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I miscalculated my adjustment back to the civilian life. After being away from home for 14 months, it seemed so simple to me. My motto was to just "Get back in the saddle!". I had missed all of the little joys we have in our lives as civilians while I was in Iraq that I wanted to devour everything at once. But in that process I also wanted to bury all things Iraqi. I made a conscious decision not to talk about the experience and to just get on with life. Making a vow to enter back into my civility with great veracity, I missed out on the healing period.

Other people in my unit spent the first couple of weeks at home wallowing in their sorrow. Drinking them selves half to death. Crying their guts out. Coming to term with all the time lost in the desert.

In opposition, I took it upon myself to enter back into "reality" with a blank canvas. I refused to talk about the war. I refused to acknowledge the time lost. I thought of those people who were writhing in their pain as weak and grasping on times past.

It was a dire miscalculation.

It's been three months since my return and all of the baggage is finally catching up to me. All of the suppression I worked so hard on peaks it's wretched nose at the most inconvenient times. My concentration is sub-par. My anger is constantly on the rise. And boughts of depression overcome me.

The moral of the story here is that soldiers coming home from deployments need to know that it's ok to mourn. They need to mourn the loss of time, their friendships, and the reality of what they've become in the time they were gone. I can't help but wonder if I had acknowledged my pain immediately things would be easier now.

Learn more about this author, Jami Gibbs.
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