Envinco Certamen Trauma

Envinco Certamen Trauma
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2014

Life leaves no one unchanged. Every event in our lives changes us. Sometimes the change is good. Sometimes it is asking a question, "Will you marry me?" that changes two lives from that moment on. A response of "yes" brings major changes beginning with announcing it to family and friends, planning a wedding, deciding where they will live, blending two families and on and on, lives change. A response of "no" will leave someone broken hearted and another may regret the decision later on but that moment stays with both people for the rest of their lives.

Major events tend to do that for better or worse. A moment out of a lifetime changes what comes next. When the events are connected to combat, there is not one person unchanged.

The only difference is how strong your emotional connection is. The stronger you are able to feel, the more it becomes a part of you. Healing works the same way. Just because something happened and changed you that does not mean you cannot change again.

In combat you had others with you, weapons you were trained to fight with to protect yourself and the others you were with. You had a mission to complete and once completed you were able to rest.

After combat, when you and your friends are out of danger, that is when most of what happened to you and them hits you. During combat you refused to allow the emotional pain to take over because you were worried about members of your unit. Out of danger, with no one else to worry about but yourself, the pain gained strength. The military did not give you weapons to fight it and you may have felt that you had to do it on your own. You may have thought that there was something wrong with you, some defect inside of you that caused the pain you felt. That is just because no one explained to you that it had more to do with the strength of your emotions than any sort of weakness.

Defeating Combat PTSD is not as difficult as you may think it is. It requires the strength you already have inside of you. It also requires viewing PTSD in a different way.

Meaning of PTSD

P=Post (behind :posterior : following after)
T=Traumatic (a very difficult or unpleasant experience that causes someone to have mental or emotional problems usually for a long time)
S=Stress (a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.)
D=Disorder (a disturbance in physical or mental health or functions; malady or dysfunction)

Now that you understand what it really is you are more able to understand that you can in fact change again.

Envinco (conquer) Certamen (Combat) Trauma (Greek-Latin: wound, wounded; bodily injury)

There is no cure for PTSD and that is a fact but then again, there is no cure for any part of any human's life. Change becomes a part of who we are. It all depends on what we do with what was done during our lives. Do we give up on love because it did not work out with one person? Do we turn away from caring about everyone because we were hurt by someone? No! We take that pain and move on with hope. It all comes with you but when hope is stronger than unpleasantness, you are not stuck suffering.

You are not stuck suffering even when you have PTSD. There are parts of PTSD that will be with you forever but you can find ways of coping with what remains.

What is hate? In combat if you hated the enemy, you were not hating a person. You hated what they did. They were trying to kill you and your friends. Yet understand it was not personal. You did not know them and they did not know you. Had the enemy dropped their weapons, fighting would have ended in that moment. You and your friends would be out of danger. But what about the adrenaline? That thing inside you that pushed you to keep going ends up getting in the way of recovering from all of it.

Your body learned how to keep going and was fueled by adrenaline. You have to teach your body to calm down when there is no real danger, only a danger it perceives. You have to train your body to stop reacting and that only happens when you understand your body and your mind are connected.

Just as your mind is connected to the spiritual part of you, your body is connected by the central nervous system "controlling all parts of your body."

The spiritual part of you is connected to the rest of you and you need to sort out what was what and why it was. Start with the reason you wanted to serve in the military in the first place. Why did you want to join? Was there any evil intent in it? If so, what was it? Take that reason and then make peace with it. If someone else caused it, then forgive them. If it was just what you thought, then forgive yourself. If there was nothing evil in the decision, which is usually the case, then think about the intent. Was it to help others? Was it to protect? Then look at it for what it was no matter what the cause was. Make peace with that.

If you take care of everything that makes you "you" then you can defeat PTSD. You can actually come out on the other side better than you were before. Even for what pain remains, much like being loved, the sweet replaces the bitter. Once you understand, you take away the power it has over you. You conquer the combat wound and heal!