Reconnect to the healer within yourself

Reconnect to the healer within yourself
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
October 14, 2012

Transcendental Meditation in the Treatment of Post-Vietnam Adjustment began a long time ago and it worked for a lot of veterans, but not all of them.

Just like now, you need to remember there is no "one size fits all" in healing. One medication may work for one of you friends but be a disaster for you. One of your friends may do great in group therapy, but you do better talking to one person. One physical treatment may work great for you, like meditation, but your friend does better just taking a long walk.

This article is about a WWII veteran healing with Transcendental Meditation.

Veteran shares story in hopes of helping others deal with impact of war
“It’s a 5,000-year-old traditional warrior’s way of learning to cope with stress.”

Yellin says he suffered from “shell shock” for three decades after the end of World War Two, but it wasn’t something that was considered “manly” to discuss. Today, the condition is known as PTSD.

The point to all of this is what you need to heal is already inside of yourself. You just need help to reconnect to it.

When you come home from combat, finally allowing yourself to feel the pain that had been there all along, you push people away for a lot of reasons but it happens when you should be trying to reconnect to them.

Why? Because you don't recognize yourself anymore. You believe the person you were before, died in combat and a stranger has taken over. You don't think the way you used to. Feel the same way you did. Love the people in your life the same way. Enjoy the things you used to. But the hardest part of all is knowing the man/woman you were before war is buried someone in the body you see in the mirror.

Life changes everyone if we face that fact, we're a lot closer to understanding what trauma does, especially combat trauma.

The person you were is still in there but a lot of pain is hiding "him" from you and everyone else.

Survivor's guilt is a big factor.

In this study, PTSD among Vietnam combat veterans emerged as a psychiatric disorder with considerable risk for suicide, and intensive combat-related guilt was found to be the most significant explanatory factor. These findings point to the need for greater clinical attention to the role of guilt in the evaluation and treatment of suicidal veterans with PTSD.

The title of this report is "Suicide and guilt as manifestations of PTSD in Vietnam combat veterans" but it is not a new study. It is from 1991.

Why someone died but someone else survived is a question that has hit every combat veteran after a friend died or had their limbs blown off. "Why wasn't it me?" That question comes all the time and without discovering there is no real reason, it fuels guilt. We all know guilt works because our parents used it on us on a daily basis.

Guilt is powerful but as we emotionally mature, we are able to get past it for the most part. There is always this tiny voice inside of you reminding you of all the times your Mom pointed her finger at you because you screwed up.

What helps us move past it is the rest of what we've been able to do in our lives. The success we've had. The joys we've not only shared but caused other people to feel. The times we helped someone else and actually acknowledged what it meant to them. The fact we learned to "do" and did pretty good. Driving a car, learning a new skill, even being able to succeed with a computer game, all took time to learn but we focus on the "win" not what it took to get there.

That is all part of being human. Combat complicates it. While civilians, basically anyone, can end up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a traumatic event from one time in their lives, combat veterans get a different type. That is because it is not one event, over and done, but followed by not just many more, it is also the constant threat of many more from one second to the next.

The military solution is to give medications. Medications block pain and numbs. They do not heal. Meditation opens everything up and allows connections to be restored. It helps the veteran learn how to calm down again so they can gain strength without constantly being drained. If meditation does not accomplish this, then something else can.

Prayer helps accomplish this as well. You don't have to belong to one religious group or another. You gain strength from reconnecting to that part of "you" that is not biological, but spiritual.

For believers in Christ, this is powerful when it is provided in the right way but military Chaplains have to acknowledge why so many people walk away from "church" and avoid trying to get their buttocks back in the pew. People leave church for a reason and they also avoid it for many more reasons. Telling them they are going to hell if they do not accept Christ the "right" way is not helpful. Their job is help them reconnect to the spirit inside of them.

Everything they need to heal is there inside of them. They just need help finding it again.