Hey Mac... mate, don't worry about the mood swings, I'm sure you will be just fine. Mate, I know exactly what you mean in regards to all the bullshit that you go through within the military, both on and off operations. It is endless... and I always stated, if the military where a business, it would be bankrupt over and over. Lucky they have big budgets I guess...

I also know and understand what you felt in relation to being unarmed, as a couple of my deployments where unarmed, and we were shot at and had people try and kill us, all the usual BS, but because politics back home said no weapons... we had no weapons, as one was humanitarian (not sure why they call those missions that, because I didn't see humanity) and another was trying to keep an unstable calm, and politics once again thought that no weapons would help achieve that status. Once again politicians where wrong, with no fuc*en idea as they curled up in their comfy bed each night with their spouse and kids, and the most dangerous thing that faced was a possible razor cut shaving and the drive to work. I know resentful, trust me, and understand others in regard to this, especially military.

I think its really great that you posted, because it helps getting this crap out of you, than keeping it bottled up. I may just bust your bubble here though, as with your last statement about being bottled up in your lectures and hoping the symptom reduction is gone.... well... basically what your saying is that you have adopted workaholism instead, which is a form of suppression, no different than alcohol or drug use actually. Whilst you maintain workaholism, the symptoms can remain calmed longer, but they will still come out, whether you like it or not, and they will still need to be dealt with.

I think your on the right path here though, because if your using other methods to atleast get you through temporarily, and you begin working on the smaller parts of your traumas, then because you can control how much you work on at once, you can control the symptom outbreak to a point. Sometimes though, that theory does backfire, and once you open pandoras box... that is it, everything comes flooding through. Again though, either way, it needs to be dealt with some time, because it won't go away, and is just cementing itself further within your brain by avoiding it.

You have started small here Mac, and I think you should keep going to be honest, especially if you want to control this without the workaholism, because it won't suppress your trauma forever.

Very good start though mate, very glad to have you and your experiences here, and I look forward to chatting with you about everything mate, trauma, life, whats going on this weekend even... anything goes. This is as much your community as anyone here, so make yourself at home mate.