PTSD
Pathways
Through
the
Secret
Door
by Timothy Kendrick
ISBN 978-1-4303-1319-9
Copyright 2007
LULU.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Kendrick is a retired Army Veteran who served in Panama, Somalia, Operation Iraqi Freedom and various other wonderful places in the world, Korea and Germany just to name a few.
He began as a military policeman with the 61st MP Company in the early 80’s, switched to Combat Medic and then to Broadcast Journalism in the 90’s when he was featured in Time Magazine (and several other media outlets) for his work in Somalia in 1993. His last Duty was in Iraq with the Department of Defense. He speaks five languages and currently lives in Tampa Florida.
Timothy (or Ty, as his army buddies know him) has traveled the globe five and one-half times and has dealt with his own PTSD. His motto is “It doesn’t get any easier later, it just gets later.”
DEDICATION
I wish to dedicate this book to several people who have given me inspiration during my struggles. My wife, Brenda, a.k.a. “Tutz” has stood by me through thick and thin. I cannot express in words how you have helped with your love and kindness. Behind every man, there is a great woman (with a boot at the backside when needed). Dr. Williams, for figuring out what was wrong with me; I cannot imagine what my life would be without his knowledge, expertise, and support. Dr. Milos Subervi who has been and still is a measuring stick for thoughts, my ideas, and me.
I wish to thank the many doctors that I educated through my insane behaviors, drunken binges, and bouts of rage including pride, lust, anger, greed, gluttony, envy, and sloth. We all learned something in the process over the past 15 years. I express my gratitude to every employer that fired me or that I told to “stick it.” I learned burning bridges could be a positive motivating force.
Special thanks to my wrestling heroes who allowed me to live vicariously through them. It is truly “my soap opera.” Linda and Vince McMahan, who I have never met, but I learned how to turn “a negative into a positive” by there visions. You will never know what it meant to me to hear “Summer Slam” in Somalia in 1993 over the AFRTS radio live. Dusty Rhodes, “The American Dream,” I learned it is okay to be different, thank you. Kevin Nash, who was always a shit to me when we were in Basic Training together but I knew you would be a star and set a standard somewhere, I always looked up to you. Not because of your height, because of your class, and the way you were then and have been throughout your career. The care you take in “keeping it real” and helping the young guys. Ric Flair, who proved there is no traffic along the extra mile. Bobo Brazil (RIP) when I was a kid, Ed Farhat, a.k.a. “The Sheik” (RIP) who would scare the crap out of the devil himself. I thank Jarrett promotions, for allowing me to be a ring announcer in 1986 for one special night in Clarksville Tennessee. To Bill Dundee for understanding that I knew how to “pay my respects” when I was in the locker room with the boys before the show. Hulk Hogan, or as dream calls you “yellow finger,” at the old Cap Center in Landover Md. (I thought the ceiling was going to collapse circa 1985), there is no greater gift to give than to touch ones soul. That night like many others, you did just that. Rowdy Roddy Piper and anyone who has allowed “marks” like me to escape as we watched you in “the squared circle.”
Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Joseph Murphy, Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins. Thank you.
My guardian angels “Delta Steve” in Mogadishu who I never met but I knew you were there, Also John Dahms in Mogadishu who taught me there is always a way from point A to Point B. David S. For pouring me on a chopper in Baghdad when “my glass was full.” My Iraqi friends, who protected me, when I was in no condition to protect myself, thank you. Finally, Paul Miceli, a friend who is always there and has been through think and thin.. and think again
Many thanks to the enemy who for whatever reasons were lousy shots when it came to killing me (divine intervention). Thank you to the supreme creator of the universe. To the Universe for all the blessings that I receive on a daily basis.
PTSD
Pathways Through the Secret Door
Nights of the Werewolf
As I sit here and write this, I look back on 40 plus years of trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I will not remember everything due to over indulgence in medications. (Booze, pills, women and anything else I thought would fix me.)
My military life was very colorful, illustrious, for lack of a better term and very insane at times. I am getting a bit ahead of myself I suppose. I was born in an elevator in Holden, West Virginia. Talk about a dichotomy my childhood was up and down. My childhood was filled with the usual events of a child with divorced parents. I had massive mood swings from as far back as 4 or 5 years old. My heroes were sports figures, mostly professional wrestlers, and Evil Knievel. Evil was the epitome of “balls” when I was a kid. I use to jump trashcans on my bicycle pretending to be him.
In my mind, everything was black or white, no gray, no in between. It was all or nothing and that was how I lived from childhood until I was 38 years old. I feigned confidence, took risks that no one in his or her right mind would ever do. This is everything from the jumping of garbage cans to drinking whiskey until I became so drunk I had to hold onto the grass to keep from falling off the earth, and volunteered for every suicide mission I could go on in the Army. Rage was my constant friend and companion; I had no inkling of peace for many years. The only peace I had ever known was the adrenaline rush with the garbage cans, living in the doghouse (my fort and escape) and flying over and into combat with the military. (Facing death or ignorance)
I must tell you about the doghouse. My doghouse was a place I escaped to when I was a kid. I would sit in it for hours and dream of ways to make the doghouse fly away and take me to anywhere but there. I was too young to realize that if it did ever fly I still had to take “me” along. The irony of my “dog house” escape is; we did not have a dog; the previous owners left it.
I always felt like I did not fit in. It was like watching a movie, sometimes I was the leading character at other times I was sitting in the theater watching with my heart beating for fear of finding out the truth about me. The truth I might add that I did not even know at the time and the truth would get darker before it would get better. It would take me around the world several times because I despised “Garrison Duty” with all of its rules and regulations.
The title of this forward came about because of the nights I wake up and feel pain and indescribable fear all though my body. It reminds me of Lon Chaney Jr. in “The Werewolf.” When I wake up at 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. and my body hurts and feels like a transformation of sorts. I go downstairs and huddle on the back porch away from the light that is over our pool. That is when I would turn into the Werewolf, my body aching, my mind racing 100 mph, trying to focus on anything but the fear and anxiety.
Sometimes I will see things that are not there, Or are they? Weird, other times the silence is deafening. In this book are some of my discoveries that have kept me from blowing my brains out, or destroying the ones I love. Thank you in advance for allowing me to share with you.
-Timothy Kendrick , SGT. U.S. Army, Retired
Sometimes in my bed at night
I curse the dark and I pray for the light
Sometimes, the lights no consolation
“Walking on a thin line” Huey Lewis
In this book, I will not go into details about the horrors of any war; instead, this book will show you how I fight the demons of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is no sanity involved in it, because it affects each of us in a different way. The focus of this book is to express my viewpoints about what has kept me going in spite of having 28 jobs in 7 years. That last sentence shows that something was not right about me.
Most of us are bright, intelligent, and full of passion for a career that we believe in. The job choices we make, the spouse we choose, and the way we live our lives is a reflection of our primal positive instincts. Yet we jeopardize the things we love because of an emotional “anchor” or something that “triggers” our subconscious mind. Our conscious mind (ego) feels cheated or betrayed and we react on emotion. Emotion is what we are trained to act on when we were soldiers; we acted our way into right thinking. Now, we say things that we do not mean, quit our jobs, hit our boss, drink or use drugs ad infinitum.
Today, what keeps me at peace is “acting my way into right thinking.” Motion creates emotion. We must do the things that will free us from our psychological slavery. I know this is easy to say, however massive action is the only thing that keeps me from just saying “what’s the use” and digressing back into the darkness of my mind.
PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder manifests itself in many ways. What I used to think had nothing to do with my anger, but had everything to do with it. Like the alcoholic, the drink is just the tip of the iceberg. The tip is not what sunk the Titanic. It was what was under the water that sunk the unsinkable, tons of frozen ice (your subconscious mind). I work daily on placing powerful positive messages into my subconscious mind.
Insanity is defined as “doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.” I have stopped beating myself up about “good” or “bad” decisions because there are only “wise” and “unwise” decisions. The most important thing I can stress here is to act upon your decision. If it is not a wise decision, make another one. I have found that successful people make decisions swiftly and change them slowly. As a soldier, if you think through the actions that brought you to read this book (and survive) you will see on more than one occasion you had to make swift, quick decisions.