Can your soul feel its worth after PTSD?

Can your soul feel its worth after PTSD?
by
Chaplain Kathie
PTSD strikes after trauma. That is the only way a person's life changes eventually changing the whole family. It is a wound to the soul, the home of our character, where all emotions begin. It is from our soul we feel and not our hearts no matter how many poets tied emotions to the heart.

From Mouse to Man
What the latest basic science research is telling us about the human mind
by Philip Newton
The anatomy of posttraumatic stress disorder

What parts of the brain are involved in posttraumatic stress disorder? A recent study of Vietnam veterans used a novel and clever strategy to produce some unexpected results.

Recent developments in brain imaging have allowed scientists to study the brains of patients afflicted with a variety of disorders. Identifying the parts of the brain that are involved in those disorders is key to understanding how the disorders arise and are maintained.

Brain imaging studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have identified a few key brain regions whose function appears to be altered in PTSD, most notably the amygdala, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the hippocampus.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped region ("amygdala" is greek for almond) that is key to the normal expression of emotions, especially fear. Brain imaging studies see high activity in the amygdala when subjects experience anxiety, stress or phobias.

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The anatomy of posttraumatic stress disorder

While believing the brain of a mouse can be compared to the brain of a man or woman seems wrong, at least this study showed the area of the brain where emotions live. The study also seems to prove what people have said all along regarding PTSD, that it is a deep wound. It is so deep it changes people. What adds to the cutting of the soul is feeling abandoned or judged by God as well as others.

People walk away from traumatic events one of two ways. God saved them or God did it to them. They have to live with the memories at the same time they are struggling with why they were there, "why me" questions that can never really be answered, how could God allow it and how can they get over it the same way others seem to have been able to. As they try to fight off the changes in the way they think and react, they end up fighting the people in their lives because no one really understands what is the cause of the changes.

When we live our lives with a belief system, this chain is broken after traumatic events. We can either feel so blessed by God nothing can hurt us or end up wondering what a lifetime of believing was all about when we are left suffering, feeling abandoned by or judged by God. We take on the guilt thinking if God condemned us, no one should love us. We push others away feeling unworthy at the same time we push them away trying to prevent further pain.

When we're talking about men and women in the military, this human reaction is complicated even more by the facts of multiple traumatic events resulting from the intent to serve others. A noble calling followed by visions from hell.

Up until Vietnam, some enlisted but others were drafted. They were placed into combat unwillingly, perhaps into what God never intended them to do. When men and women enlist, they answer the calling from their soul and are equipped to defend themselves against horrific situations better than others, although not perfectly, especially when they were always compassionate people. The door to their soul is wide open and PTSD takes advantage of this striking the caring and avoiding the callous.

The same holds true today when men and women serve in the National Guards. They intend to help their communities recover from traumatic events such as natural disasters, but they usually do not enter not the Guards with the thought of having to kill someone in order to save lives. God did not call them into the military and did not equip them spiritually to be able to take lives any more than He enabled firefighters to enter into law enforcement where they encounter an whole different demographic and situations. Each one of us have different places to take and each one comes into the world with different gifts. It is up to us to use those gifts the way it was planned or do it all our way and hope for the best.

We are all human and only human. Each time something happens in our lives, it goes into forming how we think, feel, heal and grieve. It also goes into how we react for the rest of our lives.

There is a whole family now suffering because one of them could not heal his soul. "He had seen too much."

Military family comes to grips with soldier's suicide
By PAT KINNEY, pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com

WATERLOO - Brandon Shepherd served two tours of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. He saw some of the worst combat of the war and survived.

Until Memorial Day weekend. That's when Brandon Shepherd became a casualty of war.

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he took his own life. He was found hanging from a tree on Park Road near flag-decorated Fairview Cemetery. His Army boots were at the base of the tree.
Military family comes to grips with soldier suicide

By all accounts, he came from a military family. Do you really think no one in his family could be able to understand what was happening to him? Too often, we find it impossible to ask for help. We would rather have people think badly of us than to have them think we are failing. Just as many would rather be thought of as a drug addict or alcoholic, instead of having PTSD and self-medicating so they will feel nothing.

Think of your own lives and how difficult it is to ask family and friends for help, emotionally or financially or spiritually. When someone in our family dies, it is obvious we need them around us to grieve with us but when a part of ourselves dies, we don't want anyone to know. We just try to hide it, hide the pain, do anything other than allow anyone to "feel sorry for us" for what we are no longer able to be and for what we wish they could still see within us.

Families see changes but they don't know what it is, what they can do to help and things keep getting worse. We lose the ability to see the worth of our own soul.

When veterans are carrying PTSD in their soul, they forget they are still a good person because other than the pain they feel, the only safe emotion to let out is anger. Anything else can hurt too much to show. A compassionate person will stop acting as if they care about anyone other than themselves. The truth is, they lost the ability to care enough about themselves because they no longer know "who they are" inside their own skin. Nothing makes sense anymore. Not the belief system they had, not the fact their family and friends loved them, not the capacity of their mind to think things thru or the courage of their spirit to do what they did, when they did it and with all they had within them to accomplish it.

They are lost within their own bodies, strangers within their own homes and enemy to their own heart.

All of this goes on until one day, someone says the right thing, the right set of circumstances leads them or enough support comes, when they are finally willing to ask for help. When this day comes, they release the burden they have been carrying alone. They swallow their pride and reach out their hand. Their families once more see them with clear eyes and they know there is pain there and not the anger they had been showing.

The soul feels its worth.

O Holy Night


O Holy Night

O holy night,
The stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of
Our dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world
In sin and error pining,
Till He appeared
And the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope,
The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees,
O hear the angel voices!
O night divine,
O night when Christ was born!
O night divine, O night,
O night divine!

Led by the light of Faith
Serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts
By His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star
Sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men
From Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus
In lowly manger,
In all our trials
Born to be our Friend!
He knows our need,
To our weakness no stranger;
Behold your King!
Before the lowly bend!
Behold your King! your King!
Before Him bend.

Truly He taught us
To love one another;
His law is love and
His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break
For the slave is our brother
And in His name
All oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in
Grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us
Praise His holy name!
Christ is the Lord,
Oh praise His name forever,
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim
His pow'r and glory
Evermore proclaim.

When we read about the life of Christ, the miracles He made happen, the hope restored, the lame walking, the hungry fed, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing, we tend to not see the changes in their souls as well. Each person Christ healed was not just changed according to their weakness, but their strength was changed as well.

Knowing the power of God's love for us, no matter how evil, no matter how guilty, no matter how unlovable we feel about ourselves, finding God loving us despite all of it gives us a sense that it is not so impossible to heal, to find worth within us, to love again, feel again, try again and even to feel joy again. There is nothing on this earth that is so bad we cannot be forgiven for and Christ proved that when He forgave the very people with His blood still on their hands after nailing Him to the cross.

Can your soul feel its worth after PTSD? Yes it can. Many want to be made whole after they begin to heal, to be the way they were before but this won't happen. No event in our lives allows us to be the way we were before. We are forever changed by it but in turn, healing has that same ability. Humans can come out on the other side of this darkness better, stronger, happier, kinder and better than they were before. The ability to heal is already within us but we need help finding it, getting it to work and support to arrive on the other side of this abyss.

"The weary heart rejoices" when the pain locked away is healed. When families begin to understand so they can help with the healing and friends are able to understand enough they stay by your side instead of feeling as if you've shoved them away.

"A new and glorious morning" comes when you find out that you are safe to feel love, hope and compassion again and be true to the soul within your body. When you know evil comes from evil and good comes from God. When you are able to see past the image frozen in your dreams and you can see it all from beginning to end knowing you survived for a reason even though friends were welcomed back home into the Kingdom of Heaven for another reason.

The pain you feel is not from weakness but from the strength of your soul and the ability you have to love others. Let your soul feel its worth and begin to heal from within.

Christmas is about love, the gift of love from God to the world and to you. It is about miracles that can happen and hope arriving when we need it if we reach for it and ask. Talk to your family and let them know what you've been trying to hide. Let them know you need help to find yourself again and that your soul is still in there behind the pain.