Retirement PTSD Wake Up Call

I was reading an article about Vietnam veterans and it brought up a very interesting point we don't talk about much.
Retirement and the PTSD wake up call replacing the alarm clock.

Local veterans keep fighting against PTSD
By MIKE TONY
10 Central Ohio News

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — In 1965, Bill Pitts was an 18-year-old, growing up much too fast.

During Christmas of that year, he was a Naval officer providing gunfire support on a vessel in the South China Sea, bombing Da Nang Harbor.

When his service in the Navy came to an end in 1969, Pitts returned home withdrawn and unable to communicate as well as he would have liked. Now a 68-year-old Dunbar resident, Pitts recalls treating his first two wives badly and not wanting to socialize with anyone.

"I wasn't the same kid I was when I first went over there," Pitts said. "I seemed not to care who I hurt with my actions."

Kenneth Noga was a member of both the Army's 101st Airborne Division and 9th Division from August 1971 to April 1972 and was shot at in the Quang Tri province of North Vietnam. After retiring from Sensus following 41 years with the company in Nov. 2013, the Uniontown resident found himself with more time alone dealing with haunting memories of his time in Vietnam. The flashbacks got particularly bad from January to April of last year.

"I was afraid to go to sleep because I knew where I was going," Noga said.

So every Thursday, Noga, Pitts and 60 to 70 other local veterans go to counseling sessions led by Joel Smith of the Veterans Affairs-run Morgantown Vet Center at the Hopwood Amvets. Smith discusses with veterans how to understand everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the psychology of humor and the value of patience with their spouses and other loved ones.

Click the link and read the rest especially if you are a Vietnam veteran. The problem is as more and more Vietnam veterans retire they feel as if their lives suddenly fell apart.

I am about 10 years (or more) younger than most of my friends. I have about 10 years left before I can stop working but they are retiring and not as happy as they thought they'd be. After 20 or 30 years in the military and another 20 some odd years with jobs to go to, they are waking up with memories they thought they managed to escape, and frankly, they are shocked.

It isn't that PTSD was not already in them but they were just too busy to acknowledge it. It happened to Korean War veterans and WWII veterans just as it will happen to the newer veterans when they reach retirement age. God willing it won't be the same for them since how much Vietnam veterans were able to teach them ahead of time.

As with combat, you didn't allow yourself to feel pain. It wasn't a priority. You had to stay alive and keep as many of your buddies alive long enough to go home as well. Then it was getting jobs or going to school, getting married, having kids and doing what everyone else was doing.

You stayed so busy as if everything you did was a mission to complete. Ok, so you did the service time and the employment time. Now what? This is supposed to be your time to relax. It isn't because you didn't take the time to heal after you came home from combat.

Most of you didn't have a clue back in the 60's or 70's. It wasn't until then that research was finally able to understand what combat did emotionally as well as physically.

Now you have time but seem to be in shock that everything that happened so long ago is fresh in your mind. Don't be. You are far from alone.

This is what was known in the 70's.

That came home with you. Now is the time to treat it and heal it. Yep! You can heal it. There is no cure for it but that doesn't mean you're stuck feeling like you just entered into the Twilight Zone.

For all the VA got wrong that made the newspapers lately, they got a lot right.

They are doing things like Yoga and Tai Chi

Veterans Health Administration
Training Veterans to Care for Themselves
by Hans Petersen, VA Staff Writer
Monday, April 15, 2013

Kristi Rietz helps Veterans living with chronic conditions — pain…illness…stress — to put healthy things back into their lives and not make their illness the center of their life.

She is an occupational therapist in the Wellness Program at the Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wis.

Kristi explains, “Wellness is approaching people as a whole person. What do they think would be a satisfying full life? We help people gain the skills they need to be able to do that. It’s approaching people from the perspective of what do they want out of life?”

Her Wellness Program calendar is full, with options for Veterans like the Eight-Week Wellness Series which includes Tai Chi Fundamentals), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Positive Psychology and Wellness Recovery Action Planning where Veterans make a personal plan for their wellness and recovery. Wellness Programs Help Relieve Stress

The outpatient Wellness Program provides training in natural stress relief and health improvement practices for Veterans and their families. Classes offer education and practice in stress management techniques that build focus, attention, and memory, as well as improved sleep, decreased stress, overall health, and increased well-being.

They do "VA Telehealth Services Served Over 690,000 Veterans In Fiscal Year 2014" and most still have face to face peer support groups although a lot of them have been stopped. There is a battle going on to have them brought back, not just for the veterans but for the families as well.

There is so much available for you because your generation fought for all of it. It is time for you to start using it and healing. After all, there is a lot more you can do with your time now, like getting better and then helping other veterans get there too!