Ray Christian - A Soldier’s Story

 

I was unusually sensitive as a kid. I had a great love for animals. In fact, I used to bring home every wounded or sick dog, or cat or broken bird I find. I used to think that me and animals could communicate with each other, that I could communicate with them, that we had a special understanding. I saw myself as the Dr. Dolittle of the community. But the community didn't see me that way. In fact, people said I was strange and weird. They called me a punk and a sissy. It didn't take me long to understand that in my community, for men and boys alike, the only way you were going to get respect was to be tough. So, I learned to put away my more sensitive side. 

 

I played football, I wrestled, I joined the army right out of high school and I served in the infantry. I volunteered for airborne school and I became a paratrooper. After nearly 20 years of service, deployments to Korea, Kuwait, Iraq, seeing people die for so called noble causes and for no damn good reason at all, cracks started to emerge in my personality. People I worked with, my peers in the army, they used to say things to me like, “Hey Christian, you seem a little jumpy and nervous all the time.” Well, I was jumpy and I was nervous. It seemed like I would get this anger and rage, and it would just build up in me. Whenever that would happen, I would flip into this mode where I'd start looking around in my environment to see what caused it. And I'd want to yell at it or hit it or kill it. 

 

Now, in the army, being aggressive is something we admired, we honored, we looked up to that. It's something we encouraged. But in my personal life, it was starting to become problematic. See, during this time, my sister was living with me. I came back from deployments and I used to keep rolls of quarters in the shoebox in my room. So, I came home, I looked around my room for my shoebox, I couldn't find it anywhere. I went to my sister and I said to her, “Do you know what happened to my rolls of quarters?” And she answered me weird and strange and awkwardly and she said, “Well, maybe somebody took them.” I said, “Well, who the hell would take my rolls of quarters?” She said, “Well, my friends had came over and maybe they took them.” 

 

I said, “Your friends came over and took them? Are you talking about those three guys standing right there on the corner?” I didn't wait for her to respond. I started looking around the house. I went into the garage and I found a baseball bat and I quick walked right across the street. I twisted my body and I drew that baseball bat back and I was going to bash his head wide open. And the three of those guys were just standing there frozen. And just when I was at the height of my arc with that bat and I was about to strike his head, my sister yells out, “No. Stop. Stop. I lied. I lied. I took the quarters.” 

 

The three guys were just frozen. I dropped the bet. I started walking back across the street to the house. I'm flustered and frustrated. I almost killed a man over a roll of quarters. I wanted to get myself together, so I found myself in the grocery store and I was walking through these aisles. It seemed like the aisles were closing in on me, like it was some kind of maze and I needed to get out of there. So, I made a quick exit and I ended up in front of the seafood counter. I'm looking through the glass, and on the ice, I see what appears to me to be a human eyeball on the ice. And I say, “Hey.” And the guy in the store says, “Yes, sir.” I said, “There's an eye. There's an eyeball on the ice.” And he says, “Yes, sir. We get fresh fish every day.” I run out. 

 

At some point, I want to get myself together and I find myself at the mall and I'm sitting on the bench, just trying to gather my thoughts. And a middle-aged lady, she shows up, and she's got her very elderly and frail mother with her, and she says to her, “Mama, I have to go to the bathroom. I want you to sit right here and don't go anywhere until I come back, okay?” And she leaves. This old lady is staring at me and staring at me. I try to look away. She keeps staring at me. And then, she slowly moves her trembling, frail old hand next to mine and she holds it. I start to cry. Her mother comes back, and she sees this and she says, “Mama, what are you doing? You can't be just touching people like that. Sir, are you okay?” I said, “I'm fine.”

 

And her mother looks up to her and says, “It's what he needed.” It's what I needed. I almost kill a man over a roll of quarters. I think I see a human eyeball on some ice. I'm delusional. And now, some old lady is comforting me. I was a soldier. I served in combat. I killed people. What is wrong with me? With some encouragement from my wife, pressure from my military chain of command, I make that first long step to seeing an army psychiatrist. It doesn't take long but a couple of sessions for him to diagnose me with having severe post-traumatic stress disorder with psychotic features. So, with this diagnosis, I'm pretty much relieved from all my official military duties until I retire, which is about a year.

 

A year passes, I'm out of the army. With counseling, medication, removing myself from triggers like being in the army, [audience laughter] things start to get a little bit better. I'm living my dreams. I go back to school. I have kids that I love. I'm raising animals. Things seem like they're getting better in my life. But PTSD never goes away. It's every day. I'm always trying to suppress it. It reaches a point where the dam finally breaks. And about two years ago, I have a stroke. Now, the physical effects of that were I had left side weakness and numbness in my left hand and arm. But the most profound changes were those that occur emotionally. 

 

In the days and the weeks following my stroke, it was like my black and white world turned to color. You know, when Dorothy enters The Wizard of Oz and she opens that door and everything is color? That's what the world seemed like to me. I would see a baby and I just started to cry because of all the potential. I'd see a young couple looking at each other, and I'd start to cry, because the world is so cruel to people in love. I'd smell bread and I'd start to cry, because I love bread. [audience laughter] But this is a problem. I can't cry every time people say, hello, hi. Every time a light turns green, I start to cry. 

 

So, I go to the doctor and I tell the doctor about these symptoms. And the doctor says, “What you have is a side effect of the stroke, is known as pseudobulbar effect or emotional incontinence.” [audience laughter] And he says that, “I can prescribe a medication for you that would relieve you of some of the symptoms if you find them too troubling.” So, listen, a couple of weeks ago, I'm looking at TV and I see this commercial. It's a squirrel in the middle of the highway. And this car is coming toward the squirrel. Just before it hits the squirrel, it swerves off the road and it crashes. Another squirrel comes out in the road and the two squirrels give each other fist bumps and hugs. [audience laughter] I see this and my heart starts to thumping. I started breathing hard and I'm thinking, wow, all the love they must have, [audience laughter] all the nuts they must have gathered together. [audience laughter] So, I tell the doctor, “No thanks, I'll keep this side effect.”