Awakening the sleeping tiger

Awakening the sleeping tiger
by
Chaplain Kathie

A conversation I had yesterday with an Army recruiter reminded me of a veteran I helped a few years ago. The recruiter apparently came back from Iraq with strong memories but said he didn't have nightmares or flashbacks. Before I walked away from him, I had to warn him of the sleeping tiger he could very well have inside of him. PTSD is not always obvious early on. Sometimes it digs in and rests.

The veteran reached out to me while working for another branch of the government. He's a Vietnam veteran. He thought he escaped Vietnam alone, got on with his life, had a family and a career. Like most people he had traumatic events occur in his life, but he was able to deal with them the way regular people do. He grieved. He saw the symptoms of depression after trauma ease up with time. Then one event happened strong enough to wake up the tiger and the tiger wanted to take over his life. His younger brother was killed in the Iraq war.

He emailed me wanting to know what the hell happened to him. He couldn't understand why all he went through in Vietnam so many years before was suddenly taking over his life. Flashbacks and nightmares were out of control. All the anger he felt in combat gained control over every other emotion he had and the good emotions were being frozen out. His family said they didn't know him anymore. What was worse is that he didn't know himself anymore.

Secondary PTSD comes after a traumatic event when the person has already been affected by other traumas. With very little issues surfacing, they see no need to seek help. Occasional nightmares or short flashbacks are not enough to bother their careers. They can maintain relationships, occasionally acting out but most of the time, they are able to keep themselves under control. They "deal with it" for years until the next strike at their soul.

The veteran was in shock because when he thought about every other event he had recovered from, the loss of his younger brother was just too much for him. When he understood that his brother meant more than anyone else to him, he understood how that loss could take over his own life. He was already wounded but this loss fed off the wounded soul inside of him. The tiger began to claw its way out.

The easiest way to explain what happened to the veteran is addressing an infection. When people get cut, they bleed, it hurts, then it stops bleeding, starts healing, often without leaving any scar. Yet other times the cut becomes infected. When we do not apply antibiotics, it does not allow healing, the infection spreads, digs deeper, the pain is stronger and when antibiotics are applied, they need to be stronger than if they were applied sooner, usually needing to be taken longer and there is a scar that cannot be healed left behind. PTSD is like an infection in the emotional part of the brain.

The human body will connect together to get rid of the infection, much like when PTSD begins, it does whatever it has to do to get rid of the invader. It does not always take over the entire life, but changes the life for the better or worse. The key is to know what can possibly happen so that it is not so much of a shock and they can address it early on.

Every veteran needs to know, in as simple of terms as possible, what PTSD is so that as life happens, they are aware of what can awaken this tiger inside of them. Secondary PTSD is like PTSD on steroids. The tiger has rested and was well fed by living lives until the wound has been reopened by strong emotional traumas.

Mild PTSD is recoverable with the help of therapy and medications. The infection has not spread so far that every aspect of the veteran's life has paid the price. The longer PTSD is allowed to claim more of the life, the harder it is to treat and recover from. The scar left behind is determined by time and events piled on.

The recruiter understood the warning I was giving him and I pray he understood it well enough to pay attention later in his life. The best piece of news I could give him was that it is never too late to heal. No one is hopeless with PTSD because no one is helpless. Even for those veterans from Vietnam unwilling to seek help or unable to, they can still heal to become strong enough to get the tiger back to sleep. They can do this with the support and love from family and friends. While peer support is not as good as therapy and medications, their lives can be made better with knowledgeable people caring about them instead of being unaware and fighting against them.

The veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have more available to them and knowledge has come sooner for them than the older veterans. This is their golden hour because we know the sooner treatment begins for PTSD, whatever program works best for them, the better the healing and the scar left behind is determined on how soon it begins. Life keeps happening no matter if they are ready of the events or not. Time taken now to heal, even with mild PTSD, is taking control over how the rest of their lives turn out.