Michelle11, that is quite a riveting story which you have shared; thank you for bringing that to light and maybe others by reading it can come to light as well, as
Linen53 has mentioned. I can definitely relate to it myself as well. I never thought of myself as having high risk dangerous behavior but I did realize that I was continually making myself a target of close calls that could do me a lot of damage, and I did not feel like I was consciously doing this, but maybe it was a subconscious death wish.
I had low self-esteem, and after coming back to the U.S. from Vietnam, at the tender age of twenty, I did not know whether to be proud of my military service or to be ashamed of it. Basically, I hated myself, and while I did not want to outright commit suicide I did constantly put myself in situations that where dangerously damaging. It was almost as if I wanted to punish myself because I did not like me. This was reinforced by others here in the U.S. who spit on us returning Vietnam veterans, called us “baby-killers," and “war mongers,” etc. An even though I was a combat medic in Vietnam, went into villages and medically treated people regardless of their nationality or politics, delivered babies, bound wounds and helped to save lives, etc., I was still ostracized upon my return home to the U.S. I have shared here at SF many times how I lost my eyesight in Vietnam and was blind for about 5-years, went though more than a dozen eye surgeries over that period to regain my eyesight. I had a Christian minister tell me that my loss of eyesight was God punishing me for my sins. There was little to no sympathy for my situation and that added to my low self-esteem.
This was very hard on me, and it was also one of the reasons Vietnam veterans in general stayed sicker longer. The VA nor the civilian counseling community did not recognize PTSD back then as a mental illness. So lots of veterans turned to self medicating with street drugs. Lots of veterans committed suicide because of a lack of treatment, ignored by the professional counseling community, and also being outcast by society. I am glad to see today that veterans are being taught yoga and quiet meditation by the VA to deal with PTSD and for the most part it is working. Suicide rates among veterans have dramatically decreased due to this. Fortunately for me I learned how to meditate and quiet my mind back in the late 1970’s; a guru from India taught me, and without that tool who knows what path I might have taken. PTSD today is acknowledged in non-military veterans, victims of sexual abuse, first responders, etc., but it was Vietnam veterans who fought very hard, and won, to get PTSD recognized as a legitimate mental illness by the professional counseling community.
I felt evil, I felt I was evil; it was not cognitive, it was not a label that I embraced, rather it was a strong feeling that engulfed me. I was filled with rage at the universe, and it had no rhyme or reason. A feeling that I struggled with and I really did not like myself. I had to get to a place where I liked myself, I had to fall in love with myself. Quiet meditation and my spiritual practice helped me to do that. A transformation process of changing my vibration from this icky feeling of self-loathing to a peaceful and loving feeling that permeated by entire being. Surrounding myself with positive, loving, and compassionate people helped. However, for a long time I hid in marijuana and other drugs. Speaking only for myself, that only carried me so far and I had to find a more natural, non-substance induced, way of transforming my vibration. I think the Great Work of Humanity is Self Transformation. Today I am a process in progress and have come a long way from where I was, with greater, more positive, transformations going on within me all the while.
Talking about death and suicide was a taboo subject for a very long tine in the U.S. People just did not discuss it. When my grandmother died I was a little kid and was not allowed to attend the funeral because in my family back then children did not attend funerals. Rather children were told fairy tales about death, and otherwise “protected” from the reality of death, in all its’ forms, including suicide. People move from one place to another trying to get away from something, often not realizing that, that something they are trying to get away from is within them, and they have to work at eradicating what they are trying to escape right where they are at regardless of their situation. Yes, often a change in environment does help but also often, we find whatever conditioning we had over there came with us over here, or vice versa.
Peace and Good Journey
