Hi, I would like to stay anonymous if possible and you may understand later.

I make handcrafted rustic wood furniture, table display boards, and other material repurposed products.  I really love what I do, at the moment I’m not making very much money and I don’t care, to me it’s not about how much money I make on my projects but instead seeing someone’s reaction to my creation and if possible being a inspiration to another artist for them to create something.  But now on to my issue and I apologize if I jump around I have a few head injuries.

So a little back story I am a disabled veteran, I have back and head issues, (head both physical and mental).  I was injured in Iraq in 2009, yes I have seen some horrible things while deployed in Iraq but sadly I have seen far worse here in the US. I would rather not go into detail what exactly. Aside from what I have seen I have had some pretty bad experiences bothe before and after my deployment. I’m a type of person that loves to enjoy nature, camping, hiking, canoeing,  you name it if there’s nature involved it peeks my interest, I also love to golf. Again sorry for jumping around. Back in the early 2000’s I had caught my fiancé cheeting on me, after her I haven’t been able to find a real lasting relationship, I started the whole online dating thing. In the mid 2000’s I met a “girl” online or at the time I thought it was a girl, we had met for drinks in a quiet darkish bar, we chatted and I had a few too many drinks, next thing I remember is I was half way coherent at “her” place with a gun held at the back of my head as this person that I thought was a girl turns out is a transgender and “she” is raping me. I struggled with this for most of my military career, kept it bottled up and tried to focus my angry aggression and rage to my job and it worked for the most part, yes almost everyone around me ie my soldiers and the innocent people we were trying to help all thought I was a total and utter dick, but in a 18 month deployment we only lost 3 very brave heroes. After I was injured and returned to the states I still had that intense rage about me, i am very grateful of the people I can now call my closest friends for helping me through those hard times even though they don’t know everything about my past. I also had spent a few months in a mental hospital that helped me open up and finally take the world off my shoulders and for the first time talk about the shit in my past. After being raped I found my self angry not only at the person that invaded me but every single other gay man in the world, in 2012 for a New Years resolution after deciding that I didn’t want to go through the rest of my life blindly hating everyone, I decided to start to befriend those I hated the most. For a while it started to help, and I was able to meet a lot of really cool people, people that have so much patience for others, yes I also met a lot that hated me for not being gay or hated me for not having the same liberal views as them selves. But over time I have come to the place where I will accept and respect anyone of any color, religion, sex, sexual preference that is willing to accept other people for being different and having different ideas and values as them selves.  Again sorry for junping around and having the patience to read all this. In a way I feel like I’m pouring my heart out to strangers which would normally scare me but for some reason it’s not bothering me at the moment.

After iraq I moved to Texas went to school got a degree bought a house and started on my business, although still after moving across the country I still have not been able to find a lasting relationship and my horrors from my past still lurk behind me.  On New Years of 2017 I met another girl online but she wanted me to meet her at one of the gay bars downtown San Antonio, since I had spent the last 5 years befriending those that I blamed and hated for the actions of one person it now no longer bothered me to go to something like that, but there’s not much from that night that I remember. I remember going to the bar, meeting the girl and a few other people, we walked around to a few of the other bars on that strip but it’s still kindof fuzzy or blurry when I try to recal it. I don’t remember ever leaving the bar I only remember waking up in someone else’s bed with multiple people in it. And had the worse feeling in my head and stomach. Worried something bad had happened I had gotten a blood test at the va and a few weeks later I was given the notification that I contracted hiv, I felt as though my life was over and spent weeks on the edge of ending my life. I started to research the disease, and the more information I learned and the more people I talked to help pull me away from that edge and helped me “accept” it, luckily I was able to get treatment through the va, and became undetectable within a couple months of finding out I was hiv pos. But now even though I say I accept it, I still bottle it up and cannot find the courage to tell my family or my closest friends, only the people that read this and a very few others know. Since that day in 2017, I have found myself not becoming angry again but lack of life, I worry that I will never find a girl to enjoy my life with because of this, I have lost the enthusiasm to golf, spend time in nature, half the time I am able to do my wood working and my mind clears, but other days days like today, I have this want about me to do my wood working but absolutely no energy, no creative feel, and no enthusiasm or motivation to do anything, I just sit there looking at my projects with agonist no strength to pick up my tools or even a small piece of a project or sand paper, and all the shit just pours into my mind, the people I have seen horrifically die, the people I have badly hurt or worse, being raped, the morning waking up in that bed, the girls that I had onced loved, how extremely lonely my like has become and how pethetic I feel being almost 40 and still not having someone a beautiful girl that I can call not only the love of my life but my best friend, and possibly the father of her children.   These days I don’t feel like I want to hurt myself, but instead I just feel empty, blank, wish I could have the energy, motivation, enthusiasm to finish all my projects and creations.  Aside from the issues in my mind I also struggle with high amounts of pain, I had back surgery in 2012 and having another now in 2018, I know the pain affects the depression, and vise versa.  Psych Medication only seems to make me feel more empty and blank. Just masking the the issues.

I thank you so much for your patience in reading this long long long request for help, I need to find a way to build back my energy, my motivation.