Ptsd Memoir

On July 10, 1981, David Mellor was just a baseball-crazed kid, a star high school pitcher preparing to go to college and dreaming of one day taking the mound in Fenway Park for his beloved Boston Red Sox. His dream was derailed as he crossed the parking lot of a McDonald’s, where a car sent him flying through the air and into a wall. In the wake of the accident, even as he reached the major leagues as a groundskeeper, David was tortured by the aftermath of his injuries. One Base at a Time recounts in vivid detail his subsequent 29-year struggle with PTSD.

I was born living the American dream. I had a mother and father who loved me. An older sister who cared for me. A beautiful house on a lake and extended family close by. But life has this way of flipping you inside out. By age two, we'd lost our home. By age six, my mother had died. For the next five years, we moved from place to place, crisscrossing the country.

For 18 years of my life, I dealt with harm daily. I suffered over 40 years with a substantial assortment of trauma-related manifestations. The devastation of the problems began when I was a child and lasted until I was in my mid-40s. I know my story sounds bleak but don’t be discouraged. Peace, laughter, joy, and happiness eventually came my way.

In Service to Civilian: A Journey Through PTSD you will enter the mind of a combat vet who became a law enforcement officer after a tour in Iraq where comrades were killed and wounded. Policing the streets, he faced the balance between selfless service, integrity, bureaucracy, and the weight of the negative policing culture around him. All this while fighting ever-increasing depression and ultimately a PTSD incident that brought him to the edge of suicide.

The Jhenna is not a person but a journey. My journey. From giving up on wanting to be alive to being strong enough to share this with you. Jhenna told me to be open and honest," and I was with everyone in the unit, strangers in the stores I frequented, others in waiting rooms at the VA that I never met, and my care providers. The funny thing is, she only meant my care providers. It was six or eight months later that I figured that out. Take the journey from mental health issues to being happy and finding peace. I used to think I was the only one with mental issues.

Jonathan Garrett Green experienced a relatively “normal” childhood. He would not know how his upbringing would shape his future. Dealing with various obstacles, J. Green would display resiliency like no other. From fighting police in Alabama in 2006, to becoming a human rights advocate, the mind and spirit of J. Green could not be defeated.