Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group

Love all the classic rock! Perfect!

I made this in my studio last week. Greatest voice ever, silenced wayyy too soon. Damned alcohol.

The Doors - Light My Fire (Isolated Vocals) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKyTleZdSYk

mujicaptsd 04/01/2020

I finally cried in grief for my 2nd best friend Deb who died during this pandemic on March 13th. I'm like that. With my PTSD it takes a couple of weeks of dissociating emotionally before I crack and show that my heart breaks. Deb and I were never romantic lovers, she was like the sister I never had ever since we met in 1983.

She stood up at my wedding for me instead of my having a best man, and we traveled to Central America's jungle together and published a research project. Back here in the States when I was a boss at a university I hired her. When 10 years after that wedding in which she stood up for me fell apart, Deb was there for me as the shoulder for me to cry on.

So it sucks that now that I've lost Deb, too, because of the pandemic's social distancing there's no shoulder now for me to cry on about losing her in turn. After my cry, therefore, I thought of the song "Angels" by Robbie Williams.
Angels by Robbie Williams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luwAMFcc2f8
The part that helped me was this first verse:

"I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate
And do they know
The places where we go
When we're grey and old..."

Deb and I were going to retire south of the border together, not as a couple, but because we met in our Spanish doctoral programs in 1983. My wife broke up with me and took up with a Scottish professor from my workplace because she got tired of me and Spanish. I kid you not, she said so to my face. It was quite a moment for me; we hadn't even had an argument. She used the spousal benefits being married to me gave her to get her master's degree paid for via my benefits at work, and then she was gone, right on to him.

What really sucked about it was that I'd known him and had worked with him at the school where we taught for 8 years and I liked him. If I'd hated him it would have felt like a lesser betrayal, which I think was part of the point. When my ex-wife's mother died she made a point of taking him to her funeral instead of me even though her mother and I were close. She made a point of making sure he appeared in the newspaper in her mother's obituary, too, with no mention of me.

So I fell apart and turned to Deb for support, not as a romantic lover but as my big sister. Deb and I decided that since we were both single, after being Spanish professors since 1983, like the song says, retirement in Spanish speaking countries would be "the places where we go/ when we're grey and old...." Since she was 2 years older than me, she retired last year with my turn coming next year, and it's sad we didn't make our 37 year dream come true right here at the end like this.

But after my cry today, when I listened to "Angels" by Robbie Williams, after the bitterness of its verse about being grey and old, the chorus comforted me. It says:
"And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead"

That part of the song helped me . It brought me comfort even if I'm having to grieve the loss of my big sister Deb alone. Besides the fact that this pandemic took her and then robbed us all who knew her of giving her a proper memorial service, she's still there for me as an angel watching over me now. Not like a romantic lover, like I said, but like a big sister angel offering me protection, who won't forsake me.

Like y'all are there for me as angels of support, too. Thank you.

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