Nightmares

It's obvious the last few months have been anything but easy for me. Lyla and I have successfully shared germs, and sickness for the last month. Lyla as of today picked up the daycare's latest and greatest and is fighting a 103 temp as we speak. I have another court-martial nicely scheduled for June 20th (my birthday) and I am busy as heck at work. Not to mention the other work stressors that are causing me grief. They are something I would rather not even bring up considering how much they bother me. Now, even through all of this crap I am a good sleeper. Maybe it's because of the multiple deployments and just being used to sleeping through all sorts of circumstances but no matter what I have been through I can normally sleep it off. This last week has not been the case, there I am at 9pm trying to begin my sweet slumber....Im tired and I could totally sleep. But I don't. It's like I've been afraid to go to sleep, not sure why because I am all about getting days over with at this point. But...it just has been hard. I've noticed as of lately that I'm waking up before my alarm...tossing and turning and waking up feeling just awful.
Particularly awful this morning. I laid down so early last night due to the fact that physically I was so exhausted and just couldn't believe how out of shape I clearly am because all I did was run and play a few team sports throughout the day and I was spent! Anyways...I wake up and I feel like a semi-truck hit me. I roll out of bed, proceed with my normal morning routine that involves a trip to the bathroom and then it hits me. Last night I had one of the worst nightmares to date.
One of the great things I walked away with from my 3 trips to Iraq was nightmares. They come and go as they please, showing up without warning and leaving without notice. They are not constant nor are they often. But when they happen they make their presence known. Now, normally it always has everyone from my old squad (Squad 1 in Baghdad when Chavis was killed) and it ALWAYS involves us running from something. i.e a bad guy, bad guys, bad animals....you get the point. Something bad. Usually something moving fast and we are moving slow....something that I don't have the ability to hide from no matter how smart I think I am. Well, last night was different. I remember it so clearly it's like I am there now. We were on a Chinook ( huge helicopter for those that don't know) and we were on our way into Baghdad and about to land when the pilot makes the announcement that we would need to do a combat landing. Now, this is typical in a C-130 but I can't say I have ever seen a Chinook do any drastic measures to combat land. The hum of the rotars is still so clear in my mind, and the funny thing is I have never even ridden on a Chinook in my life. But, there I was sitting with my team in the most detailed helo I have ever seen. Moving on...the helo starts to twist and turn as everyone begins to fly all over the place, then we begin to hear gun fire. I think to myself "we are getting shot down omg" Everyone begins to yell and I think to myself "this is how I am going to die..." The helo is upright and I am able to run, I don't know where I am running but I believe I'm running away (just like in every other nightmare) from the gunfire. I hear the "pings" of the bullets getting closer and then BOOM just like that. A bullet pierces the armor of the helo like it was nothing, and a bullet enters my lower right gut.
I dropped to my knees like those dramatic military films you see and I look down at my stomach gushing blood. The helo is in an uproar but everything goes silent. In my sleep, I feel the pain of my wound. I grabbed at my stomach trying to stop the blood but the wound was too severe. The pain overtook me and I caught myself gasping for air. I could see everyone at the other end and I tried my hardest to tell everyone I was shot, but naturally--I had no voice. I don't remember who it was, but they saw me and came running. They took something and swiftly shoved it in my wound to stop the bleeding. The helo was out of control at this point, and they laid me down in hopes the bullets would "miss me", I remember thinking..." We aren't landed yet??" I laid there imaging bullets shooting up through my back and even in the lightest of thoughts I told myself I was dying...and I softly cried to myself thinking about Lyla, and all the moments I would miss. I cried thinking about who was going to tell Andrew I wasn't coming home. I cried because there I was about to die all alone, or maybe I was about to die in a ball of flames because it seemed clear at this point we were going down. My quiet tears became sobs thinking about how I never got to say goodbye to lyla (or at least in this nightmare I had no memory of saying goodbye to her). The nightmare begins to get quiet and somewhere, somehow it ended. I rolled over and I couldn't tell you the hour but it was dark in my room. I shifted my face on my pillow and felt wetness....the tears. I had been crying in my sleep. I took a deep breath and noticed my heart racing, my palms were sweaty and the back of my neck stiff, like I had been clinched up for hours. I went back to sleep without another thought until the morning when all these memories came back to me. Throughout the day I had random snapshots of the nightmare come back to me, but more so of parts of the nightmare I don't remember. For instance, I have a memory of myself lifting my shirt up and speaking to someone about my wound, they asked me where the bullet went and I explained it was still in me and would be forever. My war "trophy" as I called it. I have to chuckle at this, because even in my nightmares I am still clearly "me" because I can hear myself saying something like that. I don't know when this part of the nightmare came about but as today went on I realized, I lived. I didn't die a firey death. I had a scar to prove it and obviously a sweet bullet still swimming in my gut. Am I making light of this terrifying occurrence last night? of course I am. Why it came to me later on today I don't know why...I wish It would have earlier so I would have known I lived! I kinda hoped more would have come back to me, at least as to who I was showing my scar to because I wonder what happened to my team.
Anyways, I have had some pretty bad ones since 2006 but that is to date, the worst. I hope I can get out of this slump and calm my nerves a little because I certainly cannot live like this forever.
My heart goes out to my friends, and to those out there that suffer with severe PTSD and fight these demons every waking and sleeping moment of their life. It's not an easy fight. Just when I think mine are gone, they come back to remind me they are here to stay.