The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

and I didn’t see why I shouldn’t if it could help. Still, it took courage to ask for medication. I had never tried any sort of drug treatment before and was apprehensive about it. But I decided that these med- ications existed for a reason, and people wouldn’t take them unless they did some good. Within a few weeks of starting medication, I began sleeping solid- ly through the night on a regular basis. I remember waking up the first time I slept for seven straight hours, about six months after returning from Iraq. I had that feeling you have after a good night’s sleep — a sensation I had not had in many months. I lay there in bed with a sense of wonderment and awe, trying to remember the last time I’d had a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t. That morning I slowly savored a cup of coffee. It was the first coffee in months I’d drunk for taste and plea- sure rather than sucking it down because I desperately needed the caffeine to get through the day. Sleeping well and regularly gave me such a sense of euphoria that I asked my doctor for reassurance the medications I was taking were not addictive. She assured me they were not. After not sleeping more than four or five hours at a time for so long, it was not surprising that sleeping felt so good. My focus at work improved and my interest in my job increased, which helped take my mind off Iraq. A Messy Process Recovery from PTSD is a messy process. It’s not a straight shot, uphill-only, one-way undertaking. For me, it has been full of ups and downs. Once I finally F O C U S J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 39 Part of the recovery process has been accepting I’ll never be who I was before going to Iraq.