Healing Combat Trauma:Survivors Quilt

June 10, 2008
Survivors Quilt: Combat Veterans Patch Meaning Together in Quilts about PTSD, War and Loss



You've heard of survivors' guilt - here we've got survivors' QUILTS. (Bad pun, I know -- but true.)

We've been talking a bit lately about art therapy, and how combat veterans with PTSD use it successfully to tap into, and work through, some of the pain they feel inside. The photos here, by Mike Kane, at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are from a story published on March 19 about how the inpatient PTSD program at the VA hospital in Seattle has a "wall" of quilt squares, made by combat veterans, and encouraged by a nurse, Betsy Shapiro (she's at right, above), now retired, who gave deeply hurting veterans 6x6" cotton squares, on which to draw something or paint something that related to their experience: something they could leave behind, to let others know about them and what they had gone through.

Initially, there was moaning and groaning, and reluctance to comply. But shortly thereafter, everyone produced something, and the results were really pretty impressive. The veterans also gave input into how they wanted the resultant squares displayed -- not set in pretty frames, like squares in a regular patchwork quilt might be, but together, side-by-side, touching. The article, by Mike Barber, is called "Veterans tell stories in patchwork of memories," and it's linked here.

In an earlier article, from the Honolulu Advertiser from October 2, 2007, linked here, Glenn Reys, an Air Force vet in Honolulu worked through his recovery from drugs and alcohol by immersing himself in making a Hawaiian quilt, symbolic of his homeland, but also incorporating patriotric U.S. symbols. He found himself devoted to the practice, and able to quilt for hours at a time. "This kept me busy," Reys said. "When I do sewing like this, I can sew for like six or eight hours, and it's no problem. That's what I do in my continuing recovery."
go here for more

http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/06/veterans-
patch-meaning-together-in-quilts-about-ptsd-war-and-loss.html