The Sum of All Identities

Ten years ago, I did a 4-week stint at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence. NICoE conducts clinical research on veterans with traumatic brain injuries and other injuries related to combat. They offer a full suite of tests and treatments for service members. You learn a lot about yourself there and how the grind of decades of combat, and training for combat, can do to the human body. So much, that both idioms become true, knowledge is power, and ignorance can be bliss. They also employ several therapies to help vets ground themselves mentally. One is creative writing. I remember sitting in a large room with other veterans listening to our facilitator’s prompt; he wanted us to write about identity.

Using a passage from the Iliad, he framed how he wanted us to think about it. It encompassed the last time Hector and his infant son, Astyanax, laid eyes on each other. Hector had just come off the battlefield, and, wanting to see his wife and son, headed to his bedchamber. Still wearing his plumed helmet and armor marred with dirt and blood, he goes to pick up Astyanax. The boy is frightened, and cries at the sight of him. Hector removes his helmet, and the son recognizes the father. Astyanax stops crying and they share a happy moment. Our facilitator explained that identity can be like armor, something we can put on and take off, and he encouraged us to write about how we can begin to set aside that ‘armor’ and begin to embrace our new journey. . . as a civilian.

I thought his analogy was poor at best. What? I thought. How can anyone take off their identity like armor? But the prompt begged a bigger question; what is ‘identity’ anyway? To me, it’s nothing but a label cast by myself and others, not who I am. So, an even bigger question followed: Well, who am I then?

It took a long time for me to figure that out. I saw myself as the world saw me. Through my deeds and my personality, which were wholly flawed and imperfect—a notion I didn’t accept back then either. There were a lot of things I didn’t know or see back then. Being a slave to my emotions set blinders firmly in place. The passion I felt in the moment prevented me from being present in the moment. Really, the only time I ever felt ‘present in the moment’ was when I was doing the job. I think that’s why I was so addicted to it. Boarding a CH-47 or C-130, running or jumping off respectively, patrolling to a target then assaulting it was my meditation. That, and the litany of other wild and crazy shit I did, became my refuge and I mistook that feeling of peace amidst danger and violence as indicative to who I was. After all, it synced perfectly with the burning energy inside me; the same energy that put me on this path in the first place.

I am a warrior, and always will be in my heart. But is that who I am? No. It’s just a part of me, and I could never doff it, and neither could Hector. By taking off his helmet, he didn’t take off the warrior part of his identity, he took off a tool keeping his head and face from getting cleaved open. The removal of Hector’s helmet signified a shift, but not in his identity. It signified the shift from one role to the other we do throughout our lives. The question facing Hector when Astyanax cried was not ‘Who am I?’ but rather ‘Who am I in this moment?’ Bloodthirsty destroyer, relentless executioner? Or caring father, loving husband? You cannot don or doff these things, they’re a part of our story.

Perhaps our facilitator should have asked a different question. To give context, I have to tell you what happens to Hector after he leaves his son—spoiler alert—he gets killed. Troy’s hero and favorite son, the city’s last native hope, and bane of the Greeks, dies in battle and his corpse is paraded around the city. Right before his death, Hector experiences a personal failure. Instead of facing Achilles when challenged, he runs. Hector flees in front of the eyes of his family, and his people (ouch) while Achilles gives chase. The gods trick Hector to bolster his spirits, taking the form of one of his cousins. Seeing he’s not alone, his nerves are steeled. He turns to face Achilles, but the apparition of his teammate vanishes, and Hector knows he’s been tricked. Still, he stands his ground and clashes with Achilles, who, with a spear through the neck, kills Hector. Not the defining moment you would hope for the hero of Troy. The facilitator’s question should have been: If Hector was standing before us today, how would he view himself? Hero? Or Coward?

Because that is the only thing we can doff and don: how we view ourselves. That is who we are.

The outside world will judge you. They’ll label you conqueror and conquered, strong and weak, winner and loser, good dude and shitbag. Which version will you cleave to? Which one will you see when you look inside? We have a tendency to judge ourselves harshly. Coming from a high-performance team, with no-fail expectations, the most minor mistake haunted me. Getting past that self-induced torment brought me at odds with my ego whose efforts continually reinforced one story over another, hiding my weakness. I failed to recognize I was falling short in my other roles. When I finally noticed, my ego pounced like a bear, mauling me beyond reconciliation. Funny thing about the ego, it’d rather put you through hell just to maintain its dominance. But reconciliation eventually came. I decided to embark on a path which brought me to plant-medicine, and, more importantly, a deeper and more fulfilling relationship with God. That therapy wasn’t a happy little trip replete with rainbows and butterflies. It was invasive, dark, and scary. But on the other side, I got the answer to who I was: I was exactly who I needed to be when I needed to be it. I doffed condemnation and donned forgiveness. I doffed the lies I told myself about myself and donned acceptance.

No armor was involved in the process—just me, and who I chose to be in that moment. Frankly, it’s who I’m choosing to be right now. Because if identity is anything, it’s the totality of you, in this moment and every moment after.