Getting Back to Basics For PTSD Veterans

There was a group raising awareness on PTSD when hardly no one else was doing it. They really were not as interested in talking about the problem as much as they were trying to lead the way to living a better life and healing. It began in Seattle Washington with a simple act of kindness from a Police Officer names Bill Landreth. After all, he was a veteran too and understood what the minority of the population faced.

Bill was noticing he was arresting more and more of his fellow veterans and decided to do something about it. He met them in coffee shops, then in small groups. Veterans understood veterans and it was the best way for them to get help. They got it from each other much like they depended on each other to stay alive in combat. It was 1984 and Point Man International Ministries began with a simple fact. Veterans should help other veterans and their families should help other families in small groups.

Bill passed away and Chuck Dean expanded the vision as well as the mission of Point Man.

Chuck Dean, publisher of a Veterans self help newspaper, Reveille, had a vision for the ministry and developed it into a system of small groups across the USA for the purpose of mutual support and fellowship. These groups are known as Outposts. Worldwide there are hundreds of Outposts and Homefront groups serving the families of veterans.

Down Range: To Iraq and Back 1st Edition
by Bridget C. Cantrell (Author), Chuck Dean (Author)

There are some things people don’t get over easily pain from the past is one of them.

Trauma changes people: It changes values, priorities, worldviews, and most of all …it changes how we relate to others.

Painful, life-threatening experiences take people beyond the normal day-to-day life, leaving them stuck behind defensive walls that keep them from re-entering the world they have always known as “home”.  So how does it happen? How do we lose the loving closeness with those around us? And better yet, how do we re-gain what pain has robbed us of? "Down Range” is not only a book explaining war trauma, it is required reading for anyone seriously interested about how to make healthy transitions from war to peace. Bridget C. Cantrell, Ph.D. and Vietnam veteran, Chuck Dean have joined forces to present this vital information and resource manual for both returning troops and their loved ones. Here you will find answers, explanations, and insights as to why so many combat veterans suffer from flashbacks, depression, fits of rage, nightmares, anxiety, emotional numbing, and other troubling aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Anyway, that is why I am part of Point Man. Over 30 years of living with and researching PTSD, this group is one of the best things going, or should I say, still going on.

Raising awareness constantly grates on my nerves. What are they trying to raise awareness of? The problem? Veterans already know all about that. They know why they take their own lives far better than anyone else ever could. They know all the problems that pound them down but what they don't know is how to heal and find help to get back up again. Point Man is there for that, and honestly, there because it works. This is PTSD basic training and so is what the Tucson VA seems to be doing. Getting back to the basic idea of veterans helping veterans and helping them.

Veterans helping veterans are key to VA mental health care
Tucson Now News
By Barbara Grijalva
Oct 02, 2015

TUCSON, AZ

"The VA says veterans who have sought and benefited from mental health treatment are role models and mentors, showing other veterans there is hope, and helping remove the stigma some associate with seeking care." Dewayne Raulerson

"Been there. Done that."

It can be something we say to brush someone off.

But when it's one military veteran talking with another veteran who needs mental health treatment, it can be a lifeline.

In conjunction with next week's Mental Illness Awareness Week, the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System held it's annual Mental Health Recovery Fair on Friday, Oct. 2.

The fair is intended to highlight services available for veterans, but what's considered most important is hearing from the veterans themselves.

Lisa Conrad is an Air Force veteran and a patient and volunteer at the VA in Tucson.

"I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. I was also diagnosed with depression," Conrad said.

But Friday, Conrad was performing on stage, playing the ukulele and singing at the VA event.
read more here

That is just an example of what is needed. Bill was a Vietnam veteran and so is Chuck. That generation came home and fought for everything done on PTSD. That's how long all of this has been going on so it is ever more heartbreaking to see what is happening today. There has never been a time like this with everyone talking about PTSD, raising money to "raise awareness" yet all of these "efforts" are producing more tragic outcomes. The simple basics were replaced by publicity seekers trying to get attention for themselves. Just take a look on Facebook and see what I mean. These veterans don't need quick answers, they need real ones. They don't need a Tweet in response to what they are going through, they need hours of our undivided attention.

Some Veteran Centers are linking up with Point Man because they do really know what veterans need to know. They can heal!

Healing PTSD has to be in 3 parts, mind-body-spirit. The last part is the worst part to leave out. PTSD hits where emotions live. Most folks believe that is also the place where the soul lives. Leave out healing the soul and veterans just get by. Heal the soul and you heal not just one life but many.

Veterans have one goal when they begin to heal. They want to help other veterans get out of the minefield in their mind so they stop sacrificing their futures to pain.