Invisible wounds

What is an invisible wound?  It is something that affects your life, whether minor or drastically, where the injury or 'wound' can't be seen.  This could be anything from PTSD to a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) to an internal injury that you may not be able to see by just looking at the person.

I have struggled with these invisible wounds for a while.  I was medically retired from the Army with a 40% disability, the VA later bumped that up to a 70% disability, but yet when people look at me they don't see anything wrong.  This confuses people and I think sometimes there are thoughts that I played the female card or something to get to that rating.  I have invisible wounds....

What most people don't see is the daily challenges.  I don't like complaining about them or even really saying things most times, because I didn't lose any limbs or have extreme PTSD and I made it back alive.  But I struggle, some days more than others.  Most of this is only seen within the walls of our home, as when I am out I try to present things as if everything is okay. 

Friday after having a set of eight injections done on my back, I received a text from a good friend of mine and she was asking me some questions about it.  She told me that they she never realized how bad things really were, how much pain there was and how little treatment there was available for most of it.

That's the thing about invisible wounds, people almost need to be able to see an injury to validate that something is there.  I have a back injury that prevents me from doing a lot of things that I really enjoy doing. In the next couple of months I will have different procedures done on it to try to help with some of the pain.  The post effects from the TBI causes almost daily migraines, vision loss, memory and speech problems.  And the PTSD, although minor, causes angry outbursts, lack of sleep, very little patience, etc, etc... It seems like every appointment to the doctor is another upgrade in the type of prescriptions to make everything level out. 

But everyday I wake up, I'm thankful for what I have and for a family that is supportive and for a husband who knows exactly what meds are for what and who keeps a watchful eye over me.  He doesn't fire back when I have an outburst and he keeps me from lifting things I shouldn't.  I still feel like I have something to prove when it comes to being able to do things, but I have to take a step back and realize that I don't... 

Not all wounds are visible and just because they are not visible doesn't mean they haven't forever changed the course of an individuals life.