PTSD veterans willing to live for the sake of others

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 2, 2014

Yesterday morning it hit me harder than any other time in the last 32 years. As I flipped the calendar page to August, my eyes were drawn to the 10th. That is the day I started Wounded Times 7 years ago. I wanted to cry.

I've been wondering why I still do this.

Thinking of retiring more and more as the years go by, but yesterday it was all I could think about while working for on my occupation. I came home depressed and called a friend hoping to find some answers as to why I am still doing this vocation.

He told me that it helps him. When he is feeling down about his own life, he reads about veterans across the country, then he doesn't feel so bad about his own troubles. He also finds hope reading amazing veterans and loving communities doing all they can to show they care. As he leaves the site, he knows as a Vietnam veteran he has not been forgotten. He said the lives I've saved and thinking I've changed matter.

Over the years I've had other sites. I was running Screaming In An Empty Room on August 10, 2007 when I received an email from a Marine serving in Iraq. He wrote that while he loved to read what I had on PTSD, he hated reading my "political crap." Being a hot headed Bostonian topped off with being a passionate Greek, I wrote back a lengthy email defending my right to write whatever I wanted to because it was all true and I was doing it for them. Them? Well the Marine, being a quick thinker, responded with one question. "Are you doing this for us or yourself?"

After I stopped crying and my eyes clear up enough to see the computer screen, I apologized for falling into the same trap I always complained about. He was right. I was not thinking about them as much as I was trying to prove a point. I also made him a promise that from that day on, I would start this site and stop being political. I promised the only time he would read anything about politicians was when they did something for veterans, or sadly, to them. I kept my word. I hope he is proud of what he started.

This is what I was tugged to do the day I met my husband back in 1982. It is not just what I do. It is a part of who I am. Can I go back to being a detached civilian showing up for a paycheck and doing nothing else with my life? After posting everyday for the last 7 years on the 10th it will be 2,555 days. This is post number 22,389. That is dedication but when you consider it is about as natural to breathing, it would be harder to walk away than to keep doing what comes naturally.

I have cried more times than I can remember. My heart has felt as if it was being suffocated by barbed wire. I posted when family members died. When I lost my job. When my husband was in the hospital and when I was sick. I posted during times of joy, days to celebrate life and during times of having my faith restored in humanity. It is in me as much as wrinkles on my face and gray strands of hair on my head.

Not being able to do what I have sacrificed so much for would be like a part of me being put to death.

I shared that with you hoping that you'd think about one more part of PTSD differently. It is what servicemembers have to give up when they can no longer serve in the military.

Some enlisted because they couldn't find a job. Some joined for the benefits. Most joined because they never thought of doing anything else. No one walks away from combat the same way they were before their boots hit the ground. Reputable estimates dating back decades put the rate of combat PTSD at 1 out of 3. While servicemembers with PTSD all suffer, it is a deeper pain for those born to do it.

I was reading a story out of Australia about Sergeant Alcatara is about to be medically discharged from the ADF due to his condition. The condition is PTSD.

"Unfortunately, I can't go back to my original occupation of being a nurse and a paramedic because they are the triggers that put me back into my little space of demons."
Flight Sergeant Frank Alcatara

Flight Sergeant Frank Alcatara, who served in war zones across the world during a 35-year career, told a PTSD seminar in Brisbane on Saturday that he first felt the effects of PTSD after returning home from Rwanda in 1994, but never sought treatment.

"When I first deployed to Rwanda we had no psychological de-screening or anything when we got home, we were just told to essentially 'suck it up' even though we weren't feeling normal," Sergeant Alcatara told the seminar, hosted by the Royal United Service Institute and University of Queensland.

While on deployment to the Middle East in 2012, he suffered a breakdown.

He was sedated and evacuated for treatment in Australia.

"I felt really quite ashamed that I had to be flown home, particularly as a medic," he said.

Alcatara feels ashamed after all those years of risking his life and while he still has the same tug to serve, he can no longer do it the same way he has for 35 years.

Psychiatrist Andrew Khoo has been treating those who have served in the military for almost 15 years.

Dr Khoo said about 30 per cent of returned defence personnel suffered some form of psychiatric illness at some stage in their life.

"The biggest issue is the barrier of getting people to put up their hand and self volunteer that they are struggling psychiatrically and that's very difficult to do with military personnel," he said.

He just doesn't understand that he is doing it right now but in a different way. As more and more veterans like him make their private battles known, more seek help knowing they are not alone and others faced the same wound they had been too afraid to speak about.

Being forced to give up a part of yourself is about the hardest thing to do other than having to do it while fighting PTSD because you did what you had to do.

Every veteran I have helped over the years were asked the same question. "What do you want to do after you healed?" Their response was, "Help other veterans like me." They knew what it felt like to be lost and alone. To feel ashamed of something just because they didn't understand it or why they had it. They didn't know what they could do to make the next part of their lives better. To know that the next path they took on this part of their lives could actually make them whole again.

If you have been trying to understand these veterans, here are some things you need to know.

They have PTSD because they are strongly connected to part of what makes them who they are. To be willing to give up your life for the sake of someone else requires a deep strength that goes far beyond what simple words can begin to explain other than they loved other more than themselves.

Guilt of being a survivor of horrors makes them think they have something evil inside of them. They forgot that they were willing to die to save someone else and there is nothing evil or selfish in them. There is a Bible passage relating to this, John 15:13 New International Version (NIV)

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

But what needs to be added to those words is "or be willing to do it" since it has to come from love to be a member of the armed forces. Their type of PTSD is much different from other types and causes.

In order for them to heal, it is pricelessly cheap. It requires every part of the veteran to be treated as every part of the soldier was tested in combat. Their bodies were pushed beyond what humans were designed to do. Their minds were pushed beyond what average people are equipped to face. Both of these must be treated. Their bodies need to relearn how to calm down again. Their minds must learn how to remember their lives while forget the emotional pain experienced much like a woman no longer feels the same pain she experienced during her baby being born. She remembers how long her labor lasted but does not feel the pain every time she thinks about it. Veterans can do the same thing even with PTSD. They need help to do it.

The last part of healing PTSD is spiritual. This has to be addressed more than anything else because PTSD was set off by traumatic events piled on top of others. If they see what happened with the terrible frozen in their memory, they are unable to see the reason they were there in the first place. They forget what they tried to do for the sake of someone else and that tortures their soul.

After training to heal, these veterans feel incomplete until they help other veterans. They actually heal better by helping others and that completes their inner calling to serve. All of this can make them not just "whole" again but they actually live better lives had they not experienced that which made them carry the burden through combat.

When reminded they were harmed during combat but somehow managed to push past all that pain they felt until their buddies were out of danger, they begin to understand that they were that strong and brave. They did not suffer for being "weak" but suffered for being that strongly connected to those they were willing to die for. Now they can use the same strength to be willing to live for them as well.