Kabul - a place that took a part of me

This past week has been difficult not just for me but for many veterans, families and serving.

Many mixed emotions & feelings, trying to hide from the papers, articles etc yet it was everywhere.

In 2013 I went back out on tour a yr after retuning from my last one this time heading to kabul for the 6 months running my own office and overseeing 3 other offices with being the hub location. The first 2 months were great serving with the Scots DG they were top dollar, so supportive, helpful etc an honour to work along.

Then they left and someone else replaced them and things turned south. I was overrun by work and when bad weather hit this would just add to it all with backlogs. Lack of support from both the replacement & management. Asking for help, being ignored, lied to just kept getting punched down.

Heading out on road moves to deliver what needed to be done to be moaned at, felt as it its all my fault. They didn't like the fact they were basically a taxi service....OK but don't take it out on me.

Actions that were carried out on road moves, being made to get out of the vehicle at check points to unload to reload to me was pointless it had never happened before on pervious tours or the beginning of this tour...that split second your not ready the what ifs began to take over. More scenarios but I won't go into detail. 

Alone, unsupported, scared (yes I will admit I was scared) the unknown. Everytime we went out it was the unknown.

My health deteriorated, my mental health black/dark and then even a doctor was unhelpful & unsupportive to the point I had no where to turn & didn't know what else to do to stop this confusion & pain so on Sanger duty the early hours of the morning I nearly called it time. I couldn't carry on with so much blackness & pain inside me I wanted it all to stop. The disassociation scares me now when I think about it. 

I felt I'd failed everyone else, failed my job, my office, family everyone....I didn't care about me it was everyone else I was more upset that I had failed them. I was airomended out of kabul back to bastion to see a physiatrist I carried on working in bastion ashamed, refusing to go home even after suffering with serious vertigo I kept saying I'm finishing the tour, I have to. Yet who was I trying to prove 🤔.

I pushed myself every day to fake that I was OK, show no weakness, ask for nothing just keep going cause even when you did ask you got no help so you shut yourself down and internalise that you, you are the problem.

With all this situation happening now in Kabul it has bought up alot of emotions and feelings I have cried, I have been angry, scared, sad, confused. Something in me wants to be back there right now. At first I thought yes be in the thick of it help as many suffering people as possible then I sit and think is it that or is it the hope that you might be able to turn the clock back and find that missing piece of you that was destroyed. 

Kabul even when the word is said brings tears to my eyes a place where the pin point of my career began to unravel and fail. I get overwhelmed and just burst into tears and think please give me that piece of me back before the country goes into turmoil even more as if its going to disappear. I know all this sounds so daft yet its just what I'm feeling/thinking.

Even from the tons of therapy I thought I'd be able to control it however this has hit the pit of my stomach and it scares me. I know its just a blip in the road and I will bounce back however at the moment it's painful.

Some people may be thinking they shouldn't be feeling these feelings but just take a moment to understand your feelings no matter what are valid. You matter and you are valid. 

Mental health is complex, it hurts 😢 I even physically feel pain when I'm mentally struggling, that's the power of the mind. 

Please remember it's OK to reach out for support and ask for help, I was made to feel it was a sign of weakness please believe me it isn't its courageous and shows inner strength to ask for help.

I look at this picture and no longer recognise who I was.