My not so secret project

From near homeless to building a writing and music studio

When I returned from Baghdad in 2006, I was pretty numb. That is probably the biggest understatement of my life. I could not laugh. I could not cry. I did not feel. I did not care. I existed in a sort of perdition.

I had no idea that I was suffering from PTSD. It was against Army culture to admit weakness or ask for help when things went wrong. The rule was to suck it up and fight through. I did my best. My best was far from good enough.

During my deployment, I was a journalist in the Army National Guard. I got to travel outside of Baghdad. I saw some normal things and a lot of pointless human suffering. It wasn’t new to me. I spent my childhood in places even more cursed than modern Iraq. Iraq was what began the breaking of the self for me. I didn’t see the world through the eyes of a child, and I did not once look away from the human condition.

Staring into the abyss that is us/me was an experience of breaking with the possibility of being reborn or becoming damned. I rode a pendulum …