In honor of the upcoming launch of our Spirit of the Eagle Charm Bangle and Necklace benefiting Team Red, White and Blue (Team RWB) on July 2, 2015, we’re honored to welcome Elana Duffy, Sergeant First Class (E7) Army combat veteran, as a guest blogger.
In the story below, Duffy shares her experience with TBI, PTSD and how Team RWB helped her rediscover meaning and purpose.
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I had a career in mind, you know. An entire path mapped out doing a job I enjoyed for a country I loved. Even after the bomb went off in Iraq in 2005 and the subsequent neurosurgery and rehabilitation, I wanted that career.
I even volunteered to deploy again, but the new attention from my doctors changed everything – no deployment, no career. I was thrust back into the real world, a decade after my engineering degrees were relevant and my career in intelligence collection had let me accomplish great things, but great things I couldn’t discuss with future employers. There were also limitations from my injuries I didn’t want to confront and almost no local network to build upon. I was under no false impressions – transition was not going to be easy.
I started to get depressed, and knew without activity my increasingly sloth-like demeanor would take over. But I was embarrassed. My injuries make me run slowly. Biking is impossible with my loss of balance. My shoulders and back constantly ache. A bad fall or a kick to the head during a sport? If it didn’t kill me, my doctors might. I thought I had to work out alone, and limited just to what might keep whatever was left of my sanity.
I wasn’t living. I was existing.
It was serendipity that brought me to Team RWB during this low point in my transition. It steered me away from what I was becoming: a blob of Netflix consumption incarnate, slowly assimilating into my couch while talking to my cats like they were people.
But Team RWB, a group of both veterans and civilians, pulled me out. It slapped my excuses around and told my PTSD to take a knee. Miss riding a bike? There’s a guy with charity connections that will get you a tricycle and coach you because he’s been there, too. Run slow? You won’t get left behind. Prefer rock climbing? Help build a new local program. The point is to get off the couch and get out there, no matter what you do or your skill level.
The best part? No judgment, only other veterans who understood and civilians who wanted nothing more than to get you where you wanted to be. It wasn’t just a fitness club yelling at me to move (though they happily did that when I needed it), it was a network. It was Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen and Marines and Coast Guard, but also medics and stockbrokers and producers and students. It didn’t just get me moving, it got me connecting. It was what I needed, when I needed it, and all among friends. Because if someone else was wearing the eagle, you didn’t have to know their name to know they’re your people.
Team RWB gave me a team again, a network again, the motivation to get out and get a career again. I am back to living and I must say, it feels pretty good.
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Elana Duffy is an Army combat veteran and writer living in NYC. She is the co-founder and COO (and frequent blogger) of the content creation and ghostwriting firm, Present Tense, a founding member of the racing charity team race2rebuild, and is currently formulating another start-up. She is also actively involved in several veteran organizations to include expanding the rock climbing program for Team RWB NYC. She spends her limited free time yelling at her cats to stop eating her plants and defending the Army to her Marine Corps boyfriend. For more of her writing, you can find her periodically published on Task & Purpose and Ranger Up’s RhinoDen.