When Work Becomes the Quiet Drug
How I learned to survive by staying busy—and what it costs me
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I work the way I do.
Why I can spend hours neck-deep in VA law, buried in code on the back end of HadIt.com, writing arguments, tweaking layouts, organizing claims logic—and somehow still feel like I haven’t done enough.
Why I sometimes can’t stop.
And maybe, more honestly, why I don’t want to stop.
It hit me the other day:
Work feels like a narcotic.
Not in some poetic, romanticized way. I mean literally—like something that numbs me just enough to get through the day.
I live with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder.
Some days it’s quiet. Most days it’s not.
There’s a weight that never quite lifts. And when things are still, when there’s no task to focus on, no system to create or post to write, the thoughts come. The memories. The ache. The stuff I’ve learned to compartmentalize so well that even I forget it’s there—until I don’t.
That’s why I keep moving. Because when I’m working, I can breathe.
Focused work—especially work that helps other vets—gives me purpose. It organizes the chaos. It gives me a place to put the pain.
But here’s the hard part:
When I stop, the quiet isn’t peaceful. It’s jagged.
That’s when the fog rolls in. That’s when I feel like I’m sinking again.
And that’s when the depression tightens its grip and the PTSD reminds me that nothing is ever really safe.
So I keep going.
One more email.
One more forum reply.
One more tweak to the site.
From the outside, it looks like discipline. Productivity. Strength.
But sometimes, honestly, it’s just survival.
It’s me trying not to fall apart.
People call it high-functioning. I call it survival in a sharp suit.
What PTSD looked like in my day-to-day—and how ‘barely’ kept me alive.
The vets at the VA hospital used to ask me,
“How you doing?”
“Ducky,” I’d say.
“What’s ducky?”
“Cool and calm on the surface. Paddling like hell underneath.”
Turns out we were all ducky.
But here’s the truth about using work like a drug:
It comes with a cost.
The cost?
Rest I never take.
Relationships I neglect because I don’t know how to slow down without unraveling.
The physical toll of living on high alert—and never coming down.
The hardest part?
No one sees it.
Because from the outside, it looks like productivity. Like I’ve got it together. Like I’m healed.
But sometimes I’m not working because I’m okay.
I’m working because it’s the only way I know how to keep from falling apart.
This isn’t a confession. It’s just the truth.
If you’ve felt it too—if staying busy is how you stay afloat—you’re not alone.
We’re out here. Quiet fighters.
Cool and calm on the surface.
Paddling like hell underneath.
Feel this too?
Share this post with someone who needs it. Or just drop a comment to let me know you’re out there. That’s what The Quiet Fight is about—telling the truth out loud, together.