would you know my name, if i saw you in heaven...............

[burntoutbill]

this really sucks tonight. my thoughts are racing in my head like an alligator in a purse factory!

feelings of despair and sorrow! haunting childhood memories. i'm in a lot of pain right now. emotional turmoil. just when you think it can't get any worse.........BAM! a smack in the face.

a kid got hit by a car up the block from me tonight, he was riding one of those motorised scooters. kid didn't make it. i was on my way up the road for smokes, got therre just after it happened i'm guessing. i saw the emergency lights and figured it was either a speeding stop or minor accident. then, as i got closer, i knew it was bad. my body started shutting down. feelings went into hiding. i became numb. instinc told me something happened and i had to be ready to help, no time to feel and let emotions get in the way.

when i saw the scooter in the street mangled i knew right away. then the thought of my kids flashed. but it was ok, lauren and brian are home. i pulled into the parking lot. oh ****! where's sean, my youngest? turns out he was home too.

but now i'm getting flashbacks from childhood, of a young kid who had no-one his age and used to come hang out with us older kids. he was a great kid. one day we were all throwing rocks and i beaned him in the head. i'll never forget his screams as he ran home. i never saw that kid again after that? neve got to tell him sorry. he died the next day in a fire! i can still see his face when the rock hit him. it haunts me.

i have a lot of traumatic memories racing through my head now, but that one stands out the most, maybe because it was a young kid tonight?

yesterday i was having a tough time, depression had me in a bear hug. i was drivng to a job last night and thoughts of veering into oncoming traffic were being enetertained by me. the "What if I just..." but i didn't. partly because i don't want to hurt anyone, partly because my older brother was in the car behind me. i thought, if i swerved and hit a light pole maybe.........nah, damned pole would just break and bust up my van.

my head is pounding right now, the alcoholic in me is already drinking, but the sober person is holding on tight, tight but starting to lose his grip. i hate these feelings. i hate the flashbacks! memories of 9/11 are still fresh. i dream about it. i wake up and can smell and taste that god forsaken hole in the ground! i can see the relatives of the victims looking towards us through the fences. grief in their eyes. asking if we thought there was any hope? there was none. how do you tell someone that? i can remember finding remains and wondering if it was one of the ones i knew? there was no way to tell.

i feel the same way now for the parents of the child tonight. i'm feeling their grief. i'm owning a part of it, why? i want to grab the drive of that car tonight and slowly choke the life out of him. how dare he cause so much grief, but was it his fault? is there a devine plan? why do i feel the grief of the family but not that of the driver? can i really believe that this man is not hurting also, why should i feel it is my duty to cause him pain?

i want to go into my backyard and scream right now, i want to scream and beat the sap out of my trees. i want to break stuff. i'm angry! it's more than anger, it's rage. pure rage!

i feel all alone, no one else can relate to me, no one knows what i feel! i don't want their sympathies. i just want to drown my sorrows. i am so ******* miserable right now, i had one tear run down my face, then i shut off emotions. feeling this hurts and i don't want to hurt no more! i'm scared to hurt. i'm scared to feel.
i'm sick of being sick!

[phoenix]

((((((((((((((((((((Bill))))))))))))))))))))

I wish I had words that would ease the pain.Maybe it helps to know that some of us understand more than you think.The memories that haunt us may be different,but the feelings are what we have in common.

Keep talking...we care.


phoenix

[Laci]

Bill...I don't know what to say except that I care about you and you always give me strength. Give yourself some of that strength right now okay....you work a good program, depend on Howard right now (even though you are fighting with him)

Why do these things happen? Let me know if you find out okay. Hang in there buddy, you are in my prayers.

Love and hugs to you....

Laci

[DolphinBlue]

Bill,

I related to so much of what you wrote as I am very vulnerable lately too, lots of old childhood stuff that just wants to come out and car accidents are one of the worst triggers for me. Talking about the feelings really helps me but most of all, knowing I'm not alone. That's why I wanted to let you know that I know the feelings, even though my story is different.

You are NOT alone, hang in there.

Amy

[Ann]

Bill

Word fail me. I cannot think of anything to say to make this easier for you and I cannot imagine the horror of what you have been through. I'm assume that you have already received professional counselling and can only encourage you to stay in close contact with them, and to post here as much or often as you need to to get some of this out.

Just know that I care and that I will say a prayer for you.

Hugs
Ann

Anger is good Bill. Feeling your anger is good. Underneath all that anger is an equal amount of pain. You'll get to it. Just keep going. I can't begin to understand what you went through with your rescue efforts. That is something that must make you feel very lonely and isolated. We are all lonely with our trauma.

I am very sorry you had to experience the death of the child tonight. I could say that you didn't need another trauma to add to all the rest, but I've noticed that my HP uses new circumstances that trigger the old that he is digging up in me. I truly believe this. He uses circumstances as the tools to do his surgery that brings healing to us.

You have a lot of survivors guilt. I can understand that. I too suffered when my husband took his own life. I'll never never forget the look on his face. I don't feel bad for being alive anymore. I am supposed to be alive. You are supposed to be alive. The very last thing I dealt with was the guilt. I finally let it go after many years. It was the toughest part of all the healing.

Keep talking Bill. We care.

Hugs,
MG

[Juls]

((((((((Bill))))))))

Hold on man. This is so tough. Your right, no-one can know how you feel, even when we go through something similar, we experience our feelings differently. I'm so sorry for the boy. Also the one that died in a fire. I have no way of comprehending or understanding these things. I do believe in God, and I try to think that now those children are safe with God, but if it were my child that answer would be in no way good enough.

I know you know that drinking won't help you at all to deal with your feelings. The only healthy way to deal with these feelings is to go through them, to experience them, allow yourself to feel the anger, the rage, the grief and the sorrow. Go in your garage and scream, chop wood, do something intensely physical for relief. Take care of yourself so that you don't need to self-destruct.

You give so much Bill, your input helps many people here, I hope you realize that, and that knowledge can help ease your suffering in some small way.

Juls

[dotcom]

hello bill

i dont know what to say, but i hope you can get through this tough time without using/drinking. your in my thoughts and prayers. GOD BLESS

dotcom

[Pony]

{{{{{{Bill}}}}}}}

Those hugs are only to let you know that you are not alone! I know you feel alone in this and it is easy to feel that way when literally you are sitting alone with your mind racing a million miles a minuet thinking and remembering and feeling like everything is closing in because you can't keep it at bay any longer...the triggers have unleashed the monster memmories and you can contain them any longer but for whatever reason your not ready to deal with them....
It's painful I know.

I ws sitting here reading your post and when I got to the point where you talked about "what if you just drove into the oncoming traffic" but you didn't because.....(your reasons) I got cold....almost numb. For different reasons I, too, had those thoughts very recently...how easy it would be to just drive off the end of that bridge....I hate to even admitt that I had those thoughts. And I haven't even, until this very momment, said it outloud or wrote it out. It was reading your post that prompted me to put it here. Although I am past that now, this night, I seriously entertained the idea that it would end all the**** that was in my head and the stress and pain and emotions that I didn't want to be feeling. I has two cousins that did just that....ended their lives.....and that was that. But it wasn't because of what it did to the family.
I know that our reasons are very different but the want and desire to quiet that pain that haunts us and to not use drugs or alcohol anymore as a numbing force, but the out come is that life does go on. and eventually we can move on through that pain. And our loved ones would be the ones to suffer with that end result of taking your own life away. I'm sure you know all this. It is just my way of letting you know...I do understand! I too know about that tear falling and not wanting more to come! but unless we allow ourselves to feel that pain....to let it finally out of it's cage......and tame it.....deal with it....work it on through; we will never be able to feel the freedom of true unhibited joy that life truely has to offer. We can't see beauty through the fog of tears. It's hard to fully enjoy and embrace love with anger in are hearts! to feel at peace with life and ourselves if we don't quit waging the war within our own minds!

My words to you is release it...let it go
Make peace with yourself and God (if your faith leans that way)

Hang in there.....and Please know You are not alone!

Hugs in friendship,

Pony

[51anna]

Bill, your pain sounds so very difficult. But, you must believe you are not alone. I think many of us addicts have intense emotions, emotions that are very painful sometimes and often that is why we begin to drink. I, too, am plagued by memories which haunt me and feel so real. I hope that knowing you are not alone will help you just a little.

Love, Anna

[2stop]

{{{Bill}}}

I am so sorry for the pain you are experiencing. Wish I could do more to ease your heartache. I am sending the BIGGEST cyber
((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUG))))))))))))))))))))) )) ever. Keep posting, keep talking to us, get the pain out. I know you must hurt so bad it seems unbearable most the time, but there IS hope my friend. Am I am praying for you and am extending my hand, if you need someone to walk you through this...we are all here for you my friend.


"Out of every crisis comes
the chance to be reborn."~ Nena O'Neill

"He who has a 'why' to live for
can bear with almost any 'how.'~F. Nietzsche

"The greatest gift you will
ever receive is the gift of loving
and believing in yourself. Guard this gift with your
life. It is the only thing that will ever truly be yours.
~Tiffany Loren Rowe


Hang in there...and know YOU ARE LOVED...and THIS TOO SHALL PASS.....

:bluerose

[burntoutbill]

thank you all for the support, very kind and insightful words.

morning glory wrote: " I could say that you didn't need another trauma to add to all the rest, but I've noticed that my HP uses new circumstances that trigger the old that he is digging up in me. I truly believe this. He uses circumstances as the tools to do his surgery that brings healing to us. "

well i guess howard was trying to tell me something this morning when a a 4x4 piece of wood came crashing down 14 stories today at work, hit a friend of mine in the leg, messed him up pretty badly! thank god i guess i should say that it didn't hit him in the head or torso?

if howard was trying to send me a message i have an answer for him: "F-YOU, you missed!"

i didn't sleep at all last night, i was very restless. i'm still angry but i've mellowed a bit. maybe exhaustion has something to do with it? after anthony got hit with the wood i was pretty much done for the day. i just went off and sat and pondered.

i see things very differently since 9/11, and my new attempt at sobriety. like looking at objects for instance. i'll look at something and go to a far away place, trance like state. i see doors, chairs, tables, phones, desks, computers, ect. and i'll just stare for who knows how long. do you have any idea of just how many of these things were in the towers? yet when we were trying to help rescue people none of these things were to be found? nothing? where the hell did it all go?

110 stories of building collapsed into a 6 to 7 story pile of steel and dust. how does that happen? how do all these things just disappear into dust, not even fragments, just dust.

[51anna]

That's a pretty heavy question Bill. Is to make us realize how fragile life is, how precious it is? Is it to make us realize that material things are really not important? Or maybe to remind us that nothing lasts forever, however much we want it to.

Glad that you're feeling better today and MG is right as always. The same problems and circumstances will occur again and again until we face them and learn from them and move forward.

Love, Anna

[burntoutbill]

feeling better? i don't know about that, just a little less angry.

thanx anna!

[Annarose]

((( hugs Bill))) After watching my older sisters once very much alive body shut down slowly in ICU , and in time die....I was hit by a 2x4 in my heart....It was so painful, yet I never grew so much in my life in time... ....As I had to move her things out of her apt. they gave me a week after she died, I went through the many things that were treasures of hers, (photos of her life), her music, her 2 cats who she loved so much ( I took them home to live with me)I even looked at the pots and pans she cooked on each day... I sat in her apt alone feeling her so strong.....A thought came over me that the only thing she took with her was what was in her heart.....The Love of family, and friends........she left this world better as when she came into it, because she felt emotions ...The emotion of Love...When she died she packed up her heart and took it with her, nothing else.......Bill just like the people in 911, and the little boys that have died, they didn't know when they woke up that they would be taking their last breath that day.....Just as you and I don't know, but we do know it is going to happen some day.......We have a special gift ( as well as those others who have lost a love one) that we take each day and LOVE the ones God has put into our lifes with all of our heart and never take things for granted.....As the hug we give may be the last one!!!!!.......I used to feel invincible, as a younger person...Took many things for granted. Things have changed for me now ...watching a sunrise....planting a seed and watching it grow into a huge sunflower......watching my children grow, and the blessings they bring me each day...( AND STRESS, and any emotion you can name).My Husband and the love I have for him..... I feel your Howard isn't a f...head, but is doing a 2x4 on your heart......growing is very painful......but I promise, if you work on it, just as you have with not drinking you will look back in a few months from now and say......Oh thats what Howard was trying to say and teach me...... I am praying for you......

[burntoutbill]

that's a lovely post anna thank you! i can tell by it you are a very beautiful person, deep down i know you are right but its hard to accept right now.

[burntoutbill]

i had a great day for a change!

spent time with the family, took the wife to dinner, played with the dogs!

there were some sad moments, when situations would trigger memories and feelings but it was ok today. i delt with it instead of dwelt on it! tonight i'm actually counting on getting some sleep, i'm not holding my breath, but i think it'll happen!

got a little sleep last night. weirdest dream i had. it was a drunk dream i guess?

one part i remember was about this place i grew up at. the local bar was across the street, and a very short walk was where we hung out as kids. it was a garden apt complex up a hill. towards the end of the dream i'm leaving the bar and trying to get to the *side*, that was the name of our hangout. i'm having trouble walking up the hill, i get down on my hands and feet as the hill starts to get steeper. i struggle for awhile getting up the hill but finally make it, when i do there are two people there. a man and a woman. they ask if this is it? i say yes and start to tell them about growing up there, hanging out and the people i was with. the things we did, good and bad. the man is drinking, just like we all used to at the side, he hands me a beer, it's rheingold? we always drank bud. it's in a 24 oz can, we drank pints? as i am about to take a sip i wake up.

strange dream.

I'm so glad you had a great day. Recovery from PTSD is so gradual and seems so slow that it's hard to see progress. A good day is a sign of progress.

I hope you have many more good days.

[burntoutbill]

mmmmmmmmm, sleep good!

it's snowing again. saddam has been captured, who can ask for a better morning? i feel really good about saddam being captured, it almost gives a feeling of purpose to our boys in the sand. i'm fully behind this war, i support my country and it's brave men, i just have reservations about how its being done. and i'm powerless over that, so i accept it!

i feel good about him being caught alive!, but i'm going to disagree with the way the treat him, it wil **** me off that they won't do what i want to do, but i'm already working on that to, i'm talking to howard already. asking him to please let my two cents count!

howard tells me that he doesn't get involved in every litle thing i do, so i shouldn't get involved in every little thing he does. he says that in his grand scheme saddam is but a little pea on!

[True Blue]

Hello Bill,

Howard, is so good. I too am so happy that Saddam has been captured. It is the best news in a long time. My son who just came home from the sand is soooo happy this am. He said he wishes he was still in Iraq so he could celebrate with his pals.
love you Bill, Do take care.

[burntoutbill]

hi janet, give the kid a hug and a salute from me will ya!

and tell him i asked howard to keep an eye out for his buddies!

[2stop]

~Bill~ How are you doing tonight? Just wanyed to let you know I am thinking of you..and I care. Hang in there, k?

((((((((((Supportive Hugs)))))))))))))