Broken Soldier

There is a quote from the movie “The Joker” that speaks volumes about how “normal” people feel about the mentally ill:

“The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t”.

I was seeing someone for the past several days and things seemed to be hitting off very well. But then like a light switched. Everything I was doing, that I thought I was doing well, was all wrong. My mental illness became an issue to her. So she dumped me. If I was in a wheel chair and being handicapped was an issue, she’d be considered a terrible person. But I guess it’s ok to discriminate against the mentally ill.

I tried very hard to be myself. But it seems that who I am is not a very attractive person. Is all that I am sick and twisted by this illness? Is it all that I am now? I feel broken and put back together by drunken monkeys using hot glue and duct tape. What I have left of me is scarred and ugly.

I am a broken warrior and as much people say they support the troops they don’t know how to handle a broken soldier. I was not born for civilian life. I wasn’t even born and raised in the civilian world. I was born in a Navy hospital, raised on military bases around the world, and probably will die in a VA hospital.

When I date a civilian they don’t realize how different our worlds are. The way I perceive the world around me is much different. Civilians don’t know how good they have it. Or the sacrifices made for them to have their freedoms to spit on soldiers or protest the wars we are called to fight. They think there is some kind of distinction between supporting the troops and protesting the war. Who is fighting the war? Sure as fuck not them. Maybe if they thought of something bigger than themselves that is worth dying for, and step up with action to prove they are man or woman enough to be a soldier, airman, sailor, or marine.