PTSD:S.O.S.

PTSD SOS
by
Chaplain Kathie

When it comes down to living with PTSD, the SOS should actually be, Save Our Souls, since PTSD is a wound to the soul of veterans. There is only one way to have PTSD and that is after surviving a traumatic event, but there are many different kinds of traumatic events. As such, there are many different levels of PTSD, depth of cuts depending on the numbers of traumatic events to heal, but the hardest to heal from is combat.

While combat is not the most common cause of PTSD that is only because there are less combat veterans in this country. That in now way should indicate this is not the most serious one to focus on.

We all know that PTSD can strike anyone after a natural disaster. That one is a bit easier to recover from but depending on how fast the survivors are helped to return to "normal" living conditions, that is a predictor of how much they will be affected by the event itself. Once man is involved, there can be more "salt poured into the wound" adding to the aftermath. We know crime victims can end up with PTSD, as well as survivors of car accidents and fires. We also know that when they happen to a person more than once, it is harder and harder to recover from.

Then we have those who put themselves in between the harm and the helpless. Firefighters, EMT's, police officers, National Guards, all willing to put themselves in danger for the sake of someone else, exposing themselves to traumatic events over and over again. The same holds true for active military members. For them, it is not just one time out of their lives they face death or the fear of it, it is time after time.

Returning home from combat, they bring with them all the events as well as the time in between the events when they had the constant fear hanging over them.

With the practice of redeploying the forces continuing, there is no time for them to just breathe. They know they will have to go back instead of working on recovering, settling back into the "normal" world they left for a time. This is why redeployments increase the risk of PTSD.


It is also something that history has proven will be with us for decades. Vietnam veterans are still going to the VA for the first time even though they knew they needed help. They were just unaware of what they needed help for and what kind of help was available.

Vietnam Veteran talks about life with PTSD
By Rachel Welte
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- It is hard for civilians to imagine what a soldier goes through when at war, and it is even harder to imagine what they feel after returning home.

Experts say many combat veterans will suffer from some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in their lifetimes and added the key to dealing with and overcoming PTSD is talking with people who understand.

"When I returned I realized things were different, although I could not put my finger on it," Vietnam veteran Donald Griggs said.

Griggs spent one year in Vietnam, from 1966 to 1967. He said after returning home he sought help from the Army for his PTSD, but was told to just shake it off -- so Griggs said he turned to alcohol.

"That went on for around nine solid years, everyday, and then someone said to me, 'You are going to kill yourself,' so I decided to just stop drinking," Griggs said.

But his PTSD got worse. In fact, he said he spent 43 years alon dealing with his symptoms.

Then, two years ago, he decided to open up to his wife, and with her help, he went to a Veterans Administration (VA) clinic in Denver for PTSD.

That is when the Faith Community Education Collaborative began, an initiative among faith-based communities to help soldiers suffering from PTSD.

"We are trying to teach faith leaders, or members of the church, to be open, and once the veteran comes to them they can then direct the veteran to help in the community," Griggs said.

The faith leaders are not expected to be medical professionals, but rather tools to lead veterans and their families in the right direction.

read more here
http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=403936

Keep in mind that for most Vietnam veterans, it was one deployment and they didn't have to worry about going back for more exposures. Today, they don't have that sense of hope with the prospect of being deployed, even with PTSD already harming them, they know within a year or so, they will be training for another deployment.

We have female soldiers exposed to the same dangers because there are no "safe" zones where they can remain out of harms way. They know they better be able to use their weapons with deadly aim. They know an IED or RPG can take them out as easily as any male soldier they are with, no matter what MOS they were assigned. They also have the additional threat of physical attacks from within their own units.

When people are aware of what PTSD is, they acknowledge that it is a wound to their souls, all that they always knew is no longer carved in stone. All they believed in becomes a mountain of questions. All they felt is just one more open door to pain they do not want to carry and they freeze out all emotions except one, anger. Anger is safe. Anger is tough. Anger kept them alive. Anger keeps people from getting too close.

Just as important as it is to have a great psychiatrist to give the right medication in the right strength with the right combinations, therapy is vital with the right therapist. The key here is specially trained ones able to diagnose and treat PTSD properly. Without that extra education, without the awareness of the cause, it is easy to misdiagnose and impede healing.

The other, perhaps the most important area to treat, is the soul/spiritual factor. Without addressing this part of the human, all else takes longer, does not go far enough and misses the part of the mind needing the healing the most. Members of the clergy and especially military chaplains must be experts on PTSD in order to address it properly. There are many military chaplains with no training or understanding of PTSD at all. With all the advances in treating PTSD, it is beyond reason why this has not been taken seriously enough to have been training chaplains all along.

In the civilian world, chaplains are fully trained to respond to traumatic events for the responders as well as the survivors. Why hasn't the military done the same? How can there be only some and not all ready to respond? What good does it do to have them in combat areas ready to address what is in the Bible while they miss what else is in the Bible? It is filled with account after account dealing with what comes after combat for the ancient warriors. What good does it do to have them tell a soldier how much God or Christ loved them when they feel as if they have just been condemned by them because they do not understand what is happening inside of their own skin?

Clergy back home are just as important as the military chaplains. They do play an important role in the healing once the veterans are back in the civilian world. Families need just as much support and help to heal as the veteran because how they react either hurts or helps to heal the veteran. If members of the clergy are dismissing PTSD or ignoring it, they are not serving God because they are not healing the sick, allowing the veteran to sink into deeper depression, turn further way from God and taking the family down with them.

Not addressing the spiritual needs of the PTSD wounded is missing the origin of the wound itself. PTSD comes only after trauma, attacks the emotional part of the brain, the place where the soul lives. If the clergy, trained in dealing with the soul of man ignore this, they are ignoring the greatest mission of their ministries.

What good does it do to know God forgives if they will not hear about the things the soldiers feel they need forgiveness for? What good does it do to know that God created a warrior before He created man, the Archangel Michael, if they do not understand that Christ said the greatest act a man could do is to be willing to lay down his life for the sake of his friends? What good does it do to know the accounts of every person in the Bible if they do not speak of the failings each of the heroes of the Bible faced as well as their own failures or the fact that warfare has caused spiritual pain in every man in the Bible?

There is so much that can be accomplished if they become involved in helping these veterans heal far beyond the scientific if they get specific and address the spiritual as well as the psychological.

Suicides and attempted suicides increase as we fail to address their needs. Along with the numbers we read, there is also a family not being counted or helped. What does the avoidance of the clergy do to them? It pushes them away from God when they need God in their lives the most. Wouldn't it be serving God more if they helped heal instead? Wouldn't restoring faith in God add more to the flock for generations to come instead of pushing away generations because they would not help when they could?

We could very well decrease suicides, decrease divorce, homelessness, domestic violence and abuse simply by addressing the route PTSD takes to invade the lives of the veterans and their families.

Don't we owe them that much?