Making peace for a peace keeper

by
Chaplain Kathie

After going through something horrific and life threatening, there is a process the mind automatically begins. Every aspect of that event is stored as the mind tries to find a peaceful conclusion with inclusion of the memory itself. We get in the way of this happening instead of breathing and letting our mind function the way it was intended to do. We question everything. Our motives, our reason for being there, for doing what we did or not doing what we could not bring ourselves to do. We question if we were just rescued by God or it was brought to us because we have angered God in someway and He did it to us. It all depends on how much we know about our own minds, body and spirit, how it all works together and how we can help ourselves heal.

For the men and women in the military they have other things on their minds, like staying alive today as they try to make sense out of what happened yesterday. For them, it is not just one shocking event followed by a return to their normal lives. It is a series of events piled onto others with no time to heal. They know their lives are on the line for the entire time of their deployment into combat zones. For some they will bring back an infection going after every part of their lives in the form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is much like an infection because it keeps getting worse if left untreated. It eats away more and more of the life they had replacing it all with unknown reactions. Like a stranger inside their skin, they are unfamiliar with the way they will react or treat other people. The changes inside of them create yet another shock.

They return back home facing the healing of many traumatic events as well as having to re-establish normal life with normal food, normal shelter, normal beds to sleep in, normal simple life with showers, TV shows, shopping, friends and family. This return to "normal" life is anything but normal for them. They are changed by their experiences. They want to just go back to the way they were before, but this is not possible no matter how hard they wish for it and try to make it happen, the events in their lives have changed them.

The sleeping in their own beds they longed for cannot provide the same rest they had before as nightmares take them back to where their lives were in danger, where they saw something they wish they had never seen, where they did something they wish they didn't have to do and to where it was all just one time too many. The food they couldn't wait to eat again can suddenly turn foul in their mouths as the taste reminds them of an unpleasant experience. Simple TV shows they used to enjoy can snap them back in time. Shopping can remind them of a crowd they were in when chaos struck. Driving down the road can remind them of a bomb blowing up in front of them or under them. It can all come back with living simple "normal" lives.

There are still some people pretending PTSD is not real, that it does not change a person's life, as others want to blame the wounded for it happening to them as if they are defective in some way. They want to dismiss the fact that PTSD comes only after trauma, in other words, from an outside force, and does not come from within. If they were responsible for it, then it would not take a traumatic event to happen for it to strike. It would have been mental illness already there and not brought on suddenly. It would have been any number of them with some of the same symptoms found in PTSD but not caused by trauma. The only way for PTSD to hit is after trauma and that is why it is called Post Traumatic instead of something else.

The good news is that science has been able to show the changes in the brain after trauma, which prove the reality of PTSD.

Brain scans pinpoint stress disorder in war veterans
Study shows that certain brain signals can indicate stress disorder
By MAURA LERNER, Star Tribune
Last update: January 20, 2010 - 12:57 AM
There's never been a simple test to diagnose post-traumatic stress, but a group of Minnesota scientists say they've found a high-tech way to identify people who have the disorder -- by studying their brain signals.
The discovery could have huge implications for the way PTSD is diagnosed and treated in the future, says Dr. Apostolos Georgopoulos, who led the research as director of the Brain Sciences Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center.
PTSD is thought to afflict tens of thousands of combat veterans, but it can be hard to diagnose. It's a collection of psychological symptoms that can, in some cases, be caused by other conditions, such as head injuries or depression.

Brain scans pinpoint stress disorder in war veterans

Veterans and family members have seen these changes in the lives of the veterans as they are challenged to heal and the reality of PTSD is all too well known, but for the sake of the deniers, scientific proof may get them to once and for all get out of the medieval response akin to bloodletting and believing that illness is a curse from God.

When an event is trapped, often it is the result of many other events behind it. Veterans may focus on this one event coming back to haunt them but it very well could be the "one that broke the camels back" instead of the one that opened the door. We have to remember combat produces event after event after event. Each one will build on the other, adding more fuel for PTSD to thrive.

Usually it is best to let the veteran talk as we listen very carefully to what they are not saying.

"Just like when" is a clue there is something that happened before not addressed. This usually means a time when they thought they had forgotten about but very well could be the event that set off the changes in them.

They will talk about the nightmares, usually involving the same incident, but if there are more listen until they are done recounting them. There may be a key in the last one they talk about.

While it would be easier to address the beginning of their deployments, this does not work simply because the event haunting them most of the time could have been during the end of their deployment and this is the one they are focused on. We cannot dismiss it or trivialize it. When civilians survive a traumatic event, that is the one we know we have to get them to recover from but with combat, just as with police and firefighters, it is not just one time. All of the other events feed into the one they focus on.

When you hear them walk them through the entire event. Most of the time they are not seeing what happened before because the memory snap shot is usually on the outcome and not the other factors leading to it. Get them to see the whole movie instead of just the ending. They are missing a lot in between.

Walking them through it will remind them of what happened before, what they were thinking, what they were feeling and what they were worried about. An example is the bombs in the road in Iraq and Afghanistan that blow up and this is in their minds every time they drive over there carried with them back on city streets and country roads in their community. While they didn't need to be near any of these bombs blowing up, the chances are they knew someone blown up or at the very least had a strong reaction to the reporting of them. This sticks in their mind because they know it could have happened to them with no warning at all.

There is a big difference between the known, as with a firefight, and the unknown, as with a roadside bomb or suicide bomber. With a firefight, they are mentally and physically preparing for all of it within seconds as all parts of them are fully engaged. With the unknown, parts of them are working independently with some of their senses on high alert subconsciously as they talk to their buddies or listen to music. This unknown factor follows them home just as much as it stays with them while they are deployed.

A soldier can remember the fact he had to take out a car approaching a convoy too fast. He will remember the people in the car he killed but will not remember what happened before he did whatever it took to stop the car. He will not independently think of the fact the practice of blowing away convoys with vehicles was common and he had no idea if this was yet another attempt. He will not think of what he did to try to stop the vehicle from getting too close or anything else he tried to do to prevent the outcome. He has only been focused on the result of seeing dead civilians because of what he did instead of the rest of the event itself.

For a female soldier, deployed with no safe zones, they face the same dangers but for them there is the other factor of sexual attacks and abuse from their own people. While most male soldiers have arrived to the point where they respect their "sisters" having to fight as well, others still see them as objects. There have been reports of women stopping fluid intake at noon to avoid having to use the latrine in the middle of the night out of fear of being attacked by another soldier. They would rather be dehydrated in the heat of the day than have to worry about opening themselves up to being attacked. The other problem for them is that some males will feel strongly they are more of a problem and should not be there. Their attitude comes out with what they say within earshot of the female soldier and it penetrates to their core.

There is still no cure for PTSD but there are keys to helping them heal. If practitioners think of their own human emotions and how they would react, they will get a lot further in helping the veteran heal.

The practice of medicating the veterans of combat is dangerous because the core of the wound is not treated, which are the human/emotional reactions to what they went through. Medication will change only the chemicals in the brain but not the way they remember. Medications calming the nerves will have to be increased as PTSD tries to regain control. Medications to sleep will end up having to be increased because PTSD is allowed to grow stronger. Without addressing the cause of the wound, it will fester like an untreated infection. All parts of "them" need to be treated at the same time. The mind, with medications, the body with re-learning how to relax the muscles and nerves and the soul with learning how to trust themselves and others again.

The best people to treat combat veterans are other veterans or at least, survivors of trauma. It has to be from a true understanding of how humans react to all of it. Reading about it in books and talking to a few veterans will not do much good if there is no personal experience behind it.

When veterans finally find what begins their "journey" home, they stumble and fall as their families encounter enlistment into the result of combat, unprepared and without understanding. Families must be included in healing the veteran. Depending on how they adjust how they react to them they can either aid the healing or hinder it. If they understand where it is all coming from, they are more able to react instead of over-react the wrong way. Waking up a veteran while in a nightmare the wrong way has resulted in a spouse being attacked for doing it simply because they do not understand that while the veteran may be sleeping right there, their mind is in a danger zone back in combat. They will lash out against the enemy only to find their wife is holding her nose or her eye without a clue about what they just did to her.

What families understand can also help them heal from living with a PTSD veteran. They will understand it is not their fault any more than it is the fault of the veteran. They will stop trying to find blame instead of gaining a deeper understanding.

Veterans can make peace with what they had to do. They can heal this wound with the proper help and the right tools to get the job done but as long as the military misunderstands what PTSD is, they will not be able to provide them with the help needed. They can try to avoid addressing the compassion in the soldiers but it is their compassion that opened the door to PTSD just as much as it was strong enough to feed their courage. It should be acknowledged and respected. As soon as it is, they will be able to treat and retain a trained soldier with courage and compassion still motivating them to serve where they are needed and ready to do whatever it takes to get it done. Medicating them allows only anger to come out as everything else is turned inward. PTSD gains more territory and they lose a fully engaged soldier ready for the next battle.

Everyone that comes into the life of a PTSD veteran can either contribute to the healing or harming. What we understand about them and about trauma determines what they will see within themselves and the keys to healing are all there. They just need help finding the keys to unlock it.

What I Did For Love
Kiss today goodbye,
The sweetness and the sorrow.
Wish me luck, the same to you,
But I can't regret
What I did for love, what I did for love.

Look, my eyes are dry.
The gift was ours to borrow.
It's as if we always knew,
And I won't forget what I did for love,
What I did for love.

Gone,
Love is never gone.
As we travel on,
Love's what we'll remember.

Kiss today goodbye,
And point me t'ward tomorrow.
We did what we had to do.
Won't forget, can't regret
What I did for love.