Hud's Corner

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them are me. I give the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled within as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness is my game.; that the water’s calm and I need no one. But, don’t believe me! PLEASE! My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is a mask. Beneath dwells the real me: confusion; fear; lonely. But I hide this. I panic at the thought of my weakness and frantically create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows. Yet such a glance is precisely my salvation. I know it! If it’s followed by acceptance and by love, it is the only thing that will assure myself that I am worth something! But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare, I am afraid to! So I play my game, my desperate game with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within. So begins the parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.! I idly chatter to you…surface and top-of-the-head talk, saying nothing of what’s crying within me. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I’d like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I cannot say! I don’t like hiding, honestly. I want to genuine, spontaneous, and me…but I need help! Please hold out your hand, even when it seems that it’s the last thing I want. Each time you are kind, gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand me because you care, my heart soars with small and feeble wings, but they’re wings. Your sensitivity, sympathy, and your power of understanding breathes life in me. Your help gives me the help I need to be the creator of the person that is me. You can help me break down the walls and strip away the mask and my shadow world of panic, uncertainty, and loneliness. Don’t give up on me. I may fight against the very help I need, but I really want your gentle hands of love and caring…firm, but gentle hands.

1. Refrain from using alcohol or drugs, especially to cope with problems.
2. Participate in regular outpatient therapy and ensure that you have immediate access to professional help:
• To express your troubles and vent unpleasant emotions;
• To receive support and work through emotional pain;
• To hear alternative viewpoints about your problems.
3. Always ask for help, including hospitalization, whenever needed; seek out treatment for all medical problems and enduring pain.
4. Communicate respectfully with your loved ones and others. Rather than needing to win every point, make sure no one loses.
5. Socialize on a regular basis with old and new friends.
6. Establish and routinely take part in leisure activities at home and in pleasurable recreational activities outside of your home.
7. Resolve your anger and irritation immediately and constructively and take a “time out” if necessary.
8. Work at getting regular, restful sleep every night, eat healthy foods, and regularly engage in aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise.
9. Give and receive compliments and affection; show generosity and kindness; volunteer your time to help others.
10. Think, listen, talk, write and read objectively and analytically.
11. Lighten up! Cut yourself some slack!
12. Remember! If you want to get out of a hole, let go of the shovel.

I’m one of the many who have earned the title of United States Marine. It began with the day that we stood in painted footsteps waiting to have our hair buzzed. That was the day that we found out that our real name was Maggot. An angry man, wearing a smokey-bear, began to yell and we jumped. He yelled again and we jumped higher. Then came the day that we put on class “A’s” and fell in for the last time. With the cadence of a single heel, we marched down the grinder and joined the Corps.

I was in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divisions with two tours of duty. I was a boot, a defensive back, a radioman, an embassy guard, a brig-rat, a 3.5 rocket man, and an airborne, scuba recon Marine. I have humped, jumped, bumped, and dumped green. I saw a little war in Santo Domingo and a bigger war in Vietnam. I’ve walked with pride and I’ve known numb. Since May 1st of 1969 I began a lifetime of both missing the past and fearing tomorrow. I’ve doped, groped, moped and hoped.

I was lucky. I asked for and got some help and I’m beginning to live outside of the bunker and the hole. Three operations have helped with the physical pain and I was sent to the VA’s National Treatment Center for PTSD in Menlo Park, California for the emotional pain. A shorter program at the Boise VA Hospital reconnected the spirit loss. It wasn’t always pleasant and the shakes don’t go completely away, but the people cared and things are better. I wrote the “Blues” in treatment and am passing on two gifts that helped me then and today. The “Mask” said for me what I couldn’t say and the steps are wise to recall everyday.

You might find this site on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder useful.