Sheep Dog - Impact Assistance

2 days ago

Faun O'Neel, thank you for sharing YOUR story, and that of our friend and your husband, Danny O'Neel. It is extremely difficult for those outside of the military and first responder professions to fully understand the depths of pain, grief, guilt and self-hatred that our nation's Sheep Dogs endure AFTER they serve. For many, living with the memories is worse than the actual war. Thank you both for your service (for you, too, have served our country in serving your husband) and the brutal truths you have shared. We are honored and humbled to have you in the Sheep Dog - Impact Assistance family.

In Faun's words:
The toll of war.

I am married to a combat vet and I am a casualty of the war on terror. I didn’t know my husband prewar. I didn’t know the man before the rage, the anger, the sadness, the depression, the suicidality. I didn’t know that guy. I don’t know how to tell you all what it’s like. What it’s like to be in love with a man who has been stripped naked by this war and left for dead by the very country he fought for. I am still not sure if the things I am going to tell you can adequately describe what it’s like to love a man who has no love for himself.

I don’t think he was always like that….self-hating, self-loathing, guilt ridden, full of feelings of worthlessness. I don’t think he was like that before he agreed to die (if necessary) for me and for you.

My husband and I met in 2011. He was broken inside. He was suicidal. He was lost. He was angry. He was burying himself in a bottle.

Danny is my biggest hero and my greatest challenge. He has clawed his way back from the depths of hell. He has fought to be the man he is today.

But it hasn’t been easy. Marriage, especially between complicated and wounded individuals, is a difficult road. We still haven’t quite got it right. To maneuver around the potholes and shoulder the weight that is part of life with PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury, I sometimes fake it. No….I don’t mean THAT kind of faking it.

I mean I am polite when I want to scream, I walk away when I want to stand toe to toe and shout words that cannot ever be taken back. I swallow my words and my pain, sometimes daily. I busy myself with my household and my 4 kids and focus on what needs to be done to care for them. In the few years we have been together, I have experienced enough pain for a lifetime, but also enough joy and happiness.

I have had the awful experience of listening to my husband’s voice get weaker and words more slurred as the bottle of pills he just swallowed started to take effect. I heard myself begging for him to tell me where he was so I could try to save him. I heard myself calling 911 to tell them what happened and to please just hurry. I drove to the hospital and sat with him, wanting to scream, cry and kill him myself and hold him in my arms at the same time. But instead, I just sat silently weeping inside, my heart aching with every beat, holding his hand and telling him we would get thru this, and we did.

We survived and are so much stronger. I listen to my husband and his friends tell war stories of their crazy road marches and sleeping on Humvees because they were just that tired…. and I want to tell him that I understand…I understand because I have been road marching for 9 years now. Not nearly as long as most veterans wives, but long enough to feel the weight, the oppressive tiredness that takes over your mind and body. I want to ask them if they know what it’s like to drag a 200lb man thru the darkest of days, to shoulder all of the burdens of your family of 6 day in and day out because your husband, who led men bravely into battle and brought them home safely, cannot function in this world on some days.

I want to ask if they know what it’s like to stay up late at night reading as much as you can about PTSD and TBI until your brain cannot process another word on the off chance you find something, anything to help him. I want to tell them what it’s like to lose yourself in the process of helping him to find himself, knowing full well it’s happening, but not really caring because it’s bigger than me.

I am not telling you any this stuff because I want your sympathy, god no. I NEED YOU to understand what the lives of these veterans AND their families are like after war. How hard we are working to put the pieces back together every day. How this article is a tribute to the depths of love and the triumph of the human spirit. But mostly, I NEED you to understand how organizations like the The Independence Fund provide a much needed respite to me and my family.

Veterans and their families don’t get breaks from PTSD or other wounds of war ever. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go on vacation. It doesn’t take naps. It is always there.

In April 2019 the Independence Fund will host the first Operation Resiliency retreat. Imagine yourself fighting, sleeping, and eating alongside your buddy for months, years even. Then one day, his body is ripped to shreds during a mission. You never see him again. You just have to pick up and carry on with your mission, your friend is gone. There’s no closure. This person you would have died for and trusted with your life is just GONE like that.

In April, we will bring these guys back together, many, for the first time since leaving the battlefield. That healing, that togetherness, giving them one more reason to push forward. One more reason to live. What you are all doing when you support The Independence Fund, is directly saving the lives of these veterans. And at the very least, saving the sanity of that veterans wife. I promise that.

Please understand that the money or support you give goes to help The Independence Fund give these men (and their families) back their confidence, their inner strength, their fervor for life. You are doing more than putting a flag out on Veterans Day or Memorial Day. You are going above and beyond for our veterans. And for me personally, you are helping to put the pieces of my husband back together by supporting this wonderful organization. And for that I thank you, from the bottom of my heart….thank you.

Danny O'Neel, I am so proud of you. Thank you for never giving up the fight. ... See MoreSee Less

I survived combat in Iraq and a suicide attempt at home. But many veterans aren't so lucky.

usatoday.com

Sometimes, trauma can be more deadly than war itself. But the VA's existing mental health services are woefully inadequate for a growing problem.