DOD message has been PTSD is your fault

DOD message has been PTSD is your fault 
by Chaplain Kathie

The Department of Defense has been unknowingly delivering a message to the troops that PTSD is their fault while expecting a different result. Why? Because they still don't understand what causes PTSD in the first place or the best way to heal it.

This is one of those moments I am grateful I am not a "military Chaplain" instead of a Chaplain working with veterans. I don't have to worry about being divided between holding the DOD line and taking care of the men and women serving in it.

Their attitude has been that servicemen and women can "train" brains to prevent it. They point to soldiers that have come through the training and have been able to prevent PTSD. Did it ever once occur to them these men and women wouldn't have ended up with PTSD in the first place? 

The rate is normally one out of three. That means two will walk away from a traumatic event with just memories and not much more than that. One will walk away with it embedded in their soul changing how they think and feel about everything.

When they tell this group they can become mentally tough before combat it delivers a message to them they are weak and didn't train their brains right if they end up with PTSD after combat.

The reluctance to seek help stems from this. Do they think that a tough Marine will admit they have PTSD when they were told weak minds end up PTSD? Do they think they will seek help when they've seen what it did to the careers of others? If the "two out of three" also believe the notion the others were just too weak, do you think for a second they will treat the PTSD soldier the same way afterwards?

When the report came out about another 125 million Comprehensive Soldier Fitness no one in congress has bothered to ask if it works or not. The reports coming out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord prove it doesn't work.

"At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, described by the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes last year as "the most troubled base in the military," all of these factors have crystallized into what some see as a community-wide crisis. A local veterans group calls it a "base on the brink."

It has been advertised as some kind of new program but is based on Battlemind nonsense that the troops can train their brains to prevent PTSD leaving them with the impression if they do end up with PTSD, they were weak and didn't train their brains right.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program aims to equip troops mentally Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum of Gulf War fame has been deployed to lead the military's new program to prepare soldiers for the psychic trauma of war and its aftermath.

"Aims to equip troops mentally" is something they've been trying to do since the Revolution. Bootcamp is supposed to be about training them to be ready for combat mentally as well as physically. The claim of "new program" is also false since it has been tried since 2008 under a bunch of different names so the public will have the impression the military is doing all they can to stop the suicides and suffering from PTSD. Brig. General Cornum earned bragging rights with the trauma she survived but that should not translate into running a program without showing results. She is not alone on this.

The notion of training the minds has been around since the reports of suicides going up began to make the news. The truth is, they cannot become more mentally tough. How much tougher can you get than to be willing to die for someone else, ready to endure all kinds of physical and mental hardships than they are when they enlist? The thing is, they can train their brains to heal from where they've been. The key word is "heal" because there isn't a cure anymore than anyone can "cure" their own past. We can learn from experiences, grow from them, become a better person, enjoy simple pleasures more, but we cannot change what happened. On the flip side, we can also be destroyed by the events, especially the ones we had no control over, become so filled with regret we hate everything and everyone, be brought down so low that we find no hope in a better day and nothing reaches our hearts. We can push people away, feel as if we don't deserve to be happy or forgiven and even regret feeling loved.

Here's some numbers for you now.

The military answer has been to medicate the ones they want to keep and kick out the ones they don't want. They send them back into combat medicated and expect them to be able to function? Therapy must be for only for veterans then since the VA does offer it along with medications. As for spiritual healing, you can forget that one too. Reports came out regarding the attitude of 60% of military Chaplains more about getting converts to their own denomination than it has been about saving lives and healing them. Suffering servicemen and women are told that if they do not convert, they'll go to hell.

 This is why the numbers are so high but the most infuriating part of all of this is that none of it had to happen. This all needs to stop but it won't until congress demands accountability and stops funding what has been one failure after another.

UPDATE

If you think this is "new" news, here are a couple of reports from 2008 and 2009 most people have forgotten about. These links are still active and they show what was known back then and how lessons learned did not cause changes needed.

February 11, 2009 3:05 PM

The Military's Showdown Over PTSD
By Kimberly Dozier

(CBS) Twenty-two year old combat medic Jonathan Norrell volunteered for every mission during his year in Iraq.

He was bombed, ambushed, treating wounded under fire - and the memories still haunt him, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports.

"The things that affected me the most weren't the IEDs, which I went through six or seven of, and all the firefights, and all the combat," Norrell said. "It was the psychological stuff, the people I failed to help."

By the time he came off his tour of duty he was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: anxiety, sleeplessness, flashbacks. Military doctors recommended immediate discharge and treatment but the command refused.

Instead they forced him into combat training exercises. He turned to drugs and alcohol.

"I just lost it," Norrell said. "I didn't wanna do it anymore."

So the Army he served so well in Iraq threatened to expel him without medical benefits.

Norrell's case reveals the showdown inside the military, between the new school and old school view on how to handle PTSD - one of the signature injuries of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

And experts warn there's a storm coming: a generation of soldiers coming home with PTSD.
read more here

Antidepressant Use Soars Among Deployed

Stars and Stripes
June 12, 2008
For the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report in Time Magazine.
In its June 16 cover story, the magazine reports that the medicines are intended not only to help troops keep their cool but also to enable the already strapped Army to preserve its most precious resource: soldiers on the front lines.

Citing the Army’s fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report, using an anonymous survey of U.S. troops taken last fall, Time wrote that about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.

Escalating violence in Afghanistan and the more isolated mission have driven troops to rely more on medication there than in Iraq, military officials told Time.

The Army estimates that authorized drug use splits roughly fifty-fifty between troops taking antidepressants -- largely the class of drugs that includes Prozac and Zoloft -- and those taking prescription sleeping pills such as Ambien, Time wrote.

UPDATE
Editorial Board wrong on Joint Bast Lewis-McChord was an attempt to defend what the military has been doing but as the above points out, the results show a different story.

What infuriates me the most is that reporters have a responsibility to report facts, not just what they are told at the moment. That is exactly what has been happening leaving the impression the military has been "learning" on the job instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

When you read the link to my response here are some more facts you may find interesting.

Suicide Prevention
Suicide and Public Policy
• 1997-U.S. Congress -S.Res 84 and H.Res 212
• 1999-Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent Suicide
• 2001-National Strategy for Suicide Prevention
• 2002-Institute of Medicine Report-Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative
• 2003-President’s New Freedom Commission
• 2004-Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act
• 2005-Federal Action Agenda
• 2006-Establishment of Federal Working Group on Suicide Prevention
• 2007-Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act

Outcomes of Hotline Referral
1,771 Admissions
143 Enrolled
5,902 Referrals to other services
506 Immediate evaluations

This all happened well after the "training" of their brains to become "mentally tough" enough.

Yet this was happening in 2010

Suicide Rivals The Battlefield In Toll On U.S. Military
by JAMIE TARABAY
June 17, 2010
Nearly as many American troops at home and abroad have committed suicide this year as have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Alarmed at the growing rate of soldiers taking their own lives, the Army has begun investigating its mental health and suicide prevention programs.

But the tougher challenge is changing a culture that is very much about "manning up" when things get difficult.

This is the first in an occasional series of stories on the problem of suicides in the military.


Stephen Colley, 22, killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq.
The Case Of Stephen Colley

Military veteran Edward Colley served in the Air Force and the Army. Three of his children also served in the military, and his son-in-law was awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq.

Colley, 53, and his wife, who live in Los Angeles, also have three other kids, but the tradition of military service is on hold. "Mom prohibits the younger ones from joining the military now," he says. "You might understand the prohibition in our house."

The mother's ban was imposed after their son Stephen killed himself in May 2007, six months after returning from a tour in Iraq. Stephen, 22, had suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and his young marriage was in trouble.
read more here

When you read anything, remember, it is based on what is known at the time but all too often, they never bother to look back to see what was known before it.