{"id":1162,"date":"2019-01-24T12:56:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T12:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcushillier.com\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2019-01-24T12:56:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T12:56:26","slug":"the-price-you-pay-for-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marcushillier.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/24\/the-price-you-pay-for-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price You Pay for Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Selco<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I am not alone.
\nhe\u2019s here now.
\nsometimes I think he\u2019s
\ngone
\nthen he
\nflies back
\nin the morning or at
\nnoon or in the
\nnight.
\na bird no one wants.
\nhe\u2019s mine.
\nmy bird of pain.
\nhe doesn\u2019t sing.
\nthat bird
\nswaying on the
\nbough.<\/p>

\u2014Charles Bukowski<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For all people out there, who carry this ugly bird on their shoulders.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety, phobias, PTSD, depression\u2026 are just words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the people who have not experienced it personally, those words \ncannot portray feelings of being lost, alone and cornered while you are \nfighting for air, or simply thinking that you are going to die. Or that \nyou are not gonna make it. Or that it is not worth to make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagine it like a big black bird, ugly bird, hovering above your \nhead in circles, then landing on your shoulders, pinching your shoulders\n with claws, and with its wings covering your vision. It suffocates you,\n blurs your judgment, pushes you to make decisions, or more often not<\/em> to make decisions\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many times you were in a situation when you felt that you are in \nyour own private hell, while the world around you was still turning, \nunaware of the darkness in you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I am there, I do not care for anything. That ugly bird pinches \nmy shoulders (and my shoulders hurt for real)  and blurs my vision, so I\n do not see reasons to push on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that the reasons are there but I cannot see them. I just keep \nhoping I will be able to push on, to the moment when again I see reasons\n for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It comes, and it goes\u2026PTSD<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So this post is about all of us who carry that bird on shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do not make a mistake: it can be anybody\u2026 war veteran, housewife, kid\u2026father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And do not make the mistake of telling that person \u201coh, it is nothing, you just imagining it\u201d because no, it is not<\/em> \u201cnothing.\u201d It is everything that matters for that person, and nothing else matters actually for that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every one of us has our own breaking point. The important thing here \nis that often you will NOT recognize what and when your breaking point \nis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been through many situations that can be described like pure \nhorror, and I endured it without problems. (You can read more about \nthose experiences in my PDF book<\/a> or my paperback book<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then years later, decades later, I drive my car through the town, and\n I see something, like two kids playing with their mother, and I \nsuddenly feel that black bird hovering high above my head\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it hits me like a train, something from my violent past\u2026 maybe dead kids that I have seen 25 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess I broke down 25 years ago. Now it is just me \u201cbreaking down\u201d \nover and over again, through repetition of memories and feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m an expert on experiencing<\/em> PTSD.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am not really fond of the word \u201cexpert\u201d and I do not proclaim \nmyself to be a survival expert. But if I am an expert about anything it \nmight be PTSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long experience in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often after having articles where I mentioned psychological problems \nand coping with them, I read comments where people call it pathetic or \nportray me as a weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is nothing like that, and often I would love to prove that to \nthose couch warriors by messing them\u2026 But it is pointless. It is always \nabout people without experience talking about topics where they lack \nthat particular experience, and acting like experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who suffer PTSD are not weak. On the contrary to that, they \nare very strong, because it is a hell of a thing to have and carry, \ntrust me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I am writing this in one of the worst episode of it, trust me when I say some things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must push on and on.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are books and programs on how to cope with it, but the only \nreal and good start how to cope with it is to \u201cpush on and on\u201d until \nthat ugly bird goes away\u2026 not completely, but far and high enough so you\n can live something like a normal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My second piece of advice is: have someone close, someone that you \ncan talk to about what you are going through, someone who will listen to\n you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That bird can not be killed, but it can go away for long periods, or very high above you if you ask for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask for help!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Again, this post is not about Selco the \u201cexpert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is to reach out to all of you who feel the same as I do, to all of\n you who think it is not worth it, to all of you who are pinched by that\n bird claws, or who maybe had thoughts about ending everything\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often keep my gun on the table in front of me when I feel like \nthis, and listen to some music. I look at the gun, how nice piece of \nwork it is, effective and definitive piece of work\u2026 and yea, it does \nlook often like an easy solution to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you know what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often the easy solutions are the wrong ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So f*ck off that bird from your shoulders and push on and on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do not forget: real survival is just that -pushing on and on, day by day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*  *  *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Selco: <\/strong>Selco survived the Balkan war of \nthe 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or \nfood distribution. In his online works, he gives an inside view of the \nreality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works\n and what doesn\u2019t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how\n he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and \npreparedness since the war. Regardless what happens, chances are you \nwill never experience extreme situations as Selco did. But you have the \nchance to learn from him and how he faced death for months.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n