>>509942673
From personal experience it really fucked me up, but not in the PTSD nightmare kind of way; more like, being persistently uncomfortable and unable to relax kind of way.
When I shower, wash dishes, or even listen to music, I can hear persistent gunfire. I know it's not real, but it sounds like it is. It sounds like different calibers of bullets being fired at different rates. Sometimes I'll zone out while doing dishes and it's like I'm back there staring at the sand because I'm just so tired all I could do was stare. I regretted joining the military almost immediately after being deployed, because I never realized how hard it was for me to sleep on a fixed schedule, so there were times where I wouldn't get any sleep and have to do my jobs tired as hell.
Now when I come home and lie down for the night, I hallucinate the smell of the barracks. Not for long. I'll catch a whiff of it for a second before it disappears, and I know my brain is playing tricks on me, but it really brings me back. If I don't get up and turn a light on to look at something, I start getting these weird physical sensations where my pillow and blanket feel hard as concrete and I start seeing fucked up weird shapes in the darkness. It's unnerving. I never had nightmares like some people do, but I do hallucinate a lot.
The worst is that I just can't relax. I'm constantly trying to occupy my brain with things, because if I'm not distracting myself mentally, I'll start daydreaming of my service days, and not in a good way.
