My father, who was a WWII veteran, was recalled to the service for Korea and stayed in the Air Force. He was fine and happy as long as he was stationed with his friends. His, our life unraveled when he took a posting as a military liaison at a plant that built nuclear missiles. It was hard for me because I was accustomed to other military kids and the considerably more cosmopolitan atmosphere of a base that we traded for a small southern town. A few days before his death he asked my mom if she’d support him if he checked into a hospital. She had no idea what he was going through and said she would. I think the shame of it and the potential impact on his career led him to choose death. This one really resonated with my personal experience. Thanks.
So sorry you lost your father that way. Yes, you've lived what I wrote about this time, in even more intense terms. I wish he'd sought help, but the stigma in the military back then must have been terrible. It's still bad now. Thanks for responding and sharing your experience.
I know very well what it is to have a shattering, deeply isolating experience. One day the world is one way and the next it is horrifically different. I've read Catcher in the Rye many times, which I suppose you know, was written in foxholes during the Battle of the Bulge. Holden has a breezy verbal style that obscures the fact that he is grief stricken over his brother's death. Holden fantasized about becoming a catcher in the rye who kept lost kids from going over a cliff, and Salinger thought of becoming a special Ed teacher, which is what I did for forty years and I was dogged in my devotion to my students. . I just read an editorial in the Washington Post by a young woman who lost her father to suicide when she was 18, She now has a mission in life to advocate for death row inmates, who she has
found all suffered from childhood sexual abuse.
The pain is deep and it never goes away. I was meditating some people a couple of years ago and we were discussing a family that had lost a child to suicide. I confided that I was a survivor, but as I did I covered my face in shame and wept. I believe the depth it has had a deepening effect on my personality. It immersed me into a universe of suffering that I never knew existed that really can't be avoided anyway. The intensity of it is, as you well know, such that there aren't any distractions. My experience was a window into their life and I'm deeply grateful for what I was called to do. I can't imagine working in an office with rationally acting adults. It would have lacked the challenge and the fun and I had a lot of it.
Forgive me if I'm rambling, but I read this novel called Sparta, about a guy studied The Illiad and the Odyssey at Williams College and, enlisted and served in Iraq. I became interested in them when I read an opinion that The Odyssey was consciously written, not as a myth but an allegory for the long road home that is PTSD. On his return home he inhabits a traumatic bubble utterly isolated from easy confidence and complacency that he sees around him. If you can come back from that feeling you understand something of the human experience that many people avoid their entire lives.
Thanks for sharing, Mack. I imagine you were a great special ed teacher because you were very attuned to the needs of your students. I hope through helping them and through talking to people about what you've experienced, you've been able to find some peace.
That's a fascinating idea about The Odyssey being about the experience of PTSD. I've read the Iliad, but not it. I'll have to read it and see what I think. I believe that, because we are mortal beings, loss is one of our fundamental experiences. In that sense, we are all siblings in the same darkness.
I had wonderful mentors and colleagues, quite notably when I taught in LA, Lee J Cobb’s sister-in-law who was a very kind and intelligent woman. The dark spot in my mind, which is how I conceptualized it, has mainly vanished. Keep writing about it. It’s the silence that kills people.
I went through a period of thinking of 'crashing my car' as well. After my medical discharge, I lost the people who were my support system, my military brothers and sisters. It was like they just unplugged themselves from my life.
Exactly. That’s what so many veterans face when they leave the military. The transition can be hell. I’m glad you’re still alive and talking about your struggles. It shows courage and will help others.
My father, who was a WWII veteran, was recalled to the service for Korea and stayed in the Air Force. He was fine and happy as long as he was stationed with his friends. His, our life unraveled when he took a posting as a military liaison at a plant that built nuclear missiles. It was hard for me because I was accustomed to other military kids and the considerably more cosmopolitan atmosphere of a base that we traded for a small southern town. A few days before his death he asked my mom if she’d support him if he checked into a hospital. She had no idea what he was going through and said she would. I think the shame of it and the potential impact on his career led him to choose death. This one really resonated with my personal experience. Thanks.
So sorry you lost your father that way. Yes, you've lived what I wrote about this time, in even more intense terms. I wish he'd sought help, but the stigma in the military back then must have been terrible. It's still bad now. Thanks for responding and sharing your experience.
I know very well what it is to have a shattering, deeply isolating experience. One day the world is one way and the next it is horrifically different. I've read Catcher in the Rye many times, which I suppose you know, was written in foxholes during the Battle of the Bulge. Holden has a breezy verbal style that obscures the fact that he is grief stricken over his brother's death. Holden fantasized about becoming a catcher in the rye who kept lost kids from going over a cliff, and Salinger thought of becoming a special Ed teacher, which is what I did for forty years and I was dogged in my devotion to my students. . I just read an editorial in the Washington Post by a young woman who lost her father to suicide when she was 18, She now has a mission in life to advocate for death row inmates, who she has
found all suffered from childhood sexual abuse.
The pain is deep and it never goes away. I was meditating some people a couple of years ago and we were discussing a family that had lost a child to suicide. I confided that I was a survivor, but as I did I covered my face in shame and wept. I believe the depth it has had a deepening effect on my personality. It immersed me into a universe of suffering that I never knew existed that really can't be avoided anyway. The intensity of it is, as you well know, such that there aren't any distractions. My experience was a window into their life and I'm deeply grateful for what I was called to do. I can't imagine working in an office with rationally acting adults. It would have lacked the challenge and the fun and I had a lot of it.
Forgive me if I'm rambling, but I read this novel called Sparta, about a guy studied The Illiad and the Odyssey at Williams College and, enlisted and served in Iraq. I became interested in them when I read an opinion that The Odyssey was consciously written, not as a myth but an allegory for the long road home that is PTSD. On his return home he inhabits a traumatic bubble utterly isolated from easy confidence and complacency that he sees around him. If you can come back from that feeling you understand something of the human experience that many people avoid their entire lives.
Thanks for sharing, Mack. I imagine you were a great special ed teacher because you were very attuned to the needs of your students. I hope through helping them and through talking to people about what you've experienced, you've been able to find some peace.
That's a fascinating idea about The Odyssey being about the experience of PTSD. I've read the Iliad, but not it. I'll have to read it and see what I think. I believe that, because we are mortal beings, loss is one of our fundamental experiences. In that sense, we are all siblings in the same darkness.
I had wonderful mentors and colleagues, quite notably when I taught in LA, Lee J Cobb’s sister-in-law who was a very kind and intelligent woman. The dark spot in my mind, which is how I conceptualized it, has mainly vanished. Keep writing about it. It’s the silence that kills people.
I went through a period of thinking of 'crashing my car' as well. After my medical discharge, I lost the people who were my support system, my military brothers and sisters. It was like they just unplugged themselves from my life.
Exactly. That’s what so many veterans face when they leave the military. The transition can be hell. I’m glad you’re still alive and talking about your struggles. It shows courage and will help others.