Army Life

I can genuinely say I joined the Army to run away from home. I can say it was not for money, not for education. I already had those. All these years, I’ve grown nonetheless, though I still don’t have that thick skin. Went through more abuse than I can handle and rape. My anxiety is worse, depression off the roof. I’m more suicidal than I can imagine, even have about four therapists. My NCO Support channels only care about their numbers though, so they told me to wait till I get out to kill myself. 

Someone tried to explain to me that not everyone would be a friend, and I told them that I was aware of said fact. However, I never truly understood how deep that went until the Army. I never realized how gullible and naive I was until the Military. Despite all that, I gained the opportunity to learn to stay to myself (ME, MYSELF, & I). 

PT, WORK, home, sleep and do it all over again. 

Hence, when I say I am counting down the days and that I am excited to get out, I mean that on everything. The Army can keep everything. I don’t even want the 3 years back pay they owe me, I just want my freedom. 

I want to just remember the good times I had and move on, because that is what life has now become for me. The Good Times.

The sum it up version, it started as a kid. Trauma, being as strong as it is, I’ve had and have a hard time recollecting some things now. Nevertheless, I knew I wasn't always happy, and I convinced myself that I couldn't find this inner joy till I ran. Which I decided on after getting tired of doing my summer run away episodes. I took vacations to be able to coup with many things I never learned proper response to. After graduating, I tried but only was able to for a couple of months. Obviously, the Army seemed like the appropriate answer since, it tackled multiple things with one decision. 1. I always dreamed of being a power ranger and protect people, I saw the Army in that light. Day and night fighting to protect and no one really knows what all you protected them from. 2. My biggest dream becoming part of the law, enforcing it and more. Becoming a detective or an agent when I grew up, the Army was that steppingstone as well. 3. Last, but not least, I didn't have to lie about why I didn't want to come home during regular civilian holidays. This is what I thought the Army will offer, and many other opportunities or so I thought.

Off course, joining taught me a lot, and helped me grow and develop in so many ways. I learned so much about myself and things I thought I was incapable of doing. Most importantly, I learned about regular human behaviors that I managed to avoid or forget somehow.

I joined late October in 2015 and my determination to be away from home helped me go through basic with ease. That and a few, maybe one to three supporters that sent me letters. My "adoptive parents", my biggest supporters were there to send me off course; so was my birth mother and Stepdad. Come to think of it, that was the first time I remember my birth mother telling me she loves me. Due to my many traumas, that's the day I registered as her first telling me she loves me. Therefore, that is how the story is always told and will always be told and remembered. 

I met some great folks, and even had a group that helped me get through certain emotional roller coasters. We even created a whole name, at least I think I remembered as so, "The Power Rangers". They were amazing, unfortunately one of our forces was sent home due to medical, a Law School graduate who was about to become EOD. She was the toughest of us and we wanted to finish strong her, at least if I had to speak for myself, I wanted to finish strong because of her. 

Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar, I did. I don't think I ever thanked her. The week I graduated, the Army was almost at its 10-year mark for switching out uniforms, the field ones. 

At this point, I was free from training and into the "Real Army" they called it. I can say I was excited to be home for five seconds, didn't take me long to want to run back. Now, that I think about it, if I knew what I know now, I would've saved my leave days. My first duty station, on a beach and I was still missing something. However, to sum up my whole time in Virginia Beach, I met wonderful people and not so wonderful folks too. 

I met someone, that spend most of his time convincing me that Family was the most important thing in one’s life, no matter what. He called his mother every Friday like clockwork. He showed me what love would be like if I just open my heart and stop being afraid and defensive. Am I still afraid? Not so much. Defensive? Definitely, and I believe that I will be for a long time. The tragedy of this beautiful story between us, is God took him too soon. Unfortunately, I have never dealt with death or how to deal with it. Nor the death of someone I have gotten that close to, to the point of being inseparable. Before him, the only close person I lost was my grandmother, however, I never dealt with it. I was going through other trauma at the time. I just hid, cried, and piled it onto my other pains and “not dealt with issues.”

The worse part about losing William, was also losing a baby I didn't know I was pregnant with, until all the nightmares started, until four months into the pregnancy. The trauma of losing William, caused me to go through a deep depression and scary vivid nightmares. Nightmares that had me waking up in the middle of the night screaming at the walls. I started sleeping in parking lots, my little big brother Jaylen's room, even in my roommates’ room on the floor once or twice. That was two things that had me off my rockers and fed up with the unit I was in at the time. Sadly, one memory, that may be different if heard from my former platoon sergeant's POV, is when I was questioned by him on the baby being the child of a senior that I was rumored with fraternizing with. A mentor was all he was, someone who was teaching me my job cause nobody else knew how to do. I was beyond appalled and tried to keep going. 

Slowly, I felt like all the things my mind shielded me from where happening, or I was just now noticing. For instance, a few months before I was officially moved because I have had enough, I said out loud how I wanted to be an officer. My platoon leader at the time, who was once Enlisted and commissioned to Officer told me to my face in front of others, that I wouldn't make it because of me being a female and being darker than most. Sadly, telling my new platoon sergeant who was an EO (Equal Opportunity) representative, didn't do anything but get me switched from office to no more office. It’s safe to say, I did not continue pursuing that route. 

Fast forward to today three almost four years later, I made it farther than most would in 8-12 years. At least, according to my career map. I picked up Sergeant (E5) months of being in Korea and a year and five months later Staff Sergeant (E6).

I left VA as a SPC, landed on Korea and 30 months later I came back state side an SSG. Getting that rank is when I started to learn even more human cruelty. They say, if you don't have a few haters, you aren’t doing right in life. I was not thinking that way at all. I was crushed, I wanted to be striped back down to a PVT and start all over again. You become isolated due to the rank, face more adversities that people expect you to know how to handle. At this milestone, you are alone. You are not to ask for help because you will be publicly humiliated, and shamed. Everyone presents to have your back but will push you down further when you just tripped. They expect you to just know everything, be strong all the time and never ask for help. However, people fail to realize that we are only experts at what we focus on. Let me rephrase that, no is dumb, we were all intelligent in our own areas of choosing. Even then, there is someone else better than you at that, it doesn’t mean that you don’t need the help. I learned so much about the so called “camaraderie” that every claim we should forge amongst each other and know that I came from places that only faked it (just like their concerns for fellow humans). I learned that it's your own people that will betray you, that will stab you when you're down. I learned that it is the ones that are supposed to have your back that will bury you alive. A profession that is supposedly not for all females, you would assume that you will have each other’s back and help each other out. NEGATIVE, I learned 99.99% of the time, they don't, as a matter of fact they are threatened by each other and against one another. 

I was for sure taught fast that being gullible and naive will get you killed. Crying every night and isolating yourself to protect yourself, was doing the opposite of protecting oneself. It was killing me, eating me up from the inside out and I didn't even notice till it was late. After my third panic attack, I was warned about bottling up too much, it was eventually going to cause a heart attack. I was to the point where I would cry a migraine into existence and what felt like earthquakes in my head (SKULL). Before I started paying for $200 a session and $150-$300 a month session, I had my last "my head feels like its exploding" migraines. I needed desperately an escape; I was at a point where I couldn't even leave my room sometimes. However, since no one cared and I was afraid of anyone finding out about my going crazier, I would push forward. A senior Noncommissioned Officer told me “no one do care for you, that’s why you have to care about yourself”. They confirmed the fact that I was alone in this fight when it comes to my chain of command but that I will see who really cares once I start caring for me.

There is more to this beautiful madness but to fast forward to today, I am here and ready to transition to the civilian world before I take my own life. To move away from the gloomily side of things, I did have some fun, and plenty of great memories. The sad thing is, I just don't have enough, there was and is more pain for me at least, than happiness. Now a days, it takes too much energy for me to even force a laugh. I've only come across a few who has genuinely put a smile on my face, who has really made me laugh with not that many efforts. I choose to begin here, little by little healing, and finding true happiness, laughter, and joy. 

Join for the right reasons and things will be great. Meet and be around the right people and everything will be amazing and go by smoothly. I learned that you don't have to feel uncomfortable to be living the life you want later. It’s like beauty, it doesn’t always have to be painful...