so i ve been browsing this sub for a while don t have much to do today so i figured i might a well vent on here i guess to introduce myself i m currently and just recently left the active duty army to attend college on an rotc scholarship about month ago prior to that i wa deployed to afghanistan for about 0 month it s almost hard to even recall the person i used to be back then i wa so mentally strong and confident in myself and my purpose ironically despite working hour day seven day a week under constant threat of getting blown up i can t remember a time when i wa better off mentally like nothing in the world could stop me a i had a plan and wa going to stick with it and if i did end up getting murked i wa just fine with that too i stayed pretty safe for the most part although i did have a pretty close call with a rocket that landed in a ditch on the hill below the building i worked in it obviously scared the ever living fuck out of me and everyone else but after like 0 minute we were all laughing about how close that one wa and how if only the stupid guy had aimed higher he would have got u the whole affair really only strengthened my resolve and made the return home that much better getting back to the state wa probably the best moment of my life even if it wa right in the middle of covid lol i don t want to sound like i m trying to flex my great strength or anything i m just trying to describe who i wa then to who am i now a they aren t even remotely the same person problem started to arise for me around month after getting back after the novelty of being back home wore off i started to experience this weird sense of dissociation and depressive episode that would sometimes last for an hour to a day and then i would suddenly snap back to what i considered a normal state of mind these normally entailed feeling of hopelessness and dread like something in my head just wasn t ticking right and when it came to social situation it wa like i wa operating on a different frequency than everyone else like i could hear and understand them but there wa no emotion behind the word it wa distracting but manageable at that point and i just chalked it up to being burned out at work and figured once i got off active duty and into college thing would greatly improve fast forward to the first semester of college and unfortunately thing have not gone a i imagined in term of school and finance i m doing fine and everything is going according to plan externally but internally i seem to be slowly degrading bit by bit the depressive episode became more intense to the point where i would physically lock up tighten my muscle grind my teeth and it feel like my head is throbbing from all the negative thought it is nearly impossible to sleep in this state thanks to the extreme anxiety but then i would wake up the next morning and feel fine barely being able to remember how i felt the night before the cycle never stopped though and then the thought of well if you just ended it this wouldn t be a problem anymore started to kick in and that s when it really started to snowball downhill fast at this point in time it feel like i m in this depressive state nearly all the time it s only a matter of how bad it s going to be today the dissociative feeling have been cranked up to and conversation just feel like emotionless formality i can no longer connect with friend and family the way i used to like i said earlier it s like we re not on the same frequency if that make any sense the thought of suicide are ever present and feel like a big red emergency eject button begging to be pressed the only escape from these feeling are partying drug and alcohol which are great temporarily but eventually everyone go back to their life you sober up and reality slap you in the face even harder than it did last time i ve also developed a very odd fear of human intimacy that i really can t explain for instance i m a virgin which is a huge insecurity of mine and pretty embarrassing i know i always figured when i m in college i ll meet plenty of woman so there s no need to be insecure about it however i ve had several instance where woman have come onto me and i m totally comfortable with the conversation and flirty talk but once it get physical even just them grabbing me it trigger this instant fear and panic response and i make up an excuse and leave in a manic state then beat myself up for the next week about how much of a pussy i am this is honestly one of the major contributor to my broken self image a couple of week ago i randomly started bawling in my car for over an hour and honestly don t even remember why i m not eating much anymore maybe only like one meal a day and my cognitive performance motivation ha declined significantly my sleep schedule is a total mess i ll either sleep for hour and wake up from nightmare in cold sweat or sleep for and not want to get out of bed and face reality what really prompted me to post this though wa that last week i got really drunk and ended up putting a gun to my head without even thinking about it and then i realized what i wa doing that s when i kind of told myself holy shit man this is real and something is very wrong with you i need some kind of help i know but if i m diagnosed with any kind of mental health condition i ll lose my scholarship and i ve just worked too damn hard for it i ve openly told some of my close friend and family directly that i m having suicidal thought but the response is always oh c mon man your way too strong for that or you re just in a slump right now it ll pas a much a i appreciate having people who care for me and appreciate the sentiment it doesn t do much to alleviate anything i feel like i wa never meant to live this long and that that rocket wa supposed to kill me that day but i m living in some kind of an alternate reality where i survived and nothing make sense anymore at least then i could have died strong and confident rather than broken i had a friend who wa killed over there and honestly i wish i could trade place with him he deserves this life more than i do sorry i turned this into an essay but it feel good to get this out of my head for once if you read this long i hope you can relate or at least get something out of it and thank you finally i ll leave you with a song i ve been listening to on repeat for the past week lmao http www youtube com watch v ksjrcczo