AUTHORS NOTE: I have no clue what category to shoehorn this in. I was hoping to find a place to vent a little and talk a bit about the past. idk. I'll just do relationship for now. I guess this is relationship with myself? Sounds like narcissism with extra steps...

I'm completely new to the writing community, despite having dabbled in the art off and on for years. I am by no means a professional, and I don't know the proper chains to go through even if I felt I had the capacity.

Some may think it arrogant, or conceited, while others might not care, or may even be genuinely interested. I understand some will agree, others may not; but good and bad, I would like to give a basic introduction to who I am as a person. I would just like a moment to talk about my interests and beliefs, and maybe vent a few frustrations. Writing is a form of expression, so it would be hypocritical to deny me at least that. Unfortunately, I have a lot to say. too much for a conversation or a short paper. I may have to put forth all my time and energy into it before I can finally get what I need for the time being out.

Also, before I start I would like to make clear that if there is any money being made on my copyright and you don't make the equivalent of $30,000; which is considered the poverty line in the United States, you have no right to profit from my pain and experiences. Likewise you don't have the right to make profit from the pain and suffering of others. If you make a CENT more than that, I will hound you for every dime you earn with my name until you donate that money to an organization or LOCAL business that stands for a righteous cause. I have lived too much of a lie to allow people to suffer and be constantly silenced as I have. This. Ends. NOW.

Now that is out of the way, I would like to talk about my interests first. I LOVE activism, space, various fields of science. I have been raised my whole life to believe that people will be compassionate, and they will usually show empathy. Videogames are another hobby of mine, as is Anime, philosophy, and quantum mechanics. (I'm dreadful at that last topic, but I still find it very fun to try to wrap my head around!)

Clearly, I like to think. I love to analyze, and I love to explain something I know, or my understanding of something. I love looking outward and looking at the prospect of what could be. I dream of man crossing into the stars, I hope to see the end of famine and war.

I was led to believe throughout my development that I had the power to change things, that I had the ability to make the world a better place in my own small way. I have always been told to live with passion, live with empathy, treat others the way you want to be treated.

But a lot of the time, it feels like people say it's a two way street, but very few actually mean that. I can't speak for everyone, but I have been dominated out of my fair share of conversation, to the extent I have become a background character in my own life. To say something either warrants no response, or a subtle look like I might possibly be insane.

Obviously that brings me to writing as a coping skill. I don't know anyone in the same boat as I am, but when I try to take a breath, or stop for a moment to organize my thoughts for the next sentence, the silence is taken advantage of and someone else jumps into the spotlight without skipping a beat, regardless if you're finished or not. It doesn't happen as much in one on one conversations, but I also understand I have a tendency to monologue about things I take passion in; just to name a few things.

Maybe if I have an outlet to talk about my feelings, I hope to monologue less, and in turn I hope to frustrate less people as well as get my thoughts out there in an understandable fashion. If I feel stressed, or backed into a corner, I buckle up, I stutter. sometimes I will raise my voice in anger or lower my voice in fear.

From being cut off, yelled at, threatened, interrupted to downright isolated, subtle glances or movements that scream discomfort to me, I have finally started to accept writing as my go to to have all my major thoughts expressed.

Sometimes I feel absolutely stupid for having not come to this realization sooner. I went through my whole life being told what to think, what to believe, how to act. I spent most of my life preparing for a career in the military. I still remember being on the couch when my mom changed the channel on 9/11. I was at home sick with the Chicken Pox and the first time I ever saw someone die was a man jumping out of the tower to avoid a firey death, else the building collapsing crushes his bones. When I saw those towers fall, I felt nothing but anguish and anger in my heart. It was that day I swore I would be a Marine.

I saw all kinds of movies, all kinds of books that toted the military man as a hero who always tries to get the job done. A marine is the first in and the last out. I chose the marines because I was bound determined to stop another 9/11. I was going to be the best damn Marine, the LAST to bleed. Because as those towers fell, my mind started to think of every life that was erased, every hope that was thrown away. I couldn't stomach to see that depravity on a scale do large. I was willing to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING in my absolute power to minimize the cost of human life. I was told, "If that's what you want, go for it."

Later down the line, my cousin Jacob was killed in the clinical shooting in Baghdad, I changed my ideals to joining the Army. I used to hold bitter resentment to the man who took my cousin. But now, as I look back. Jacob died because of the conscious decision of that clinic to deny that man help he needed, just like me. The hatred I harbor is to the staff who made that choice.

One story I heard said he was hiding under a desk begging for his life, the other said he stood in front of someone else and tried to calmly talk the man down. With the light I saw Jacob under, I wanted to believe the story he calmly tried to talk the man down because it gave me more comfort. I don't know what the truth is, but I feel now that is irrelevant.

I remember hearing about his death, and I couldn't stop crying. I think it was the first death that really impacted me on a personal level. It was after his death, coupled with the light that I saw him in, that I decided to join the Army. Not just because I wanted to be like him, but because I began to feel there was something wrong with the Army. I couldn't focus in school, I lost faith in my belief (I was originally raised Christian. My mother came from a Southern Baptist household I believe, while my father came from a primarily Methodist one.) My parents were divorced and my cousin Hannah, Jacob's sister, said that my grandmother couldn't go to the funeral. My father, probably in spite of Hannah or my mother or something said that none of us were going as a result. My cousin wasn't outright banning us, or my father. Just my grandmother because they don't remember her actively trying to be a part of her life.

I was only 13, 14 around the divorce. My dad always said my mom was being a Disneyland parent because she would take us out to arcades, or out to eat. He always said that she traded us for the title to the van and even has the texts. I don't remember if I actually looked at them or not, but I believed him. From my perspective, it looked like my parents were just doing things because it pissed the other off. Obviously, there was already a lot on my plate, and I was 16 when Jacob passed away.

I may not have known him for very long, but he and I had so many similar interests, and according to Hannah; beliefs that I will always look up to him like the older brother I never had. So at this time, I had decided to change my dream to enlisting in the Army. I still wanted to protect people, but I also wanted to be like my cousin, and I wanted to try to work my way through the ranks and get to a position I could change things for the better.

Eventually, my mother and at the time stepfather talked me out of being a combat medic in the army and made me settle on a career in the Air Force. I don't remember what the first occupation I was gonna go in for first was, but I eventually traded with someone and got General Mechanics. Eventually, I was hand picked for Aerospace Maintenance on the C5 Galaxy.

I used to feel a little resentment to my mother, I will admit. For the longest time, I felt that I was cheated of doing what I prepared for my whole life. Eventually, I would start to take pride that my job was sending supplies to our boys fighting against an enemy of our freedom. I forgot to do my CDCs (Career Development Courses) a lot of the time. looking at them, looking through them became anxiety inducing. Eventually the prospect of doing them on the field was shown. I was excited to hear about this. I searched for every way I could do that, because I could prove what I do easy by hand. Not usually by tests, even if they give me the answers. if I'm given a book the size of a bible, I'm going to get overwhelmed. It's so much to memorize, flip through, process. I've always struggled on tests because of Anxiety and after the change of command ceremony, when the hammer was dropped for the cannon, that's when things started to change.

That is when I was told I HAD to take my CDCs via the book because I wasn't special. I think that's when I started to collapse, and when I felt people began to stop listening when I spoke.

I was in and out of mental hospitals, off and on at this point. The first time I remember being inpatient was David Grant Medical Center, in Travis AFB. The night before my admittance, I was in my dorm room, I don't remember much before, but I was mad at my parents. Against what I understood to be regulation, they contacted my CO to tell them that I looked at erotic content of a kid's show. I only knew because my first shirt pulled me aside and started harassing me about it.

I will admit, I have done many stupid things in the past, this is definitely one of them. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure what to take from it. But I'm not going back to it, that's for sure.

When I first admitted it, I was on leave. It was the 4th of July, and I had just come home. I don't remember what led the conversation in this way, but a misconception of a brony came up and I retorted with my best explanation with the information I understood.

"A brony is someone who just watches the show. A clopper goes for the explicit stuff."

My stepdad asked if I look at that. there was one other case that I was harassing some beliebers on Spotify because I was bored and thought I was trolling in school one day, and a message came up. It was addressed to me and I remember the message being from my own account that said, "Get back to your school work" or something to that effect. I naturally panicked and went right back to it. I confronted my parents about it later, but I don't remember what was said or done.

But given this, I figured he would find out anyway, he was going to probably hack my shit and look if he didn't believe me, so I just opened up with the truth. As a result, they still got rife with me. Understandably so, but they did ask.

Back to the story, I was furious, so I called my mom. I don't remember the conversation, but I admitting that I was having trouble with suicidal thoughts because I felt my basic right to privacy was at stake.

"You always use that, and I'm honestly very close to just calling your bluff." is basically what my mother said. at that point, I only saw white. i hung up the phone and opened my bottle, and I prepared myself to down the bottle until there was a knock on my door.

Airman Belk was at the door. Saying that my mother who I never introduced to him is worried about me and wanted him to check on me. I was confused how he knew my mom, and when I asked, he kept avoiding the question. That was I think when the first seeds of Paranoia were planted in my mind. For years, that fear of being watched by my mom or my step dad would effect some of my actions for years.

At one point, I wanted to report the case of my parents calling my CO. As mentioned before, I was furious, and as I understood, it was against regulation and I felt I wanted justice. I sat down in the investigations office (I don't remember the acronym, I wanna say ISO) and began explaining the hacking, the call to someone I never introduced them, my first shirt having contact with my parents. My mom swears it was solely my stepdad, and I want to believe her.

I want to believe that he truly did force her hand along and she isn't just toying with me. I want to believe has changed for the better; but sometimes she does something or says something that makes me question. Other times, I can see she is genuinely trying, and I really want to be there. But when you're gaslit by your own mother, that's something that is tough to bounce back from; Regardless who you are.

So that was the end of my military career. I was given an "Honorable discharge under medical circumstances." I had several hospitalizations and I was kicked to the curb. One of my diagnoses would be Personality Disorder. To this day, I still don't understand that. I want to ask for a simple explanation and I get two or three different answers which I can't wrap my head around and lose focus midway. I think it's because I simply don't know how to ask, or where to go to ask.

And the one thing that stuck with me a lot was the stories some of the patients in some of these places told me. Stories of their CO ordering them to put down a child, a drone strike being considered a hostile kill unless otherwise stated, just to name a couple off the top of my head. This is when the first of many huge shifts in my belief kick-started as well. I started losing faith in how genuine our military and media was. For years, I would get people trying to justify and even condone those acts. I've had people try to justify and condone my occupation. I feel that I was being used, and I've been told by my mother, "Don't think about that, think about the lives you saved."

I don't really know of any lives saved because of my line of work. I remember something we called the Elephant Run, which we did around the time of the Tsunamis in Japan. I THINK we were trying to send supplies there in support, but I don't remember. But seeing those planes take off at the end of the day, seeing what I did come to fruition. I felt pride because I believed it was right. The supplies that the planes sent could be seen as me doing my part in saving lives. But what good does it do when those lives I'm saving are intentionally ruining others?

Am I truly performing for the greater good? Doing my part to uphold basic human rights and equality for everyone I promised to stand for? Absolutely not. Am I to blame? I'll let you be the judge. Some I have spoken to and been able to open up to about this says no. I recently had made an aquaintance recently. I don't know him much but he has been to India a couple times, and he has a disdain for America. By my understanding he doesn't condone the acts of the Taliban either.

On an off note; another comment I saw said we were in 10 years too long. Frankly, I have to agree. But back to the topic, when I opened up to him about it; For all I know, he could have been one of or have been related to one of the potential lives I may have indirectly ruined. To see him confirm that I did the best I could with what I was told. It was like a weight lifted. For once, I felt validated, I felt understood, I felt forgiven. And even by someone who my country may have labeled a potential enemy for simply existing. I'm sick of the world ruining such good people like that.

After my dreams in the military died, I had looked around for what I could understand as my next place in life. I would continue looking for a circle of people to listen, and to listen to, a new way to propel my hopes and my aspirations forward.

I considered a lawyer, a news anchor, and even a bureaucrat. Everything I wanted to find my next place in life would end in absolute failure. I would hold nothing but self anger for them. Which would lead to self hatred, and that hate led to so much suffering. Poetically true to Yoda's quote from Star Wars.

Having always been told what, I grew up being a direct person. I don't do well with subtleties sometimes, and I live a very reactionary lifestyle these days. Many days I forget to shower, or do my laundry because I just feel so exhausted, or the thought simply doesn't cross my mind. In order for me to understand something, someone has to be direct, but gentle. If it's aggressive, I'll feel attacked. if it's stern, I'll feel backed into a corner. And when asked for an answer I don't have, I tend buckle down if I feel like I'm being pressured for it.

I draw close to the character limit for a story here, and I feel pretty bad because I wanted to talk about my interests a little more, and all I had room for was my time in the military and what I have been told would be complaining. My insecurities want to eat at me here, feeling that I talk too much for even a book, or that I can't organize my thoughts, I don't know if it's just because I want to be heard or selfishly go about my problems... But in the end, I think all I really, truly need is to feel validated, and to feel that I can be honest without immediate disgust and hatred.




© Janitor McPhee