Rise Again

I need to stop worrying about getting better and/or going back to who I used to be. That person is gone, and she's gone for a reason. I need to simply get past being whatever this mess is, and focus on becoming the wife and mother my family deserves to have.  I need my husband and children to see me happy, to see that I love them, and to see that a woman doesn't have to be angry to survive.
I don't recognize who I've become, and I don't like who I see in the mirror, but whoever I keep trying to find under the rubble is gone, nothing but ash now, and I need to accept that so I can start building whoever this person looking back at me is going to be. Charli is dead, the bear has been fought, and the only thing left is to teach this new, baby phoenix how to fly before it turns to ash like it's mother did.

Guide

I listened to a guided meditation podcast the other night, and, though it was very vague and open ended, I was still both very happy and surprised  to see where it led me.
The podcast discussed going down somewhere dark- a hole in the ground or a tree trunk, stairs, etc., and seeing a light in front of you, leading to "your sacred place". Once you got there, you found a box with a present for you inside.
This is how mine went:
I'm walking down a hill in Lincoln Park in Tucson, walking toward the forest. The sun is setting behind me, fast and beautiful. The sky is on fire with many colors, even as they slip farther and farther from the opposite horizon. I continue walking down the hill, and slip between trees to find a barely-there path that I know very, very well. Just as the last of the sunlight begins to fade from sight, I see light from a bonfire up ahead.
I am close- I can hear the drums and singing now. As I move still closer, I begin to recognize voices and identify guitars, tambourines and the bells some of the dancers like to wear. I hear hands clapping and feet stomping in time with the music. I'm almost there!
I step out of the trees and into the clearing. I get many nods and smiles of acknowledgment and recognition, but the music continues. I find a box in my usual seat on a boulder- it is a carved, unpainted wooden box with the zia sun symbol on it's lid. Opening it up, I realize the music has paused, as my friends watch me open my gift. It is a pair of beautiful silver earrings, with large silver spirals hanging from french-style hooks. Spirals are considered to be a symbol of life and of the sun, and I understand immediately the message both the box and the earrings are meant to send: This too shall pass, it is neither the beginning nor the end. This is their gift to me, the gift of friendship, love, and a constant reminder that I will never be alone in my trials, nor forgotten in my triumphs.
This place, with it's drums, music, dancing and friends, this is my sacred place. This is my heart.

In The Beginning...

Allow me to introduce myself.
I am a woman, also currently property of the US Army, in my mid-twenties. No, you don't need any more specifics on my age, now stop asking.
I have served as a medic in the Army for the last four years, and have been diagnosed with non-combat related PTSD. I grew up with direct and indirect familial exposure to alcoholism, depression, Munchhausen's syndrome, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse, and moved a lot- to say the least.
I also like candle-lit dinners, long walks on the beach and dogs.
I have been married and divorced, and am in my first long-term relationship in over a year.
I am currently focusing my energies on healing my PTSD issues, and finding a way to reclaim who I am.
It's not as cheesy as it sounds, I swear.
I married young, and divorced two years later. Shortly after that, I joined the Army, as a way to get on my feet. Having been an Army wife, and believing I knew just what I was signing up for, I expected to do a full twenty years or more in the Army and retire from this life. Right now, I take every day, sometimes every minute, one at a time.
In retrospect, my marriage was a way to move up and out of the unhealthy lifestyle I had succumbed to, and separate myself from the negative influences I had surrounded myself with. I didn't know that then, and my ex-husband and I are still good friends, despite not having children or anything else forcing us to speak. My ex-husband helped me grow up. I will never lose my gratitude towards him for that. He held me accountable for my actions, and pushed me in ways I never could have myself at that time in my life.
The army seems to have been another stepping stone. I have (slightly) furthered my education, and certainly gained discipline and a greater understanding of my country and the world at large.
What nobody could have prepared me for, however, was how all my childhood demons would come out of the woodwork nearly the moment I raised my right hand and swore my allegiance-and my life- to my country.
I have spent the last four years tangling myself up with these demons. Recently, the repercussions of my interactions-or lack there of- with these demons has forced my focus to them. I will heal my soul or I will lose it. I think anybody who has struggled with PTSD- combat or non-combat related- would understand that particular analogy.
Writing has always been my outlet, my vent, my escape. I have been given some compliments on it, but, really, it's always been for me. Today, though, marks the beginning of my true focus on these demons and of fighting them with everything I have. Hopefully, what I have to share might help someone else.
I am open to discussion and ideas, if anyone out there in the whole wide world of world wide web has anything for me.