Shinseki: Veterans' Mental Health a Priority
Posted by Daniel Carty
Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general who currently heads the Department of Veterans Affairs, said his agency is "working diligently" to better aid veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues.
Shinseki appeared on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday, a day after attending a memorial for the 13 victims of the Fort Hood shooting rampage. As a former Army chief of staff, Shinseki described the attack as a "heart wrenching, terrible tragedy - unexplainable."
He also said President Barack Obama's speech during the ceremony was important to "bring the community together and begin the healing."
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Veterans' Mental Health a Priority
Usually I complain about what they lack. It's habit. After all these years of reading their stories, talking to them and their families, it would be impossible to not complain about what they are not getting. These are not, as some put it, freeloaders looking for a handout, but men and women who earned whatever it is we can provide them with. We'll honor them today on Veterans Day, but fail to imagine tomorrow, they will still be veterans living with memories of combat, fallen friends and carrying the same wounds they came home with. They are veterans everyday, every week, every month and every year for as long as they live.
They return to home, families, neighborhoods, to work when they can and the VA claim line when they can't. They return to people they used to feel comfortable with suddenly feeling like a stranger in their midst. They hear us complain about tiny issues as if they were all so important while they remember what it was like when the food couldn't get to them for days, the times when they were fighting too stressed out to realize they hadn't eaten all day or slept, or showered or that it was over a hundred degrees in the shade. Still they listen to us get all flustered because they didn't take out the trash or notice the new curtains in the living room.
In the weeks, months and years as they try to readjust back to the world of normalcy, they soon realize everyone else has gotten on with their normal lives but they haven't. There is nothing "normal" about them anymore. What they do not understand is that after what they went through, they are normal considering where they came from.
This is one of the first videos I did on PTSD so that families could understand.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 19, 2009
What is possible with PTSD is that they can heal this wound. It does not have to be fatal. It does not have to be all consuming. It does not have to be a terrorist inside of them trying to break them down and destroy their lives. If they know what it is, that knowledge acts like an antibiotic. Much like an infection will eat away flesh, PTSD with eat away at the soul unless it is treated. As soon as they start to talk about what is going on inside of them, they stop getting worse. PTSD is no longer able to rule over their lives. They begin to take control over it.
It is not their fault. It strikes the compassionate. Once they understand this, they stop the self-guilt road rage against themselves.
It is not something they can treat with alcohol or drugs because it makes it all worse. Masking what is there instead of treating it properly allows it to fester and grow stronger. If they are already on medication, it is dangerous because these chemicals interfere with the chemicals in the medications that are supposed to be helping them. Once they understand this, the medications begin to work and if not, the doctors can change them so they work with the individual body chemistry better.
They do not have to watch their family fall apart if everyone involved knows where all the emotions are coming from and what they can do about them. If they have the tools to readjust their thinking, they will know what a good response is and what a bad one is. In other words, they can either make the situation worse or better and help the veteran heal. They can only do this with knowledge as the tool for their survival.
They can laugh again. They can find the part of themselves where joy still lives on trapped behind the wall their body built to defend against more pain.
They can reclaim their faith. Once they understand what PTSD is, answer the age old question of "why me" when others walked away, then they understand themselves better. They can stop blaming themselves. They can stop thinking God is punishing them or abandoned them. Above all they can stop thinking God is evil because He allowed what they saw.
There is so much that is possible with PTSD and they can come out on the other side better than they were before while they can never come out the same way they were before. Every event in a human's life goes into what they become and each one of us adjust to events that shape our lives.
So here's another video. Veterans Everyday just to honor them for all they live with long after we stopped praying for them and felt we no longer had to worry about them.
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 12, 2009
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