Nighttime horrors

A surprise attack at night and the monster that lives inside

This essay is very personal. I grew up in very poor countries. Specifically Bangladesh¹ and then Haiti². These are places where people routinely starve in the streets and die of every malady imaginable. I witnessed people being burned alive, having limbs chopped off, and being otherwise removed from the human population by other methods long before I was old enough to comprehend the human condition. I saw what utter poverty looks like and how it rips away the security and safety we all need to thrive. I also lived in Iraq³ and Afghanistan⁴, once in uniform and once as an armed contractor for the U.S. government. I’ve seen the gamut of the human condition, which is why I have PTSD. The human condition is pretty shitty for a lot of us. I have borne witness.

The effects of PTSD are different for each of us who has the diagnosis. The condition is known to change the brain physically but how that manifests in the body is different for everyone.⁵ Some of my symptoms over the years have included g…