Trauma 'Tis the last feather that breaks the horse's back.’

Trauma 'Tis the last feather that breaks the horse's back.’ by Chaplian Kathie Ever hear the expression "the straw the broke the camel's back" and knew right away what it meant?

The idiom the straw that broke the camel's back is from an Arabic proverb about how a camel is loaded beyond its capacity to move or stand.

This is a reference to any process by which cataclysmic failure (a broken back) is achieved by a seemingly inconsequential addition (a single straw).

This also gives rise to the phrase "the last/final straw", used when something is deemed to be the last in a line of unacceptable occurrences. Variations of this idiom include "the straw that broke the donkey's back", "melon that broke the monkey's back" and "feather" that broke the camel's back.

One of the earliest published usages of this phrase was in Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son where he says "As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back", meaning that there is a limit to everyone's endurance, or everyone has his breaking point. Dickens was writing in the nineteenth century and he may have received his inspiration from an earlier proverb, recorded by Thomas Fuller in his Gnomologia as 'Tis the last feather that breaks the horse's back.’

Well that is pretty much what PTSD is. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the one too many traumatic events a person is exposed to. No one knows ahead of time when it will happen. It could be the first time that begins the assault as much as it could be the tenth time or the hundredth time. The point is, reaching the end of their ability to endure anything more comes.

I was just listening to Viewpoints/Radio Health Journal this morning when they did a report on first responders and PTSD. Hero Talk is a program designed for first responders but also deals with veterans. It seems as if they have taken "resiliency training" to a whole new level.

The military has been using a similar approach, which I am totally against, because they never stopped to think about what they said being heard differently in a soldier's head. The words telling them they can become "mentally tough" translates into "If I end up with PTSD, I am weak and didn't train right." They blame themselves but beyond that, other soldiers heard the same words and will believe their comrade is weaker than they are. It is always too late for them to understand when it happens to them and they regret judging their friend for "breaking" first especially when that friend ended their own life.

The program offered by the military did not take into consideration the other training they were already delivering in bootcamp. They train soldiers to follow orders and not think for themselves.

I interviewed an Iraq veteran wounded in service, clearly dealing with a lot from his experiences. He made a comment that he wasn't married because if the Army wanted him married they would have issued him a wife. He was joking but it said a lot about how well they are trained.

Then there several encounters I've had with Marines feeling the need to apologize to me for "not training right" and believing the PTSD inside of them was their fault.

Police and firefighters have been taking some of this type of training but the difference is, they are supported and responded to every step of the way. They are not left alone after responding to a crisis until someone gets around to talking to them and see how they are doing. They don't have to wait for over a year to get help when they need it.

In 2008 I trained as a Chaplain specializing in Crisis Intervention and kept training in different programs until 2010 for one simple reason. I wanted to learn all I could about what civilians were doing taking care of responders as well as survivor citizens.

There is someone to talk to every step of the way. From after the event, to the next day, the next week, the next month and forever, there is someone there to talk to. No one is standing in judgment of them because they have all been treated as "human" first and responder second. They have been given the gift of understanding what comes after is a normal reaction to abnormal events with each person experiencing healing from it in different ways at different levels.

The soldiers are not so blessed and there is usually no one to talk to especially when they have all heard the words about becoming "mentally tough" enough to take it.

The civilian world has accepted the fact that there is the one too many times and made it possible to have a nonjudgmental approach. The "Battlemind" type of training has some good points but the problem is it begins all wrong by delivering a condemning message at the start. Then whey you consider the fact they have a hard time getting treatment from the DOD and the VA, well you get the idea, they begin to really believe PTSD is their fault and they are suffering for just not being tough enough.