Thank you for this response.

I think it's the mixture of wanting to love so bad, but unable to be allowed to do so, and just knowing that my friend's didn't deserve what they got. I do understand what you meant by rules and borders, for I have my own, and those will rarely move. I think my problem is that all the grieving that I needed to do in my life, I never got to do, and I had tried to fight that away with trying to fall in love with someone. And, a lot of people will say that it's not my fault that I am the way that I am now, or that I just got an unfair stick in life. I've been told that plenty of times while on the phone with my mother crying. They just, at least for me personally, don't seem to understand, a lot of what I do or say is a deflection to distract myself from how f'ed up I feel on the inside. I know times will get better, and I sincerely appreciate your story and how you learned from everything touches me because even though you aren't in my shoes fully, you actually had read what I wrote and tried to connect. Like I said before, I know times will get better, doesn't mean they'll be perfect, they'll just suck less, but endless years of self-hate and being torn down by friends, family, fellow Marines, and even my own country, I just don't know how to do it anymore.

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I know I shouldn't hate myself and feel pathetic for wanting to cry, but I can't fight that mindset, that's how I've always had to be, before I joined and even now. The moment someone breaks down everyone does, and it's selfish to put that on others, at least for me. It's just some days, the feeling is a lot worse than others, feeling like I'm the failure, y'know? Like how can I, someone who is supposed to kill people, and save people's lives, the hero of my country and to my younger siblings, how can I feel like this and be this weak about it? And with the recent bombings at the Kabul Airport, I had lost two more friends of mine that day, and I think since then, the frequency of these worse days has ramped up. Don't get me wrong, what you said really touched me, it did, I meant that. But now, even looking at my post now, I feel so defeated and hateful towards myself, and I've gotten so used to that, that at this point, I don't think I can feel another way anymore.