Hey y'all. Found y'all through my girlfriend, who is on here for other stuff. She pointed out this sub-forum and I hadn't seen much in the way of stuff for combat vets w/ ptsd in places. Anyways.

I've been struggling a lot in the past year, mostly since I left the army in april, with a lot of different stuff. I'm tired of telling the same story over and over again, so this is the basic super-condensed version.

Went in to see the doctor in 2008 'cause I thought I might have diabetes (poor sleep, couldn't stay awake, couldn't remember anything, depressed/angry/myriad of other boring stuff), and they sent me to do a sleep test. Sleep apnea/hypersomnia. Gave me a CPAP machine -- slept better and felt more rested, but I was still bouncing off the walls with anger and just a general a-hole to be around. Went to mental health and they app diagnosed me with PTSD -- I was never told this, just that the psychologist I was seeing wanted me to come in and do some group meetings on wednesdays. Fast Forward to April --

I get out, and I move back home to stay with my folks. Can't find a job and am on unemployment. I start to notice that I'm angry at everyone and everything 90% of the time and (what I now know to be) my declarative memory is completely shot. Give me three numbers and ask me to repeat them back to you five minutes later and I can't. I mean, really simple stuff like the date and time of my first VA appointment had to be written down. It's gotten (somewhat) better, but that's mostly because I have Amy. Without her, i'm a complete mess -- She didn't move in w/ me until october, and when she wasn't living with me it was sooo much harder. Anyways.

I went to do all the VA stuff and am/was being seen by one of their trauma services psychologists/psychiatrists/whatever.

I don't really know where I was going with this when I started...just trying to get the important stuff out before I forget other important stuff. Anyways. Deployed to Iraq in 2005-2006 as a combat documentation specialist (comcam), did mostly video w/ 1st BCT 10MTN, 2/502 101st ABN, and XVIII ABN units in and around Baghdad. I didn't know where I was half the time.

I only got into like three or four ticks and I never really considered them to be hard or bad or anything like that, but from talking with the guys at the VA and everything they're saying to me is that I have PTSD and they gave me some meds that I haven't and probably won't take. I don't want them to medicate me into being someone completely different, I want them to fix me the way I was, when I could go to clubs and bars and not get that "I need to GTFO right now" feeling when people start cramming up against me, and be able to spend more than an hour in the mall/shopping/driving around with Amy before I start wanting to go home and not have to deal with people. I've noticed, and I don't know if it's a symptom or if I'm just changing as a person or whatever, but...I'm an out and out racist. Perfectly understandabe (and acceptable, for me) for the arabs, and I think that when I look at people I'm putting them in one of two categories, either threat or 'I can take him.'

The thing is...I just...I don't quite know how to put it. It's not 'active' for me it's not like a i-think-about-this-crap-all-the-time, but its just /there/. I just don't understand it. I've looked around and done my research on PTSD and combat PTSD and MTBI's and everything, and I /do/ 'fit' the combat PTSD symptoms, but it's like....I've got at least a dozen friends that're still in and some that aren't that have PTSD, too, and I just...I don't 'relive' anything or have flashbacks. I wasn't exposed to a whole lot and I just don't understand how I have PTSD. I'm just so confused, and the VA's not helping matters much at all. I talked briefly with one of the advocates for filing for disabilities and stuff, and she said that the VA won't consider PTSD claims w/out five separate incidents and they'll want a bunch of information that I can't remember (I don't think I knew where I was or what day it was in the first place half the time). It's just rough because I mean...with a lot of people, you know, they have something they can pin all this on and something/someone to (even misguidedly) channel all their anger and frustration at, and what I get is "Well, you know, it's not uncommon for just being in that situation." So I get to be mad at the whole of the middle east. Thanks, life.

Short and skinny:
I battle a lot with
A) Do I /really/ have PTSD?
and
B) If I /do/ have PTSD, do I really deserve anything for something this 'mild'?

Clinically, I guess it would be considered mild. Practically for me, not remembering what day it is, where your keys are, was that a left or a right turn, and having to have your girlfriend write down exactly what she wants on her hamburger, despite having ordered the same exact thing for her 50+ times is /not/ mild. I feel a lot of times like the dude in Memento that had all of the important stuff tattooed on him and sticky-noted to himself.

Sorry for that being so long. any help and stuff would be appreciated.