From the Depths of the Abyss

 Hello there and welcome back to Heavy's Journey to Hell and somewhere back. It's been a little bit since I've had a chance to sit and do some writing, since my last post was done while at visiting family during a summer holiday. As those of you who live at distance from friends and family know, trips back home are always busy and seldom is there a lot of time to be able to sit and put pen to paper. Before I get far into the post this week I really want to say thank you for the words of support, especially after the last post. That one was pretty hard to get through, especially given my current reality in life. It took a lot out of me to make that post and to be honest I'm really not surprised it took this long to get writing again.  I found this sentiment this week and want to share it: If your energy is occupied with surviving, you might not feel able to access other parts of yourself, like your creativity or humour. Yet that doesn't mean those parts of yourself a...

Good afternoon and welcome back for another post. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and read my story. Since I started posting last month I've had over 500 people visit the main page and 350 read my posts. I'm pretty blown away by that and the notes of support and messages from people who have gone through similar experiences shows me that I'm not alone in what I've felt and what I've gone through. This weeks post has been a tough one to write and there were more than a few tears shed while opening some wounds. There are mentions of suicide and as always, this may be distressing. What truly is the hardest part of the healing process? Is it learning how to live without just trying to survive? Is it the constant struggles against your demons to just get through the day? Is it finding the energy to do the little things that you know you need to do like brush your teeth, change your underwear or drink some water? Each person's own experien...

Hello there and welcome back. Over the past few weeks I have laid bare a lot of the events that I can remember that I feel may have contributed in one or more ways to my diagnosis of post traumatic stress. One of the things I have struggled with over these past months while being off work is trying to make sense of how things happened. Since I have so much time to sit and think while I'm off work, which isn't exactly great when my mind is where my demons reside, one of the things I have focused on is the culture that is created not only by my employer but within the first responder community in general. Today I want to touch on what I have come up with, to put my thoughts out.  According to my seventh grade social studies teacher Mr Kordyback, culture is a learned way of life shared by a group of people. He made a point to tell us during class that was the only thing that most students of his seemed to remember and sure as shit, 23 years later I remember it. So when it comes to...