Combat PTSD

Why A Combat Veteran Does Not Have Patience

The Combat Values Theory I propose, has to do with a value structure that replaces or overrides our civilian values schema. They consist of primitive instinctual defensive mechanisms of survival and the disintegration of our inhibitions of taking a human life. Identity, cognitive dissonance, hindsight bias, attachment structures, memory and dissociation all have component features in trauma based disorders with evolutionary and cultural considerations. "The culture of combat veteran is formed by a shared experience, often traumatic and rooted in the work of soldiers" (Hobbs, 2008)...

Structural Dissociation of the Personality

The leading theorists on the subject recognize that reactions to extreme stress can lead to one or more differing diagnosis, and that inherent in said traumatic reactions is structural dissociation of the personality. Where three types of structural dissociation have been postulated: primary structural dissociation, secondary structural dissociation and tertiary structural dissociation...

We Cannot Make It Thought the Confines of Our Minds Without Help From Others

For me it was the total sense of feeling alive and being apart of my squad that I missed...

Dedicated Soldiers, Combat Values and the Shattering of a Mind

In a combat environment overcoming the initial emotional crisis takes an ability to close off our humanity to engage in combat. We must develop a combat-values system with a preset conditional internal guidance system pre-programmed to engage within the "troop-organism." Being removed from the protective feeling that this state of mind, the troop can develop a deep feeling of loss and guilt combined with a profound solitary disengagement from others who they now cannot identify with. Going from a deep sense of belonging and protection the troop gets the feeling of facing the world alone...

Veterans and Problems with Attachments to Significant Others

The splits in personal structures of the combat veteran or soldier, a recognition and extension of differing personal identifications of self along with partnerships with the battle buddies, individuality ceases to exist to engage the machinations of combat and killing. Reconciling this wound of the soul will take time...

A Seemingly Serendipitous Supra-Intelligent Guidance of the Subconscious

Identity issues prevail throughout the mind of a PTSD host, so to speak. When I think of a cure my mind almost reels in horror, because of my survival instincts having defeated death as a result of having PTSD, and its shaping of my life. I would not be who I am today without it, this device of PTSD that engages in the survival defensive mechanisms that has sustained my life on a persistent basis..

To Do The Deed, The Dance of Death

Forget the theoretical self analyzing the process, but concentrate on the dominating, primeval alpha self that goes beyond rationalizing why or why not, realize that part of you that goes without thinking. This part operates from the law of the wild, the component that keeps you alive when your life becomes threatened to be snatched away. Your will to survive is an entity of its own and will separate from your rationale to preserve itself, self preservation...

A Prisoner of My Beliefs

By an identification of values, along with acknowledging and deconstructing the combat schema one could find the ability to critically analyze in the moment, the validity of said beliefs as required by situational reflection enabling readjustments and disallowing an inflexibility of position. An underpinning of empowering schema and a reevaluation of ethical morality allows one to find plasticity in the moment producing a positive self-efficacy; a confident and self-assured person...

Warrior Survival Skills

I want the warriors of today to realize that these skill sets can be adapted for use in society, that we can use most of our PTSD symptoms as new skill set...

Soldier's Heart, The Swiss Army Knife of Death

In combat or other trauma what can begin as a detachment of emotions from actions can lead to a fractured self, an "othering" and dehumanizing the part of us capable of dispensing death, the "Soldier's Heart" takes on its own persona deep into the shadows . In combat this defensive mechanism, or "tool of death", works well and allows a device within the person to eradicate the enemy who has been assigned a wholly less than human label of demon, enabling denial of the "killer" in us and identifying the burden of blame on its adversary as due adjudication. Thus fracturing and subdividing the mind into non-localized discoherent detachments, all necessary to survive the absurdity of war...

Shadow Persona

The term shadow persona refers to that part of the individual we deny yet that commands great influence over our behavior while projecting responsibility onto stimuli in the environment or other persons. The haziness of this lack of fully identifying with self can be discerned, it takes time and commitment to overcome our natural defensive mechanisms that have been etched into the mind stemming from great pain...

Personal Attachments, Before and After Combat

In normal environments such as a community, surroundings and especially in our family lives, we as humans develop attachments to people, places and things. Such connections bring a sense of comfort, peace and normalcy along with feelings of protection and safety. We can let down our guard and protective mechanisms around people most familiar to us as we have become bonded to one another...

Lower Recruitment Standards Contributing to Military Suicide Rates?

The troops who do make it out of the theater of combat have been changed in body and mind. They have lost substantial parts of their mind, soul and community. Psychological trauma devastates the battle buddy, spouse, children and splinters everything that once was the bedrock of the American Soldier...

Soldiers in Combat Develop a Powerful Attachment to One Another

A small combat squad that has experienced several fire fights develops a sense of oneness with each other, they have become one organism through the forging process of fight or flight. Due to the nature of killing and survival all of their other emotionality has become severed from their environment and channeled into the solidarity that soldiering brings. If one of them gets wounded or killed they all feel it through their connection of unity...

Fully Train Our Soldiers For The Rigors of War

In the military, especially in combat arms the training centers on becoming effective warriors without a concentration in developing into a full identity and individual, a requirement for reintegration back into society. In a battle with no solid enemy and no apparent battleground the warrior having been trained to combat the physical comes in contact with a foe that can over shadow the imagination.

The identification and reinforcement of values, emotion identification, anger management techniques along with stress management training would enable soldiers to realize better coping strategies when coming out of the combat zone. Further, interpersonal communication and social skills education along with boundaries identification would foster closer relationships with significant others...

Thoughts, Feelings and Behavior

Further on the topic of the combat veteran’s value and principles, these systems have a connection to feelings and emotions or the lack thereof with one who dissociates as most PTSD sufferers do. Emotions and feelings are the arbiters of values, principles, and morality. Without emotive interaction the ethical dilemmas that keep most people in check, can get bypassed with a combat veteran’s lack of affect. The higher level processes of cognitive interaction delve into a consideration of choices and consequences, whereas the traumatized brain operates from the lower base of primitive survival systems and defensive mechanisms. A normal reaction with a non-traumatized brain would trigger an emotive response cascading into consideration of an appropriate response. Where the traumatized brain engages the primitive portion of the mind into a reflexive response forgoing the thought of repercussions...

Warrior Archetype

In the military the ritual of drilling and killing concentrates on becoming an automatic reflexive response to aggression and survival. My point, the focus of killing without learning how to deal and cope after they go home leaves the returning veteran aimless and without a ritual of connection to community, family, and wholeness. Their formative associations have been left back in the field of combat and killing, where they have left part of themselves with the ones not going home and take with them the guilt of leaving...

Battling PTSD

The identification and reinforcement of values, social skills and anger management techniques along with realizing warning signs and stress management training strategies enables veterans to realize a better life. Without integrating these skill sets into the neurological pathways, the heavily imprinted traumatic axonal entrenchment supersedes conscious thinking processes and the mind seeks behavior reminiscent of the initial trauma. The hyper states of PTSD once engaged result in the continuation of the dominate neurological processes.

A deeper apprehension and awareness has to come forward for our veterans to get the help they need...

Dissociative Spectrum

The incident that solidified the mental wound of PTSD results in a mind numbing, or psychic shift. In response to the trauma of combat, the person needs to make a mental detachment to do what needs to be done. The survival mode of operation forgoes the higher levels of functioning and depends on the primitive reactionary portion of the brain (Cercone, 296). When this unconscious detachment has been activated to frequently or for extended amounts of time it becomes part of conscious processing and interferes with everyday interactions...

Duality Dissociates Discernment

Everyone sets up belief systems, a schema that enable us to react to situations as they arrive. By using this system of rules as a guide in life we can interact in society without having to analyze every aspect of our experience. We can convince ourselves that our ideology is who we are, when in reality living within our dogma cuts us off from a greater understanding and reaching our potentiality. The combat veteran's brain has invoked a divided self to ensure the integrity of the differing internal representations. His or her mind has been subdivided into incompatible subsections to deal with life in the clashing realms of their subconscious...