivan. We have Five Finger Death Punch in the driver’s seat for today’s metallog. As we should, 5FDP is part of the problem. “Help me to fly away, lift me up above the broken and the empty, lift me up and help me to fly away.” Indeed Ivan, you may have. Let’s back up twenty four hours. I left home yesterday on my first road trip in over two years and I did everything wrong. Yet, I sit here in Saint John this morning knowing if the choice was to do it again the wrong way today or not at all, I would do it again. I’m ..read more

“This wasn’t meant to be a love song. Matter of fact this one’s about hate.” We have 5FDP thumping through the headphones this morning. It seems Ivan is setting an angry tone. In fairness, I only reach for the Vegas death metal madmen when I’m in a dark space, and Ivan is right, this one ain’t a love song. It’s about how I became such a burnout. Truth is I should have seen the end coming the last time I was smoking the ass off my bike. The day I destroyed my Harley I was doing a rage induced burnout. I shoved full throttle power into the rear wheel as I forced my boots into the pavement and h ..read more

It’s two am, do you know where your insomniac is. He’s typing away on his iPhone with Metallica’s Master of Puppets album in the earphones. I’ve never tried to journal to this album. It might be too up and hook filled. It is the album’s 30th anniversary though and it has been inducted into the US Library of congress. Not bad for a garage band of kids. Okay I switched to iPad, the phone keyboard is too small for my bleary eyes. Ahh here comes the title cut. Nice riff out of the gate, great tone. I’m supposed to learn it. Ever since Dr. Crane and Dr. Balla recommended music therapy in general ..read more

It’s two thirty in the morning. I’ve been up for an hour now and I know I’m going to ride out the dark side of this day. It happens. My chest is hollow, my breath coming in tiny sips like I’m breathing through a baby’s plastic cup. My pulse is racing and the adrenaline is coursing through every cell at 200psi. I’m having repeated violent flashbacks that I can’t turn off. They are real; moments I lived through that could easily have gone the other way. Times when there was a very good chance I wasn’t going to make it home from work. In reality in most cases I managed to talk my way out, a few ..read more

Things are mixed here in the cave. I’m humbled, thrilled and terrified all at once. I’ve been riffing all week on the journey of a book as I try to sort through it all. I thought I’d take it here to see if I can make any sense of it. Metallica is back in the driver’s seat as we begin yet another Metallog. James is telling me I’ve reached the “end of the line” and that fits nicely with where my head is, and to a degree where my book is. It sounds odd to say the book is at the end of the line as it first appears in stores, but for me it is. You see that book has been my lifeline for almost twen ..read more

A reminder. These posts are simple stream of consciousness journalling aimed at controlling CPTSD symptoms. The free form nature means truth often hides here. They are guided by music to keep my left brain occupied and me honest. In both cases trickery. It’s what I’ve got, hope it helps you. “I’ve been beaten by better, I’ve been beaten by the best.” Ivan wails as we stick with 5FDP as our journaling guides this morning. Appropriate to the thoughts swirling in my muddled head. I have indeed been beaten by the best, and stood to fight again. I’m talking about Crohn’s disease. Yesterday as my o ..read more