For those of you who are newer readers: When I first started writing for the Veterans Voice, I explained my qualifications. I don’t have any. I am not a therapist. My only qualification to write about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is that I am married to a veteran who has been suffering with PTSD for over thirty years. I had to learn about this disorder in order to get/keep some sanity. Mostly I write to the spouses of vets with PTSD from a spouse’s point of view. But sometimes I share what has helped my husband to get from the hell he lived in, to the better place where he is today. Whether it is helpful to you or not, please know that you and your families are remembered in my prayers.
Who Are You?
Susan Barrera
Who are you? When we are asked that question, we usually answer with “I’m a doctor”, or “I’m a bricklayer”, or “I’m a secretary”. We identify with what we do for a living, as thought THAT is who we are. But is that actually who we are? We say we are a veteran or a civil servant, a Christian or Jew. We are Toastmasters or Shriners, or motorcycle riders or bowlers. But these are not things that we ARE, they are words that describe something we DO, or believe.
Are we honest, dishonest, kind, mean-tempered, punctual, hard-driving or laid-back? These are behaviors. Are we fat or thin? That is temporary; we can gain or lose weight. Are we male or female? That can be changed by a good doctor. Are we wealthy or poor? That too can be a temporary situation. Are we a father or mother, a sister or brother, a son or daughter? If your only child dies are you still a father?
What I think it comes down to is that we are all just people who are doing the best we can at dealing with what comes our way as we try to maneuver through our experiences of life. Now where am I going with all that? People, and men in particular, tend to identify with their occupations and their status. Some, to the point that if their occupation or their wealth goes away, they don’t know who they are…
Why is this an important idea for veterans, especially combat veterans to understand? Because what you had to do in wartime does not define you. Most veterans who served in combat had to kill the enemy. Does that make you a killer? I don’t think so. Were you a killer before you went into the service at 18? Did you come home and just start killing people here? Some veterans came back so filled with rage over their experiences that they did become provoked into harming others. But if they had not experienced the traumas of combat, would they have behaved in that way? A psychopathic killer has no remorse. They are not numb; they have no feelings. To them, taking a life is no different than stepping on a pebble. It is not the same thing at all. The combat veterans experience nightmares and flashbacks and emotional torture. The fact that they do tells me that they were before and are still, good, kind people who experienced severe trauma and are simply having trouble dealing with it, as anyone would.
I understand that some Native American tribes have a ceremony that they perform for their members who have gone into combat. It is a cleansing ceremony that recognizes that an individual has in effect “become a warrior” for a given period of time and when their “warrior” time is over, the ceremony symbolically returns them to who they were before. Returns them to harmony. Sort of encapsulates that period of time, so that they can go on with their lives when they return. It helps them to see that “warrior” is something they did, not something they are. Something like that might be beneficial for all returning soldiers. A debriefing and deprogramming. A ceremony that thanks them for their service to their country and releases them to go back to who they were before. (If I have misunderstood the intent of this ceremony, I apologize.)
I believe that all our soldiers everywhere need to understand that they had to become numb, they had to do things that they would not normally have done, to survive. They were sent by their government into combat to fight. That government has to train and more or less brainwash their troops into becoming non-thinking robots; otherwise how could they get scared 17 or 18 year old farm boys or high school kids to be able to fight a war? They had to deal with the situation they were in somehow, and who knows what I would have done in the same situation. I don’t. Neither does anyone else.
I think that until and unless a combat vet accepts and understands that they just did the best they could under the circumstances and that their combat experience does not define them, they cannot come to terms with it and have any sort of peace. It helped my husband to be able to think of his wartime experiences in this way. He desperately wanted to find a way to deal with his symptoms and have a life. He was motivated to read and study and do everything he could to help himself. And I am so proud of the tough stuff he had to do to get where he is today. But then, he is a great guy. But it started with two things. He admitted to himself that he had a problem, PTSD; and he wanted badly to get better.
Your combat experiences do not define Who You Are. You can accept that you have a disorder and with enough motivation, you can figure out how to live with it if you want to badly enough. It can be done. You can do it, too. Please try. Your family loves you and needs you to try.
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