I’m a Veteran With PTSD. The Medication I Take Makes Dating Difficult.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/magazine/dating-medication-veteran.html

Version 0 of 1.

She was a cat lover with cotton-candy-colored hair and obnoxious tastes in music but similar politics to mine. While texting on Tinder, she suggested I might get to play with her kitty. We agreed that we would take her cat out to the park some time but that we would start with dinner and a drink. There were no other hints to me that anything thrilling might happen beyond my riding my motorcycle from Denver to Boulder for the meeting.

Sitting together at an Italian restaurant, we got past the cat conversation and progressed to politics and music, jokes and laughter. We were communicating freely and enjoying each other’s company — pretty much everything I wanted out of a first date.

As the waitress picked up the check, my date invited me back to her place. I went. I still didn’t think anything was going to happen until we were going to settle in to watch a movie and she changed her clothes right in front of me.

She asked to see my tattoos — I’ve got a lot of ink, even for a Marine — so that happened too. But not everything happened, and probably not as much as she expected. I explained about the injuries, the PTSD, the medication. She was nice about it. We eagerly agreed on a second date. “We should do this again, and finish what we started,” she said. “If we don’t, it’ll bug me. Like I’m not hot enough for you, or something.” I told her she was gorgeous and that next time would be better.

[Get a weekly roundup of Times’ coverage of war delivered to your inbox. Sign up here.]

So many veterans’ stories begin with them coming back home to find it’s a place with which they no longer identify. I don’t want to overstate my problems, but as a man who went to Iraq as a proud Marine only to realize what was happening there was nothing short of catastrophic, I started to rethink where exactly my heart aligned with my nation and where it fractured and split.

My heart, though, was not the only part of me in need of repair. I need medication to keep post-traumatic stress disorder from completely overrunning, and ending, my life. Before the meds, there was drinking and drugs, but those led me nowhere. Eventually I found out that the bottoms of bottles and barrels look a whole lot alike. Not that the pills make life easy. I am disabled — my back broken down by my years as a machine gunner in the Marine Corps — and my compressed and bulging discs ache. Moments of rage, confusion, terror and paranoia make me feel like an alien; night terrors interrupt my sleep, soak my sheets with sweat; and flashbacks haunt my waking hours.

These are the problems you read about in veteran tell-alls of every sort. But another is less often shared: the pills I take to manage the symptoms of these conditions kill my libido. So I was prescribed Viagra — pills begetting pills. I don’t need it every time, but in case I do, I have it.

Armed by the V.A.’s pharmaceutical regimen, I entered the online dating world, hoping companionship would bring a bit of pain relief and sanity. But online profiles seemed painfully shallow. My medications made me feel weird. The doctors told me to be vigilant for seizures, to tell someone if I felt strange in a bad way. My friends said I needed to be patient.

Before I had a solution to my arousal problems, I felt helpless. Now I feel more hopeful, but also confused and a little afraid. Viagra seemed like a straightforward enough solution at first. I would ask a woman out on a date, and after a few dates, we would have sex — easy to plan. But deciding whether or not I’ll need some pharmaceutical assistance is tricky, and the consequences usually bear a tone of finality. If I take Viagra, I’ll be “good to go,” as we used to say in the service. If I take it but don’t need it, my throbbing erection will shift painfully under my belt. If I need it and don’t take it, then I’m sure to experience erectile dysfunction. If I do decide to take it, that’s a call I need to make about 90 minutes in advance. A lot can happen in that window.

Consummating a relationship often felt to me like christening a vessel — a solemn, important rite — and any sailor can tell you what an ill omen it is when that bottle of champagne gets tossed against a hull and doesn’t break. To find a hard-won connection with someone and not be able to share or satisfy their intimate desires is a special kind of distress. I don’t generally like people, and this makes those personal connections even harder for me. My blue pill and I have chosen poorly enough times that the deciding itself has become a source of anxiety.

There’s a pill for that, too.

There was a second date, at the Butterfly Pavilion, outside Denver. It was her idea, and I was excited because I have a small collection of butterflies. The insects were beautiful, if short-lived. Maybe that was an omen. The second date didn’t go as well as the first one. I think I talked about relationships and people too seriously during dinner. I’m assuming she interpreted it, and my chastity to that point, as signs that I was looking for something serious, something different from what she was ready for. If that’s the case, it’s hard to fault somebody who might want a little less conversation and a little more action, as Elvis Presley once sang.

Of course, I get that: I was a Marine who went to war once. But in many ways, action is the furthest thing from my mind now.