J.L. sent me the article that appeared in a local paper and it's very well done. It says a lot about what people can do when they have suffered. We either feel sorry for ourselves and focus only on ourselves, or we can reach back to help others stand next to us. It's a choice we all face. J.L. held onto God's hand and with her other hand is reaching out to pull people out of the depth of despair.
Seeking answers, they find no easy ones
Those with PTSD try to restore normalcy
By Daniel Kittredge - News Staff Writer
Published On Thursday, August 07, 2008
(Editor’s note: this is the first in a two-part series on post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD)
GARDNER — For those who live with it, post-traumatic stress disorder is an experience virtually impossible for others to understand.
The form the disorder and its symptoms take varies from person to person, but the initial traumatic event that causes it always involves death or violence — be it a near-death or violent personal experience, bearing witness to the death or physical injury of another or learning of the sudden or violent death of a loved one. It affects soldiers and civilians, men and women, children and adults, and spans generations..
And while each experience is different, the questions those living with it ask themselves are the same.
“When will the fear stop?” writes local author J.L. Vallee in “Severed Soul,” an account of her own struggles with the disorder. “Could it be when heaven calls my name? ... Please, someone understand and help! I feel numb! I feel dead!”
“You don’t meet many people that really get it,” said Ms. Vallee. “You never get over (the disorder), no matter what.”
Invisible
One of the walls in the main lobby of the Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center Inc. on Central Street is adorned from top to bottom with photographs of soldiers. Many of the young men and women shown in the images are young — some look like teenagers — and they are often shown smiling, displaying a visible pride in the uniform they wear and the service they are providing to their country.
The photographs serve as an instant reminder of the center’s purpose — reaching out to those who went off to war young and untouched by its horrors, but returned with memories, injuries and demons that never allowed them to truly come home.
“There’s a lot of people with (the disorder) out there,” said Darrell P. Keating, the center’s executive director. “We’re trying our best to find them.”
The number of veterans in the greater Gardner area struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder is hard to state definitively, said Mr. Keating. The center keeps state-mandated statistics regarding its in-house and referral services, which range from a food pantry to housing assistance to counseling, and in 2007 roughly 48,000 such services were provided.
The last 1-1/2 years have seen the center grow markedly, said Mr. Keating, particularly through the addition of an outreach coordinator to its staff who works actively to seek out veterans at churches and support groups.
Despite those efforts, however, he said there are many veterans who continue to struggle alone.
“It’s invisible in today’s society,” Mr. Keating said of post-traumatic stress.
Robert Stair, a counselor with the center, said many will not seek help until they’ve reached a breaking point, often in the form of a job being lost or a relationship being broken because of substance abuse. Most of the veterans that the center deals with, he said, have a history of post-traumatic stress — beginning either during or after their time in the service — and have as a result had issues with substance abuse.
“Just about every person’s got a different kind of story,” he said. “Unless you’ve gone through it, you really can’t understand.”
A disorder that does not discriminate
For years, Ms. Vallee wondered what was wrong.
Her life, as documented in “Severed Soul” — through the character of Amy Howard — has been filled with traumatic experiences. Her brother drowned when she was a young girl, and as medics took him away she caught a glimpse of his feet hanging from a body bag. Later, she lived through two serious car accidents — one in which she was hit by a semi-truck, and another on Route 140 in which a boulder rolled down a hill and struck the van she was driving.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said of the second crash.
After that second car accident, said Ms. Vallee, something changed. She was “always on guard” — jumpy, afraid and unsure of why. Then married to a man she describes as distant and emotionally abusive, she found little sympathy among many family members and friends.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” she said, describing the feeling as a numbness, a fog that led her to withdraw and isolate herself. “They look at you like you have three heads. They think you have a flaw.”
Ms. Vallee was eventually diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress. Initially caught off guard — having thought the disorder was exclusive to veterans — she decided to become involved with local veterans groups in hopes of learning more. Since then she has further branched out, writing “Severed Soul” and seeking out others that have touched by the disorder.
“It’s not just a vet thing,” she said, noting that victims of sexual assault and trauma often develop post-traumatic stress.
Available statistics indicate the diversity of those living with post-traumatic stress. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 7.7 million Americans are affected by the disorder.
Women, according to the institute, are more likely than men to be affected, and while it is most prevalent among adults it can also affect children.
Carrying visions
In a military context, post-traumatic stress has been known by many names throughout history.
During the Civil War era, it was known as “soldier’s heart,” while it was dubbed “shell shock” after World War I. Veterans of World War II were described as having “combat neurosis,” and after Korea it became “combat fatigue.”
Mr. Stair began his work as a counselor in 1983 while still an active member of the Air Force. At the time, he said, his goal was to help make sense of why so many fellow servicemen had difficulty readjusting to civilian life after Vietnam.
“There wasn’t any means of getting support,” he said, noting the lack of resources available to those veterans.
Most of the veterans Mr. Stair deals with in his current role served during the Vietnam era, and most have carried the pain and trauma of their experiences through the years without seeking help.
“It takes a long time for them to come forward,” he said, noting that men especially “try to handle things on their own.”
Most members of the newest generation of veterans — the men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — who suffer from post-traumatic stress have largely yet to come forward, said Mr. Stair. While awareness of the disorder has grown vastly since Vietnam, the intrinsic value military culture places on strength and self-sufficiency still serves as a deterrent for those in need of help.
Additionally, said Mr. Stair, many of the newest returning veterans are far from the breaking point that lead many from the Vietnam generation to finally seek help.
“They haven’t identified themselves,” he said, although — like their predecessors — “they carry around a lot of these visions.”
Leslie Lightfoot, CEO of Fitchburg’s Veteran Homestead Inc., agreed that emotional or mental issues continue to carry a serious stigma in military culture. “That’s not changing,” she said, noting she has heard similar sentiments from her two daughters currently serving in the military.
She also agreed that post-traumatic stress among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans remains hidden, for the same reasons cited by Mr. Stair.
“The drug and alcohol thing is down the road (for them),” she said. “Sometimes it takes years and years and years.”
Statistics show that post-traumatic stress has affected the newest veterans, and in substantial numbers. A 2007 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that of 103,788 veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom surveyed between 2001 and 2005, 13,205 had PTSD — a figure comprising more than half of the veterans with a mental health diagnosis and 13 percent of all veterans surveyed.
The numbers also show that the new veterans are not coming forward. The New England Journal of Medicine in 2004 released a study showing that only 24 to 40 percent of service members in need of mental health services pursued that help, largely because of fears of being stigmatized.
Another, more disturbing trend among both service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and veterans of earlier conflicts has emerged in recent years — an increase in suicide rates. A 2007 CBS News investigation found that in 2005, approximately 20 veterans per 100,000 committed suicide, with a higher rate among those aged 20 to 24.
CNN reported in February that 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007, up from 350 in 2002. The suicide rate among active soldiers, CNN reported, was 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006 — less than the civilian rate, but a drastic increase from previous years.
Suicidal tendencies, said Mr. Stair, mark the point at which groups like his can step in and force a veteran to receive treatment. While he described the problem of veteran suicide as limited in north central Massachusetts, he said the focus both regionally and nationally must be on finding ways to help before a veteran’s post-traumatic stress causes him or her to reach that point of despair.
“Even one’s too many,” he said.
dkittredge@thegardnernews.com
http://www.thegardnernews.com/index.aspx
Post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD)
• 7.7 million Americans are affected by PTSD, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The disorder is more likely to affect women than men, according to the institute, and while it is most prevalent among adults it can affect people of any age, including children.
• A 2007 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that of 103,788 veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom surveyed between 2001 and 2005, 13,205 had PTSD — a figure comprising more than half of the veterans with a mental health diagnosis and 13 percent of all veterans surveyed.
• According to a 2004 study that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, only 24-40 percent of service members in need of mental health services pursued them because of fears about being stigmatized.
J.L. Vallee
Westminster Info Press
PO Box 62
Westminster, MA 01473
JLVallee@SeveredSoul.com
www.severedsoul.com
http://www.myspace.com/author_jlvallee
part one of two
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