Churches aid soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder

This is how you treat PTSD. The spiritual aspect of a human has been ignored although it is the primary source of PTSD. It is a wound to the spirit. Post Traumatic actually means "after wound" since "trauma" is Greek for "wound" yet too many misunderstand what it is.

This is not something you can train for even though the DOD invests millions on training the troops to toughen their minds. As if they needed to be considering they are tough enough to endure anything to carry out their missions. They don't come tougher than that especially when you consider what we civilians whine about. The DOD will be very wise when they fully understand that PTSD is all about their souls.

When the spirit is healed, the veteran is healed. Not cured. There is no cure for it but then again there is no cure for any part of a life. It all goes into who we are at this exact moment in time. Our past comes with all of us. The difference comes when we are haunted by parts of it or make peace with it.

Forgive. Forgiving others for what they do is just as important as forgiving ourselves but too often that is the hardest thing to do. When combat veterans come home, they want to pick up their lives where they left off. The problem is, the "old them" didn't come home. They are a newer version filled with every event of the lives they had while deployed piled on top of the lives they had before.

Churches aid soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder
Spiritual care can augment medical care, counseling
Jul. 17, 2011

Written by
Bob Smietana I The Tennessean

They come in looking tense, ready to bolt.

Some are filled with guilt and grief, wondering if God will forgive them for killing the enemy. Others know their marriages are on thin ice and don’t know what to do.

Sometimes, the Reboot Recovery meeting at Fort Campbell is their last option for help.

Then slowly, over homemade meals, they begin to talk about the problem that no soldier wants to admit: post-traumatic stress disorder.

Reboot is part of a movement among churches and religious groups to help veterans recover from PTSD. The movement’s leaders say veterans need medical care and professional counseling to recover, but spiritual care should be part of the equation.

Ashley Brannom, who runs a support group for veterans’ wives at First United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, said even soldiers who aren’t diagnosed with PTSD can have difficulty talking about their combat experience.

“I don’t know anyone who can go through a combat experience unchanged,” she said.

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Churches aid soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder

The help they need are given in terms of medication numbs them but does not heal them. They need mental health therapy as well as spiritual therapy to heal and make peace with where they've been.

The Agony and the Ecstasy, much like the movie, is getting through the pain inside of them to arrive at a place where they are free to savor what what was good. They cannot get there without making peace with what was bad and what they had to do.