For your unconquerable soul

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

You are captain of your soul and can heal that soul you are in charge of, if you work as hard to heal as you do to hide the pain, you will heal.

It all depends on how you see yourself, thru whose eyes you see what is invisible to the rest of the world but they are witness of through all you do. What is it you show them? What is it you want them to see when they look into your eyes? Is it all that God blessed you with, love, mercy, joy, compassion and courage to act for the sake of someone else, or is it everything you thought you were gone from your days? It's all still there beneath the pain you carry.

When you look at the people you loved, do you want them to see a stranger standing there so they don't see the pain you carry or do you want them to see you just need help finding "you" again?

Do you really want to push your wife away because you are afraid she will look too closely and see what you don't want her to see or do you want her to see someone she loved, someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with is now being held prisoner of his circumstances?

If you choose to hide instead of heal, you will lose yourself in the sadness, but if you choose to heal, you will come out on the other side better and stronger for it. The people you love, the ones who loved you, will not walk away from your life if they understand the changes in you need help to come out of you. You are captain of your soul and you choose the direction.

It is not strength to let your soul grow weaker. It is not courage to be afraid to face the pain so that you can overcome it. It is not honoring the life you had before trying to run away from where that life placed you. Heal your yesterday so you can be whole tomorrow.

PTSD is a part of your life in this moment, in this hour, because of events that happened in your life but you choose to let them take over the rest of your life or you choose to allow the person you always were to be stronger than the pain. Forgetting about it, pushing it into the back of your mind, "getting over it" is not overcoming it or defeating it. It is allowed to defeat you. Fight it with everything that is available to you and lean on people who care about you. Drinking and trying to drug it away will make it stronger and you weaker.

Lean on love around you since pain is what caused it to enter into your soul. Reach out just as you would expect others to reach out to you without fear of judgment. Be captain of your own soul and set the course for healing so that you can once again know your "unconquerable soul."