A Series of Flashbacks: Darkness Within • The Havok Journal

by Melissa Anne

It’s not uncommon for military members to make it through deployments only to lose the battle of the mind at home. My husband fought and lost to his demons regularly. There were numerous times where I didn’t know if he was slowly losing his mind, experiencing a PTSD episode, or having some type of drug-induced hallucination. All I knew was that he needed help, and he wouldn’t get it.

On July 10th, I’ll have been a widow for three years. It was never a title I imagined I would be given. I went from being a former Army medic with a husband working through the Special Forces Q course, to a member of the young widows club. A Gold Star Family member.

It’s taken me the last three years of diving into the psychology of trauma and looking at our situation with a less emotional lens to truly start understanding and fostering forgiveness towards our situation.
With that forgiveness and sense of closure, I knew I needed to share the story for others working through their own darkness, and so I began writing “A Series of Flashbacks: Darkness Within.”

(Excerpts from my book)

“In a letter he wrote to me, “I don’t know why I need this so badly. The suffering. The stress. But I know it gives me purpose and a chance to make a first-hand difference somewhere in the world. I think about
Christian growing up, I hope he’ll be proud of the things I’ve done.”

I hope this book, read in its entirety, helps you do just that. You may not be here in this present state. But I hope sharing your challenges, ours… makes a first-hand difference to someone in this world, just
like you had hoped to achieve in the world of Special Forces.

I hope this makes you proud. Wherever you might be.

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Drug users are regularly portrayed as people with missing teeth, super skinny, and obviously not mentally there. But reality paints a very different picture. They’re the put together overachiever searching for an adrenaline kick or escape from reality. They’re the war vet that never got the mental help they needed to work through things they dealt with overseas. They’re regular people seeking an escape from the outside world or an escape from internal thoughts. Unfortunately, with that
comes the catch-22. And sometimes, like in my story, that catch-22 means death.

A permanent end to escapism.

My hope is that reading this book will help you find more compassion for the ways different people cope with their struggles. Not to condone what they do, but to empathize. Maybe one day we will live in a world where people don’t feel the need to escape – but, until then, the best we can do is spread love and compassion for those around us.”

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Often I have been asked how I was able to forgive – how I could be put through so much and still hold compassion. Hopefully, in reading my story, you can gain a new perspective on forgiveness in your own life, and maybe a hint of empathy.