My wife drank herself to death the night of her 29th birthday, 2011. We'd been together for 10 years, and I had been trying to force her into getting help for her alcoholism for the previous 4. 2 months before she died, I told her she had to go back to her mom's place. I told her "I can't watch you destroy yourself any more."

Her death destroyed my career in the Navy. I lost my deployable status on submarines because I needed antidepressants, I couldn't focus, my performance slipped even though I had landed a cushy shore rotation job, and a year after she died I decided not to reenlist.

From then, I've failed at everything I've attempted, gradually becoming less and less able to leave the house. I've lost so many jobs because I'd wake up in the morning and just couldn't go anymore. The VA just tries to load me up with medications, even though I've been begging for trauma therapy for 12 years.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Just trying to lance the boil a bit, I guess.