The Torment PTSD Caused Him, And The Healing That Came After
“I was always suspicious. My head was always on a swivel. Someone could slam a door and I would jump. I was just always on edge.”
At twenty-eight years old, Marine veteran Eric Swithin had his whole life ahead of him. He was a newlywed, had a steady job, and felt he had the memories of combat that haunted him under control…until one night in 2010 when a noise woke him up.
“I look over and see a lump, and I'm certain that it's my wife sleeping next to me. And I reach for my gun. And then she walks out of the bathroom, and here I am pointing a loaded gun at my wife in the middle of the night.”
Eric was never one to talk about his problems. He’d grown up on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol until he enlisted in the Marines and surrendered his life to Christ at seventeen.
“I was kind of reaching for some kind of lifeline, but then I met God, and I was radically transformed. I over romanticized everything. So, thinking of becoming a United States Marine, my mind drifted to this idea of serving my country, protecting what's good and protecting what's right and being a hero, running out onto a battlefield. All the things that Hollywood sensationalizes, that was me.”
After basic training, Eric was selected for a highly specialized weapons team called Fox Recon. Then on September 11th, the unthinkable happened. Eric was deployed to Iraq to fight the war on terror.
“We're the tip of the spear. So, I remember in that moment knowing we're going to war, and I'm thinking, did I make a mistake signing up for this-- basically a forward operating unit who's certainly gonna be on the very front lines or ahead of the front lines?”
In the first two months, Eric’s unit took seventeen cities. The physical demands were brutal.
“Hypervigilant, days without sleep, constantly engaging in combat. You're constantly stressed out, constantly trying to keep yourself alive and others around you alive. I had prepared myself to see dead people. I prepared myself to take lives. I had prepared myself to be shot at. What I wasn't anticipating though, was the images that will never leave my mind. In particular, seeing a five-year-old boy with missing arms and legs, who had just watched his mom and dad get killed. Seeing five young ladies and their mother hovering over their dad, weeping, because he had been killed as a casualty of war, as collateral damage.But the thing that was really troubling me the whole time was I've been sharing Jesus with people. I'm a Christian. My job is to love people. How is this loving people? I couldn't reconcile it. How is this right? Are we really the good guys? All these tough questions. I was not asking God. I was just pushing them down.
After seven months on the front lines, Eric was sent stateside where he finished out his career. He got a job as a consultant, married, and immersed himself in work. While his service in Iraq was behind him, the trauma remained.
“I was drinking almost every single day. I was struggling to get good sleep. I'd hear a helicopter, and I'd start freaking out, started having night terrors and things went downhill really quickly. I began to spiral. I started thinking about what it would look like just to find peace by ending my life. Maybe that's the easiest way out. Maybe it's best for her. You start to justify all those scenarios.”
Eric says pride kept him from seeking help.
“I'm supposed to be okay. I went to war. I fought; I'm home. I'm a man. I'm tough. I'm strong.
I'm gonna bootstrap it and I'm gonna push my way through this pain.”
Until the night he pulled a gun on his wife and realized he was a danger to himself and those around him.
“I went from zero to ninety in two seconds. I could have very easily shot my own wife. I have not admitted that to many people because it's just so embarrassing to me that I made that mistake. But that's where I was.”
Pushing his pride aside, eric went to the VA where he began receiving counseling for PTSD. Even then, the nightmares and drinking continued. Then while working one day in 2013, he heard a voice telling him to get on his knees and worship.
‘“I thought, in case this is God, I'm gonna do this. I remember playing a song, I Surrender. And I began to say the words of this song: ‘I surrender to you, Lord, I give you everything.’ And in that moment, God himself came into my office. I knew that God is holy and that I am not. And I cannot stand before him with all of this junk. And he let me see what it's like to be before a holy living God when you are not right with him. I was absolutely terrified. One of the scariest moments of my entire life by far. I couldn't open my eyes because I was weeping so hard. But I also was afraid of what I would see. For the first time I fully admitted all of the things I had done, I just laid it all down. “God, I am sorry. for going to all these things rather than going to you.” I was begging him for mercy. I knew in that moment I needed Jesus. And I felt so much deep regret and remorse. And then immediately the atmosphere in the room shifts. And in that moment, I felt more love than I've ever felt in my life. I felt so amazing. I didn't want it to end. When I left that room, I knew something was different.’”
Nearly a decade after coming home, Eric finally felt peace. He stopped drinking and though he still has occasional night terrors, he says God always pulls him through.
“I'll probably always have a level of vigilance. But I'm no longer a danger to others and myself. It doesn't control my life anymore. I feel whole and healthy in so many ways, and I know that it is only God that can do that. We face an enemy that is not flesh and blood. He's real and he wants us to keep everything inside. He wants us to try to go it alone. It doesn't matter what kind of trauma it is, if it's war or abuse or any kind of tragedy that we might face in this life. But when we start to open up and let it out and ask for help before God himself, immediately healing starts to take place. Only God can heal the soul.”
