I think I have finally recovered from my trip to WV and Ft. Stewart. It seems like the migraines have stopped, and I am feeling somewhat better. The last couple of days have been a little difficult. I went to a new group at the Vet Center, and I just don't feel very comfortable while I am there. While it's good to be with a group of Vets experiencing similar issues as myself, there is only one other Iraq Vet there. I got extremely angry while I was at the group, and just wanted to get up and leave. It just seemed to me like we were going around in circles, and not getting anything accomplished. On the other hand, it was good because the topic of conversation centered around how we all get angry and go immediately to rage. So, instead of thinking a problem through rationally, and taking appropriate actions to fix whatever the issue may be, we tend to think in extremes. Usually with rage comes thoughts of violence. In Iraq when we felt threatened in some way it was appropriate to respond with violence. What we did at group was identified the problem, identified out thoughts, and emotions, and discovered that it was extremely difficult to identify emotions. Thoughts were easy to come up with, emotions on the other hand were quite difficult to identify. Then, we used our thoughts to come up with alternative, or more logical thoughts.
Today I had my individual session at the Vet Center. We talked for a brief period about Tuesday's group, and how it had gotten me angry. We also did some work with EMDR. We used something that was new to me. Instead of following Kevin's fingers from side to side like I have in the past, I held a sensor in each of my hands that vibrated to stimulate the left and right hemispheres of my brain. It worked pretty well. I have been in a pretty bad mood since I got home, and have just tried to relax a little and listen to some music.
