[TravelerKai]

All MMA fighters are crazy. You have to be to even bother getting in a cage. Even I have my moments. Marines and football players love talking with me all the time because they feel like I can understand them. It's as if we are masochist and enjoy pain. I'm pretty sure my wife finds my love affair with fighting attractive and I try to tone it down as much as I can to just teaching and coaching instead of actually fighting, but I still want to fight all the time. Everytime some MMA fighter or football player loses his fucking mind I feel like I just died inside a little bit. I have a personal/family connection to a NFL player who committed suicide and that hit me pretty hard at the time. When I think back at all the small and big concussions I have had, all the knees to the face, the hard hooks, the jabs, the crosses, it scares the shit outta me. I have had a few PTSD nightmares before. There are times I feel really vulnerable and helpless as if I am waiting for a death sentence. I try explaining it to my wife, but it feels useless. She just tells me she loves me and will always stand by me. That feels good for a minute, but deep down it's not enough for me to feel comfort in that.

I lost my temper super badly back when I was with my exwife and that experience has calmed me down tremendously. I feel like I have great control now, but as I get older, I really wonder given the issues with CTE/Brain Trauma. Taking a class in anger management and buying a few good books on anger has helped me tremendously. Even a few friends asked me about my books because they noticed a difference in me, I guess I used to really run hot, but never noticed it much.

I wish there was just a solid lesson about maturity or some other age old wisdom, but considering how little we know about the human brain and these patterns of violence it may not be that simple.