PTSD: Can You Feel It?

by
Chaplain Kathie

There are all kinds of people walking this earth of ours. Some we say have a heart of gold beating within them. They are the type of person always there when you are hurting. The first to offer a helping hand, a listening ear, a shoulder to lean on and yes, even offer you the shirt off their back. They feel for you, for what you need and seek to be able to provide you with it as their own pain is replaced by your's.

There are different talents each one of us have been blessed with. Some can sing as if an angel has taken control over their vocal cords. As they sing, you can see they are not just singing words but feeling the message of the words. When "it" whatever "it" is, can be felt by someone else, miracles happen, prayers are answered, things change, lives are transformed from hopelessness to rejoicing, loneliness to a sense of belonging and from feeling invisible to actually mattering in this world to someone.

Some of us can look at a magnificent sunrise and think "that's nice" but not be able to feel it in their soul as a reminder of the Master's canvas. Paintings, poems, books, natural wonders, ignored by some are treasured by others with the "heart" to feel it.

Veterans will be the first to tell you that PTSD feels like a curse they would not wish on their worst enemy. Imagine having that certain something allowing them to do what they do, propelling them into action for the sake of others and then ending up with their lives transformed by what they endure, having to pay the price for the sake of others. They walk away with their own pain and the pain from others. They cannot see that the ability to feel comes from a gift.

Seems strange to think of it that way, but that is the root of PTSD. The men and women with PTSD were able to feel someone else's pain and able to feel all that is good more than anyone else. The level of "cuts" from the pain inflicted on others becomes their own, enters into their soul instead of their skin. It pushes back the good feelings with each slice.

As PTSD takes control, they begin to no longer want to feel anything because it brings too much pain and they seek to block out the bad preventing the good as well. They want to feel the way they used to feel but it comes with too great of a price to pay to feel at all. Darkness comes into them and all they treasured is replaced by ambivalence. That is just existence until they begin to heal the scare on their soul.

I tell the story often of how my husband went from just existing in this life of his, unable to feel anything good or appreciate what he used to treasure. The pain in his eyes would not let go even when he laughed. I missed the times when his eyes would sparkle and PTSD was mild. He still had the ability to feel. As PTSD took more and more control, the darkness gained more and more of him until he could find no reason to do more than find relief from the pain inside of him. Yet this same man found the courage to fight to heal. He goes out to the deck of our pool and screams for me to come out so that I can see the sunset filling the sky because he is able to feel it again and wants to share it with me.

Sure there are still problems and things that may never be healed but he has accepted them as part of his life now. He knows he will probably be in therapy and on medication for the rest of his life but being able to live this life again is worth whatever he has to do to because he can feel the good again.

When they are without help to heal, they are not the only ones suffering. Their families feel it and pay a price for it. What most miss is that strangers pay the price as well. The same people that would be the first to help are unable to. The same people that would rush into danger for the sake of someone else can no longer see the other in need of help. They become numb to it. The world is robbed of their gift and the blessing of their tender soul is frozen within them. Yet when they are helped to heal, the gift is restored and all around them are blessed again with their spirit. When we heal them, we restore hope to the rest of us. Taking care of them returns so much to all they come into contact with because they have been blessed with compassion.

Too many people confuse their compassion with weakness but that level of compassion requires the courage to do something with it. They are the type of person entering into the military, law enforcement, fire departments and emergency responders. They put themselves on the line between life and death, hope and destruction. Their lives are secondary to them when others are in need. Even with their own pain, they will push it all aside for the sake of someone else until it is over. Then and only then do they allow themselves to feel for themselves.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a wound to the soul. It does not come into a weak mind but attacks a loving soul. Scientists have found the region of the brain where emotions are kept and they see the changes when PTSD strikes but they never seem to be able to connect it to where the soul lives. Perhaps we think of the soul the wrong way. Maybe the soul does not fill our bodies but lives in brain instead? We are complicated creatures after all. No two humans are alike and each of us come with gifts, talents, blessings and certain things we lack. We can see evidence of the soul in what people become and maybe, just maybe, scientists have actually seen the soul within the brain but have not known what they were looking at. Easy assumption to make when some still think that a mind can be "toughened" and "trained" to prevent PTSD. They still confuse a wound with an illness leaving the impression there is something 'wrong" with warrior's mind instead of fully acknowledging that PTSD comes after an outside force of trauma and that wound comes from what they are able to feel in that moment.

The question they should be asking the warriors with PTSD is not what is wrong with them but what was so right about them they were able to feel it so deeply. Then maybe they will find a better way of healing the blessed. This world of ours will be all the better for it because we need them in our lives. Look at what they have done when they have found help to heal, the hands they reached out to others to help and stand as an example of hope. Look at what the Vietnam veterans did when they came home and said they will fight for all generations of veterans even though all generations of veterans came home with this wound within them but did not have the ability to fight to have it healed. Go to any of the Vietnam memorials and you can see how deeply they are able to feel as they look at the names of the fallen and understand they are not feeling their own pain for themselves, but pain for the lives gone. There is nothing "wrong" with them but something so right the world is a better place because they came into it. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are better taken care of because they saw the need and had the courage to do something about it. This new generation are also finding their own courage to fight for others and reach out to help others in a way we have never seen before because the Vietnam veterans showed what was possible when they could feel it and imagine a better world for everyone.

While PTSD strikes all humans exposed to traumatic events, they are also benefiting from what the Vietnam veterans decided they would no longer suffer in silence from and the mental health community is looking at PTSD differently within civilians, police and firefighters because of them. What has been wrong has been with the rest of us when we fail to understand this. The only reason they have PTSD is because they were able to feel it more than others.