U.S. soldiers struggle with torment of war

Have you ever gotten the idea in your head that there was help available for whatever you're facing? For our soldiers, that idea is always there but until they start to look for help, they never imagine the help they are seeking cannot be found. It happens all the time.

While we read about the military and the VA trying to play catch up to the long line of combat veterans needing help to heal, they are still trying to figure out why they need the help in the first place. A recent report came out on another study to figure this out. Amazing considering how many years of studies they have already paid for.

If they are still trying to figure it out then why have they been investing millions on "treating" what they do not understand? None of what we're seeing is new in PTSD. There are very few programs treating the whole veteran even though most research has shown treating the mind-body and soul have the best results.

They know PTSD only comes after traumatic events. The term actually means after trauma and trauma is Greek for wound. They know it strikes the part of the brain where emotions live. They know there is survival guilt so deep they are remorseful they "were chosen" and survived when someone else didn't. They know they feel like criminals when they are in positions where they have to decide to take a life or not, take it and then find out the one they killed was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They know the pack reactions after facing extreme events can cause them to forget the body in front of them is not less than human but their minds remind them of the fact constantly.

They know medication alters the way the mind reacts but in most cases, talk therapy with the right fully PTSD educated psychologist, has the best results. Once they are able to talk about what it haunting them, it is no longer allowed to keep control. They also know that reconnecting the spiritual soul back to God, faith, forgiveness, mercy and compassion, restores hope and healing.

There is much they already know but too much they still don't understand. That's frightening. When you consider what is being done in the civilian world addressing the whole person's needs after traumatic events as crisis teams rush in. Some deliver food and water, clothing, shelter, all depending on the need. Some deliver a calming presence to listen to survivors talk and they remind them someone does care. In times when what help is available at that moment is not enough, then they are sent to the help they need. This is not done in the military. It's almost as if they forget the troops are still humans and still have the same reactions and needs as everyone else.

So they come home, after not getting what they need as soon as they need it, try to adjust to life as humans again in their own country, then they must come to terms with the need they have for help. Once this step is taken, then they have to find the help they need. Too often they are being sent to Chaplains without a clue what PTSD is. They are sent to psychologists and psychiatrists without a clue and end up being misdiagnosed leading to being treated for the wrong mental health need. This happens all the time because whatever mental illness the doctors are looking for, they will find it.

If they are looking for bipolar, they'll find it, just as they will find depression, paranoia, schizophrenia and "personality disorder" which caused the erroneous dishonorable discharges of over 22,000 soldiers. Yes, sometimes help does more harm than good.

They will not be able to stop the escalation of suicides and attempted suicides until they finally understand what makes humans human. Otherwise, claiming to be doing everything possible will only lead to more of the same mistakes and mistreatments they have been doing all along.

Military suicides increase as U.S. soldiers struggle with torment of war
By Star-Ledger Staff
November 22, 2009, 1:30PM


Reported by Tomas Dinges & Mark Mueller
Written by Mark Mueller

"His whole body just shut down," said Bean’s older brother, Nick. "He said he felt like he was being strangled by nothing."



The nightmares came back, too. And the rages, so intense they sometimes drove him to look for fights. Bean began drinking again, dulling the anxiety and the memories.

He’d seen women and children reduced to charred husks in a burning bus. He’d shot up a car as it charged a military checkpoint, finding afterward that he and his squad had killed not a suicide bomber but a child. He’d survived mortars and rocket-propelled grenades and snipers.

"The things he saw in Iraq ate at him," said his father, Greg Bean. "He was just drifting. And little by little, bits of hope dropped away."

On the morning of Sept. 6, 2008, after a late-night crash and his second arrest for driving under the influence, Army Sgt. Coleman Bean killed himself with a single shot to the head in his South River apartment. He was 25.
read more here
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/us_military_suicides_increase.html