A Room With a View Into my PTSD

Your extended family, parents and otherwise, will understand your PTSD. But you must remember that unless they are exposed to it 24/7 like your immediate family, their level of understanding will not be as deep as yours.

So make it a point to help educate them as you educate yourself. Include them in your research about your wound. Send them Internet links as you find them. And don’t be afraid to discuss it with them. Education is understanding.

Remember that although your wound caused PTSD for you, it also caused a ripple in the water that is your relationship with everyone in your life. They are just trying to hang on to what they remember you being. What I have learned from this whole experience is that it is hard for anyone who hasn’t been there, to understand the changes you are going through.

So treat them the way you want to be treated, with compassion and understanding.

-Another great blog from Deznia

All week long I have been dealing with one conflict after another. And every single issue came down to communication. Or lack thereof.

When I was in the service, I used to tell my young troops, “It’s all about communication. You have to let me know what is going on before anyone else finds out so I can help you.” But it never failed that communication was, at times, the last thing on their minds. It was usually, “If I ignore the situation then it will disappear and will no longer exist.”Then all hell broke loose and they were on the losing end of the battle.

After the service, I ran a bus company for a few years. I used to tell my drivers and dispatchers the same thing. “If you would just communicate with the passenger/customer, let them know what is going on so they can have an understanding of what you are going through, then things will usually work out better for you.” But again, it never failed that I would have those employees that wouldn’t communicate with someone
and I would get an angry call from a customer, only to put out the fire using words the employee could have.

You may think that verbal communication ends when you begin to have intimate relations with your spouse. WRONG! How many times have you wished things were going differently during the moment? How many times in the silence have you found your mind wandering away from the current activity? I’m not just talking about dirty talk, but communicate the things that are right and PLEASE communicate the things that are wrong. It’s not going to get better by ignoring the situation. Have enough inner strength to tell your partner what the hell is going on for you and then make sure you are open and receptive to what your partner is telling you they need. For the love of God T-A-L-K!!!!

There are so many problems in this world that can be solved by talking to each other. By giving all the information the first time, without
having someone drag it out of you. Tell people what is going on. But the best communication skill that anyone can learn is how to listen. The golden rule “Do onto others as you would have done onto you”. So communicate and listen to others as you would have them communicate and listen to you. From bills to the bedroom, one step at a time; by communicationg, we can change this world for the better.

You are.

We all grow up and learn the right way and the wrong way to treat another human being. We create our own set or morals and values that define us as individuals. We gain a sense of self and proudly display it without fear of judgment or reprisal.

A combat veteran goes to war and is immediately asked to become something they believe stands against all their morals and values. Something with no remorse, with no fear, something that can and will end the life of another human being.

No matter what you see on TV, no matter what CNN tries to tell you we are fighting, the combat veteran only sees another human being. Sure they know in the back of their mind why they are fighting, and they have their own personal beliefs about it, but when they are face to face and a trigger is pulled; the combat veteran sees another human being.

There has to be a bit of sociopath built into the machine for war to work. There must be some uncaring, some lack of shame, guilt or remorse in war. If not, then the combat veteran would not succeed in their mission.

One of the most moving pieces of cinema I have seen in my life is at the end of The Hurt Locker. The two main characters are faced with defusing a timed bomb that has been strapped to a man against his will. They have something like 90 seconds to cut this man free but are unable to. The camera quickly moves to a moment where the main character is now at home buying a box of cereal. Just stop and take that in.

How in God’s name can we ask another human to do that? Face a life or death situation; kill someone, destroy life… and then go buy your kid some cereal!

No one can let go of something that powerful. It takes time. It takes nurturing and growing to get through that. Sociopathic behavior that a combat veteran has learned can be un-learned, in time with love and support. Don’t be in a hurry to change them, be in a hurry to fight FOR them, their psychological wound runs deeper than any physical wound ever could. You wouldn’t fight them if they had cancer. Don’t fight them because they’re not changing fast enough.

It’s strange to remember the way I was raised. I taught to treat everyone with respect and understanding. To open my mind to things I didn’t understand and my heart to those I didn’t know. But now things are so much different. I would rather, and I do often, shut off my emotions from everything and everyone. And I think it is because of vulnerability.

Let’s take sex for example. Someone told me, “It can be beautiful.” So I have been trying to remember, was sex ever beautiful? Was sex ever really emotionally satisfying? I can’t remember, but what causes real concern is that I can’t figure out how it can be beautiful, or anything in life for that matter. Other than being grateful each day that I wake up without oppression or fear of death, I can’t think of one other thing that could bring any beauty to my soul.

Soul, now there’s a word for ya. In the movie series Pacific, a father tells his son “The worst thing about treating those combat boys from the Great War wasn’t that they had had their flesh torn, it was that they had had their souls torn out” So are we soulless beings walking the earth after combat? Is that why things that should be familiar to us are distant? Is that what causes me to want to stay inside away from people, because I have no soul to connect with them? Is it slightly possible that that is what we left behind on that field? I can’t say one way or the other, but I am not convinced that it is my soul that I left out there, but I know something didn’t come back. And I know that I am not the same guy that stepped foot on that battlefield, I am the one that stepped off.

What can I do? I can’t go back there and reclaim who I was. You are talking over 30yrs of caring, nurturing and growing all taken away from me within a moment…a single
breath. The only thing I can do is hope that what is left of me can reclaim a piece of what I used to be. “Time heals all wounds”, not sure who said that, but I sure hope they’re right. “It can be beautiful”, I hope that one day everything can be beautiful to me, right now all I have is hope.

When will there be Peace?

When will the pain cease?

Living in midnight to avoid the light

Trying to separate with all my might.

When will there be peace?

It feels as if I live at midnight, the darkest part of the day. My life is a nightmare which no words can describe. I am constantly searching for solstice, calm, peaceful bliss. Of course my bliss is the ability to talk to another human being, not to retire with millions on a tropical island. No, we dream of going outside. Holding our children. Loving our spouses. Being productive. We wish for calm in our minds so that we may be able to check the mail or take out the garbage. My phone rings and I hide. My bliss is being able to be vulnerable for a moment and cry. My life? No, it’s simply an existence.

This message is so powerful that it doesn’t need any of my comments, except to say that it should be spread like a virus.

http://torreyshannon.com/2011/08/he-gave-you-his-all-and-would-have-given-you-his-life-now-he-needs-your-help/

- Another Great Blog by Deznia

Did you know that the VA has set up a phone number you can use for help when there is a crisis? ALOT of us think it’s just a place for the veteran to go but that is far from true. All family members can call and use this line no matter who the crisis belongs to. Just call:

1-800-273-8255 and press 1

Or if you don’t want to call, you can chat with someone at:

www.veteranscrisisline.net

It’s all confidential!!! Don’t cope alone, call the veterans crisis line to get the support you’ve earned.

Did you know will be a weekly blog where I share information with you all regarding your VA benefits. Each week I will pull something out of the “Federal Benefits for Veterans Dependents and Survivors” 2010 Edition booklet handed out at all VA clinics.