Resilience training won't work tomorrow if yesterday is an example

It doesn't have to be as bad as it has been but as long as they take this kind of approach, it is unlikely to get better any time soon. "Resilience training" has not worked up until now and that is reflected by the ever increasing suicides along with attempted suicides. Drug and alcohol abuse are up, arrests are up so much so many states have rightly set up Veterans Courts, mental health claims are up, divorces are up and the list goes on.

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Resilience training and post traumatic stress disorder
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None of what we're seeing has to happen as long as they start to look at what has worked instead of what has failed.

I've been married 26 years but other couples have lasted 30 to 40 years while sharing a home with PTSD. We raised our kids to understand why their Dad acts the way he does and they didn't end up blaming themselves. We got our emotions out of the way and reacted with our intelligence using the view of a wounded combat veteran standing in front of us instead of some kind of jerk out to cause a fight. We helped them see all the good within them because we were able to forgive and we were able to forgive because we understood there was a reason behind what they did.

Above all, we helped them forgive themselves.

PTSD comes after trauma. From an outside force attacking them. It hits the emotional part of their brain. Under 25, this part is not fully developed. In other words, their character is not carved in stone yet. Exposure to traumatic events in combat weighs heavily on them and the number of times they are exposed to it, crushes them. Our job is to take the weight off their souls brick by brick. It was that way for wives of Vietnam Vets and will be that way for today's veterans.

It doesn't matter if the people in their lives are a spouse, sibling or parent or even a friend. We are the ones on the front lines of this. While they fight the battles in combat, we must fight the battles for their lives but we must do so fully armed with understanding, love, forgiveness and patience with them. "Resilience training" should not be geared toward them but should be geared toward us so that we have the ability to help them heal. From what I've seen, this attempt falls flat because the people running this type of program have little understanding what it is like to be in their boots 24-7 or live with them.

None of what we see has to happen but much we have done should happen. It won't as long as the powers that be will not listen to what has worked because they are too busy asking what has failed. If the people in their lives get emotionally hurt, then they turn away from them. Most of this comes from lack of understanding and looking at them as if they were the way they used to be. Homeless veterans, for the most part, can be tracked back to coming back with PTSD and families that were destroyed by it because no one understood why any of the damage done was happening to them. Want to really make a difference, then start what what already has. The track record of aware Vietnam veterans' families proves nothing is impossible.

As loved ones go to war, military families face private battles

Ten years ago, I decided to write a book about living with PTSD. Nine years ago, after the attacks of September 11th, not having any luck finding a publisher to even think about publishing it, I self-published it. (It's online for free now.) Five years ago, I decided that it was time to try something different. I made videos so that other people could get to where it took me over 20 years to get to. I know what PTSD is and why I ended up married into the war my husband fought in. The following article is one of the biggest reasons why I did it.

I had to make the same decisions spouses make everyday. Do we stay or do we go? Can we stay and fight for them? Do we have what it takes to do it? Can we every break down that wall pain built? Will we ever be happy again? Will today be the day he walks away? So many questions we face each and everyday married to a stranger.

Sitting here, after being married for almost 26 years, I can assure you that you can stay together and help them heal if you love them enough to want to. You need to invest a lot of time in trying to understand PTSD so that you know what is causing all the reactions they have. You will also learn what you can do to help them instead of fighting against them. We can help them heal or we can make their lives worse.

One thing not talked about enough is domestic violence. If they are violent to you or your kids, if they are emotionally abusive to the point where you are in fear, you need to get yourself and your kids out of harms way. You also need to know that if there was no history of violence in them before deployment, PTSD is usually the cause of it after. First be safe then learn. Even if you decide to end the marriage, you should learn why it fell apart, for your sake and for the sake of the kids. You will end up either hating him or blaming yourself when in most cases, neither of you are to blame for PTSD taking over your lives. There is so much damage done to families that lasts a lifetime when we don't know what caused it. Knowing brings the ability to heal and above all, to forgive. Forgive them and forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made simply because we didn't know any better.

If violence is not an issue, then you need to decide if you love him enough to stay and fight to help him get out of the darkness he's in. Before deciding, learn what PTSD is. This will also give you a tool to help you know where all of it is coming from. We can make it worse for them or we can help them heal.

As loved ones go to war, military families face private battles

12:18 AM CDT on Sunday, June 6, 2010
By DAVID TARRANT / The Dallas Morning News dtarrant@dallasnews.com

Yet "there are not enough mental health providers to meet the demand, case managers and providers are overwhelmed, wait times are too long for appointments and between appointments for those in need of mental health and other services," the report stated. The institute's two-year study was mandated by Congress to help veterans readjust to civilian life.

The story of war is not just about combat on the battlefield. It's also about the families who remain behind to fight their own private battles.

It's the story of Aimee Ybarra, a mother of two grade-school children, whose husband came home after his fifth combat tour and told her he wanted to leave their 15-year marriage because he had gotten used to being gone. It's the story of Lisa Bernreuther, who's steeling herself for her husband's sixth deployment; he's only been home from his last tour since April. She keeps his Army boots by the door, she says, "because sometimes I forget I even have a husband."
read more here
Military families face private battles

I married into a war that ended long before I came along. It is even harder for you than it was for me because I didn't have the worry about my husband deploying. You need all the help you can get to get through all of this. Invest the time to learn so that your future does not have to be suffering instead of healing.

Casualties of war and PTSD

UPDATE
The moderator of Spouse Calls left a comment on this post to clear up any misunderstanding. The following comes from an Army Wife named Sheryl.

It is a powerful statement of what we do not think about when we think of how much is asked of the men and women serving especially when we ignore their families. When I read stories like this, I wonder if the marriage could have been saved if the spouse had the understanding as well as support to live with what the war did her marriage. I know how difficult it was for my family to stay together, even though I knew what PTSD was. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if I did not have the tools to help my husband heal, to forgive him because I knew why he did the things he did or how to help myself heal as well.

None of this has to happen but until the DOD understands what PTSD is, what has to be done, educate the families, it will keep happening just as the suicides keep going up. None of this has to happen.

Spouse calls:
Casualties of war and PTSD
By Terri Barnes, Special to Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes Scene, Sunday, January 17, 2010
On the Spouse Calls blog:


As I watched the towers fall, I knew our lives would change. My heart ached for the people in the towers and their families, and then I got a cold shiver and knew my life was about to change, too.

That day I knew we were going to war and my husband was going to go … I just didn’t know that it would mean that I would lose my husband and our family, too.

Forward to mid-tour homecoming from Iraq: The man I picked up at the airport was not my husband. After all of those months, he hugged me and patted me on the back. He didn’t embrace our children. His eyes were cold. In fact you, could see right through them and the sparkle that was once there was gone.

Forward to the Iraq homecoming: Again, he got off of the plane. The excitement to see me wasn’t there. He was trying, I know he was, but they left my husband and what he was in Iraq, never to return.

We were the couple that everyone thought would be together forever — never gave it another thought. Now we are separated and going through divorce.
read more here
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=67291

Counsel for a Marine’s mother

Counsel for a Marine’s mother
By Terri Barnes, Special to Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes Scene, Sunday, August 2, 2009
Q. My 22-year-old son, a Marine, came back from nine months in Iraq and now will not even speak to me. My son who left for Iraq came back very different. I raised him, practically by myself, sacrificed for him and gave him the best upbringing I could. He never went hungry, dirty or did without. He was fine before he left and while he was there. He called me from Iraq a couple of times and sent e-mails back and forth.

I don’t know what happened to change him like this. I do know that he suffers from (post-traumatic stress disorder) and he was in a dangerous zone there, but why has he turned on me, his mother?

He came back from Iraq and two months later, he married a girl he barely knew that he met up with on MySpace while in Iraq.

Has anyone else heard of a case like this? My son still keeps in contact with his high school friends also, but not me. This has broken my heart. The pain is indescribable.
read more here
Counsel for a Marine mother

The advice given on Spouse Calls by Terri Barnes was good on two levels. First she told the Marine Mom to get counseling for herself. The other level was that she shared her own story with the Marine Mom. Barnes also told her to learn what PTSD is. This is something everyone should learn at the very least, so they can pass on the information especially to other military families.

PTSD is a wound that cuts into emotions. Love is one of the targets. They end up pushing away the people that loved them the most, knew them best, because they no longer feel like they are the same person. Inside the old person is still there but they cannot find "themselves" in their own skin.

Sons push away parents. Daughters push away parents. Spouses push away wives/husbands. At a time when they needed these people most in their lives, they push them out of their lives. Most will say that they don't want the other person to know what's inside of them. They fear the person they love the most will end up hating them so it's easier to just push them away first.

Even more complicated is the "need" they have to be loved is working in the opposite direction. Serial marriages are part of it. They can hide the pain they have for a while as the fantasy of a "new life" fills them with false hope that this time things will be different. This time they will be happy. This time they will be loved. Sometimes the flashbacks don't seem as strong or hit as often. Other times the nightmares may stop coming every night. The "honeymoon" stage wears off and it all comes back. Depending on the understanding of the spouse and the ability they have to cope with PTSD in their lives, this can either help the veteran or quickly end another marriage.

The VA is seeing a lot of older veterans seeking help for the first time with PTSD. Part of the reason is they are finally understanding what has been going on inside of them all along because of outreach efforts and media attention. The most striking reason is that they are no longer working having retired. When they went to work after WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, they sunk themselves into their jobs avoiding any focus on the changes in them. They became "workaholics" focusing on work alone. Every time the demons of combat began to strike, they avoided dealing with any of them and quickly changed their focus onto work. Work was not remembering "who they were inside" before combat. It didn't demand love they couldn't really feel as much as they wanted to. Distant and detached from the rest of the family, they grew accustomed to the reactions or lack of reactions.

Once they retire, there is nothing to hide behind. They are forced to see what has been there all along.

In other cases, it is not so much hiding their emotions in work, but mild PTSD striking full force after suffering emotionally. Secondary traumas or "secondary stressors" strike without warning. It is the one "too many times" assault on their emotions. It could be the loss of a spouse, parents, children, an accident, a natural disaster or crime sending mild PTSD into PTSD on steroids.

A WWII veteran, lived his life as a professional, long term married believing he had a good life. He was a lawyer. He wouldn't talk about WWII except to tell impersonal accounts or funny stories. One night his apartment was broken into. That was all it took. Nightmares stuck and flashbacks invaded. Every sound became someone else wanting to break in. Doors and windows were constantly checked. Alarms were put in as fear took hold.

These traumatic events in lives already assaulted by PTSD become a living hell.

They hope if they close their eyes and shut their ears it will all go away. They escape what They do not want to face with whatever they can find. Drugs, alcohol, work, new love, driving too fast, dangerous sports, pushing away people once close to them and seeking others they feel nothing for is all safety in the storm for them.

Believing if they do not feel anything, they will feel no more pain at the same time they want to feel all the good they used to feel.

If people in their lives do not know what is happening, there is a sense of wondering taking hold. We blame ourselves, wonder what we did wrong or what we did not do at all. It eats away at us like this Marine Mom wondering why her son has pulled away from her. It happens all the time. When it comes to PTSD, what we do not know can destroy us, eat away at our self confidence and change us to the point where we can't recognized who we are. Often living with PTSD in our homes can cause what is called Secondary PTSD. That comes from all the chaos and confusion living on the roller coaster ride of emotions out of control in the other person. If we know what is behind all of it, it gives us tools to cope and respond in the right way so that emotional turmoil does not escalate. Again, everyone should learn what PTSD especially if you are involved with someone in the military or a veteran. Knowledge could end up saving "you" instead of leaving everything you were sure of behind.

1,811,000 Have Served In Iraq and Afghanistan

Keith Armstrong, Director of Family Therapy Clinic, San Francisco VA, gave that figure just now in a presentation on Treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Military Families.

1,811,000 men and women going into combat and coming back to their families and communities. 662,221 have had more than one tour of duty.

Think about that. With the rate of PTSD in humans calculated at 1 out of 3 exposed to traumatic events, we're already looking at 600,000. If you use the rate of 1 out of 5, which others use, it's still 362,000. Wait, if you think that's bad add in this. 662,221 have a 50% higher risk of developing PTSD with each new redeployment. Some have gone back 5 times.

When you look at the National Guards and the Reservists, their rate of PTSD has been presenting at 50%. Where do they go when the communities are not stepping up? When clergy are not stepping up so they can help the families to heal and stay together?

Three quarters of the American public do not know what PTSD is.

The suicide and attempted suicide rate has gone up every year.

Divorce rates have gone up in Military families.

While programs like the one I was just watching are wonderful, there are not enough of them. Sure they help the therapist become more aware but these programs should have begun in the beginning of sending them into Afghanistan and definitely by the time they were sent to Iraq they should have been well established.

Given the fact that when Vietnam veterans came home, families had no clue what was going on and time was wasted. Now they still don't know what's going on. With the media paying attention we are closer to informing people about it,but these are baby steps when we need Olympian speed skaters taking the message from coast to coast.

So where are the veterans groups? The DAV? The VFW? The American Legion? Why aren't all of them doing programs on this? There are so many people that could be helping but they are no where to be found. If you are a member of any organization or religious group that is not stepping up, get them to. If they are then thank them and praise the daylights out of them so they know it's well worth their time.

One more thing. The above numbers are from Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. They do not include the Gulf War veterans, Vietnam veterans or the Korean veterans. They also don't include the few remaining WWII veterans.

We have adult children of Vietnam veterans with secondary PTSD. They are dealing with the trauma of being raise by a Vietnam veteran with no treatment.

They blame themselves for the way their parent acted. The veteran blames him/herself. The spouse blames her/himself. When they know what PTSD did inside of the veteran, they can forgive but they can't until they understand first.

That's what I've been doing but I can post until my fingers fall off, create videos until I can't stand the sound of music any longer, but none of it will do any good unless people are willing to seek the information.


Senior Chaplain Kathie "Costos" DiCesare
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
www.youtube.com/NamGuardianAngel
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington