You Won't Get Over It, Heal It Instead And Defeat PTSD

When You Understand You Won't Get Over It, Heal It
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 2, 2015

Did you know that in order to heal combat PTSD, you have to abandon hope? Yep, that's the first step. No, I don't mean give up on healing but give up on "getting over it" since that notion actually has you getting worse. PTSD gains more control over you while you refuse to ask for help. Letting your misinformed ego get in the way of healing traps you in an endless cycle of getting worse. Much like an infection, it spreads out, claims more of what is good and destroys what it touches.

If untreated, it destroys your future as well as everything else today. Your relationships are robbed by you being disconnected, unable to feel emotional connection to anyone. Joy, that happy feeling you used to have is something you can't even remember the last time you laughed so hard you cried. Things you used to love to do are no longer even thought of during the day.

The worst part of all is, sooner or later as PTSD gains, you lose hope. That day comes when you wake up understanding that today isn't the day you just get over it. You fully accept that fact and then you decide you don't want to be here anymore. Without hope, you decide to take your life into your own hands instead of putting your life back into your control.

Suck it up pal cause this is about to get worse for you to read before it gets a whole lot better.

I am sure you've heard about Dante's Inferno but may have forgotten what it was all about. There are nine circles of hell and the ways people got sent to each level. Don't worry about reading them since combat isn't one of the paths taken.

Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription, the ninth (and final) line of which is the famous phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate",

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Every single generation and major religious group believes in the soul with the exception of atheists.
Hemant Mehta says that he believes you did not exist before you were born so after you've lived your life, that's it. There isn't anything else other than what you leave behind.

Seems he's missing a lot of detail there. Like what makes each of us so different if there is nothing going on other than brain cells. What makes us decide what we want to do in life? What makes some of us more selfish than others? What makes some of us be willing to die to save someone else? What makes a serviceman or woman really able to do that?

The difference is, you were some place before. No, not your body. That is genetic and because of your parents. I'm talking about the soul and that is who you are inside that body your parents started.

Jeremiah 1:5 New International Version (NIV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Translation is God knew him (his soul) before it was sent to live inside the body his Mom was carrying around in her own body. The other part of this often overlooked is, God had plans for his life and everything he was supposed to do, he was equipped to do.

A safe bet is if you joined the military, you always thought of doing it. You felt pulled or compelled to join. If that is the case then it was your calling and everything you needed to do it was within you. Being a simple human and with simple understanding of the nature of things, you more than likely didn't understand it. Most of us don't. Some just get it a little better than others and when they do, they are actually happier doing what they were intended to do instead of just floundering with no calling tugging them.

Jeremiah 29:11 New International Version (NIV)

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Translation is, God put everything into him he would need to do what he was sent here to do. He did the same for you. Everything you needed to serve was within you from you ability to care that much that you were willing to die for someone else, to the courage you had to do it, the physical stamina to get through it and still be able to retain your compassion.

It is that same ability to feel things so deeply that allowed you to also feel pain so strongly. You just felt it more than others and didn't know how to feel better.

After the event people walk away one of two ways. Either God did it to them or God spared them. As time goes on, depending on which way they thought life gets worse where the thoughts of God not even being real becomes real and hope evaporates or better because the goodness within them lives on.

Once it is decided that God isn't real, after all the horrors you've seen in combat, it is easy to say that if God was real then He wouldn't have let it happen. You dismiss the fact that God doesn't mess with freewill and it was a choice between the starters of the wars you were sent to fight and those who ended them. It is easy to also forget all that was going on at the same time that was not horrific.

You forgot about all the times you shed a tear, reached out a hand to comfort someone, said a prayer, spent time listening to someone or the biggest thing of all is that you were able to get through all that and still be able to grieve. The pain you feel comes from grief.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 New International Version (NIV)

A Time for Everything
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

And you thought it was just a song by the Byrds.

Everyone in the Bible knew what grief was including Christ. It is the shortest and most powerful sentence in the entire bible.

John 11:35 - Jesus wept.

Christ knew God better than anyone else yet He still wept. He knew how His life would end but still had that much compassion for a moment of pain even though He knew what was coming next. (John 11)

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

So how about we make a deal right now and let Him open your eyes? See where your pain comes from and that it comes from the goodness within you. You can heal but not as long as you are looking in the wrong place to start with. It is all within you because it was all put there before you were born into your body.

Let Him keep you from dying so that you can start living again. Push away that thought that you are stronger and shouldn't have PTSD. Are you stronger than Christ? Do you have more faith than He had? Think of something else that was said

John 15:13 King J
ames Version (KJV)

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

This is what you were willing to do. When you start to heal, then you can keep serving others by helping them heal as well. The best therapy is peer support because you understand them. Find the right path toward healing and then reach back so they get there too.

The Watchfire stems from the military tradition that following a battle or long march, a large fire would be started so those missing or lost could locate and rejoin their comrades.

The flame has been lit by Vietnam veterans for decades so that you understand you are not lost but just need help finding your way to healing.


You can read the rest of the levels here.

Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Uncommitted, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil; among these Dante recognizes either Pope Celestine V or Pontius Pilate (the text is ambiguous). Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner (i.e. self interest) while pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them as maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears. This symbolizes the sting of their conscience and the repugnance of sin. This can also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation they lived in.

First Circle (Limbo)

In Limbo reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. Limbo shares many characteristics with the Asphodel Meadows; thus the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven. Without baptism ("the portal of the faith that you embrace")[6] they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive.

Second Circle (Lust)

Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors"[8] for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.

Then there is gluttony on the 3rd level, greed on the 4th, anger on the 5th, heresy on the 6th, violence on the 7th, fraud is 8th and the 9th "and last circle is ringed by classical and Biblical giants, who perhaps symbolize pride and other spiritual flaws lying behind acts of treachery."