READJUSTING TO CIVILIAN LIFE

First of all, thank you for putting your life on the line for something you believed was greater than you. It is a big thing and it means so much.

Now it’s time to talk:  

There’s relief in being “outta there.” The feeling is always welcome and your mind is racing ahead with all the things you want to do now that you are home. 

What is not counted on until it happens is the oddness that comes from being home after being in war.

You notice a lot unsettling behavior that goes on at home that never occurred to you before being in combat: carelessness with safety, rudeness, macho stuff, butllshiting, all stuff you learned means danger. This alone can make you feel uneasy. Ok, you know you have an adjustment ahead of you and that it will take some time. 

But what is readjustment? Does that mean you are expected to go back to being like the rest of us now that you are home?  The idea sounds good; you want to get on with your life. It’s what you and what everyone wants.

Does that set up a tension inside you?

The goal of readjusting back to “normal ways” after the killing and destroying of combat is meant to distract you from those extremely unusual and horrific things you did, saw and felt. Get your mind back on track, right?

It’s almost as if you should not let them have any effect on you.

That maybe they are not as important as being “normal.”

Does it mean that you must stop acting on all the reactions and perceptions you learned to do and to think in order to survive combat?  

Does it mean that you should forget the past?

Do you get the sense that you are somehow not right for having these reactions and inner feelings? That somehow you are “ill?” 

That you adapt to other people’s standards of behavior

Ah, you know better.