My Case for the Syndrome of Survival

A popular argument to fight the stigma of PTSD is to abandon it as a disorder. There have also been cases for calling PTSD an injury because of damage to the hippocampus, but this is perhaps the worst piece of evidence because this scarring occurs in bi polar disorder and the entire spectrum of anxiety disorders: some caused by trauma, some not. The injury moniker's most problematic issue is that it seems to create an acceptable male, or females living up to male ideals, non mental illness. Even rape survivors are said to "have MST" instead of PTSD caused by rape in the military (why there is any effort to sterilize rape in the military continually blows my mind). However, the worst thing about injury or trauma titles is their omission of how paradoxical and complicated PTSD, Shell Shock, and Civil War Nostalgia have always been. Injuries are often a lot more simple: rest, ice elevate does very little to your identity. War alters our identity and what we have is a persistent illness, disorder or syndrome. Yet, anyone who truly understands PTSD grasps how it is the persistence of survival skills into non survival situations. Those survival skills ultimately saved our lives, but makes the mundane and routine parts of life harder to manage.

Syndromes are often permanent and the damage to our brain was not instant, it takes years of overuse of the limbic system to damage the brain's declarative memory and create the scaring identified by injury advocates. Moreover, calling it a syndrome of survival also will explain the deep longing and even nostalgic memory of war. We are damaged, but most of us possess some longing to return, and even miss combat or trauma. When we act like PTSD is solely an injury, we confuse injuries and disorders, all because of stigma. Assholes will be assholes whatever title is used, but calling PTSD what it is with respect to trauma's paradoxical complexity will help us accept what war, and survival have done to us. It will also, help war survivors recognize what they have in common with rape survivors, and that their persistent problems are extremely difficult and life altering, but they ultimately come from a place of strength, not weakness. We are all survivors and we should have a better title.

I know that this is a controversial topic that many well informed and capable people will disagree about, but as both a historian and combat veteran I have never been able to feel comfortable with any of the other popular titles. The syndrome of survival seems to captures all the complexity of survival as well as addressing lasting syndrome. Survival is a universally respected, even celebrated, aspect of the human experience and connecting our troubled lives to this ultimately positive fact will also encourage growth in all of those affect by trauma. We also need a title that people who suffer are more willing to bear publicly so that the conversation shifts, becomes broader and more substantive. A title that should come with a stronger sense of corporate pride and empathy from non survivors. A title that expresses a collective appreciation for what people have survived and the baggage that comes from it. No other title does that in the way that one crafted around survival. Survivor is a moniker  that captures the fact that we are not leaves blow about by circumstances. We survived through merit and resilience, and we can also survive the way that those original experiences have changed us, maybe even let our survival motivate us to be something better than we would have been without our horrible experiences.

Helping Others Tell Their Stories

Darby being awesome!

I hope all of our readers have enjoyed all of our regular posts, but you might not know that Scott, Travis Martin, Michelle Monte, and myself all spend a lot of our time helping others tell their own stories. Writing helps us a lot so we try and take time to help others do the same. If you enjoy the regular posts here then there is no reason why will not enjoy our Blue Nostalgia.

It is free to read and free to join Military Experience & the Arts online writing workshops.  We are always accepting new submissions and you will never be turned down without someones helping you finish your writing. The most impressive thing about this issue is not how many views it has already received in less than forty-eight hours, but how everyone of the writers wants to continue participating in the online community. Even those whose writing never makes it online, often take advantage of online support groups and being apart of a community of veterans all going through the same things. I often think about the Military Experience & the Arts's online community as this generations version of the WWI expatriate writing community in Europe. We may not live up to that generation's legacy, but there is the same sense of community, and we are always welcoming and training a new generation of trauma writers. For me it is an honor to know all these people let alone playing a key role.

I Wasn't Ready for the Smell...

This describes violence and will trigger PTSD symptoms. In the Terrible Moments I purposefully omitted smell because it was too much to write in one installment. I will return to it in the following post.

As a platoon leader I was ready to lead my soldiers, even in the most trying of circumstances, but when I arrived to the aftermath of a suicide bomber detonated on a crowd of civilians I wasn’t prepared for the smell. In my experience blood doesn’t have a smell at first, although it is very visible, tends to flood your memory and when it stains clothing that smell imprints itself on the memory event as it were there in the moment. In honesty that street corner mostly smelled like dirt and dust, because the explosion had picked it up off of the ground. The smell of explosives was present, I was used to those smells, but the smell of burning flesh was much more apparent and different then anything I had ever experienced (still this was muted by the overwhelming smell of scattered dirt and dust). The smell of burned flesh was like smell of burnt hair, yet exponentially grown by the scale of that terrible day in northern Iraq. This mixed with the smell of burning meat, though completely unappetizing and unseasoned. The only way I can describe the smell of peoples skin is that it was as if leather was left out in the rain long enough to fester slightly, and then it was burned, or at least how I image that would smell. The addition of the burnt clothing created an earthy smell, which was a mixture of burning leaves and grass/marijuana.

Still, no matter how traumatic the stench of death and violence was I mostly inhaled the terrible smell common in the urban centers of Iraq created by the burnt trash, raw sewage flowing through the streets, and the awful smell that the dirt and dust made as it lodged itself into your nasal passages. A not so insignificant part of the awful smell of Iraq was my body odor, because I lived in an outpost and showered weekly at best. Only that day the smell of Iraq was amplified by an explosion that wafted it through the air. Despite the stench, I refused to throw away my flesh stained boots, because I would spend a lifetime, if necessary, walking that smell away. After nine years and thousands of miles it is still there in my boots, so are the bloodstains, and the barbwire scratches I got rushing to that intersection on another night. That smell has also stained my very being as an unmovable and unalterable weight on my memory. Even during exercise my sweat pours more profusely than it did before and rather than overpowering the stench of that day the sweat contributes to it as if my every pore was endeavoring to recreate the smells of that moment. Stress sweat is more pungent than normal thermal regulatory perspiration. My body remains attached to the muted ammonia smell of muscle deterioration that comes with the body's processing of the stress chemical cortisol. I have smelled fresh cow brands and had a terrible panic attack. Anytime I smell burning hair, unseasoned meat, grass, warm sewage in a portable toilet, marijuana or the dust of the desert I am back there again: only naked, unarmored, helpless, and alone. My heart races and I can't seem to breath.

The stench combined with the chaotic sights, sounds, my internal dialogue, and physical sensations, though the smell was by far the worst of all my sensations that day (well that and feeling the weight and limpness of a dead flesh). Smells today are forever different and can send me into PTSD symptoms, often simply sicken me, or worst give me terrible migraine headaches. A lifetime of therapy and doing the right things to manage PTSD will never make that memory less burdensome. Although, I am still proud that I have refused to get rid of those boots because they are like my tattoos, a symbol of my commitment to deal with the violence I witnessed: to face my PTSD. Preserving my boots, even if they still smelled like that day in the hopes of walking them clean, was the first gesture of my efforts to face my burdensome memories no matter how terrible, with as much honor and strength as possible. The smells are certainly less pungent now, and the memory is too, at least with every attempt to understand and accept them. As if taking the time to remember that awful stench, or any sensation for that matter as it was, or as they were, reduces their terrible grasp on my life.

Remembering The Boston Marathon Attack: There Were More Heroes than Villains Today

A Veteran from TRWB using his shirt as a bandage

It is often assumed that the memory of an event is solely based on what actually happened, rather than a process that occurs overtime and through a purposeful process. Like many other veterans, this day was harder for me because all the images of carnage conjured up memories of similar tragedies. I have been watching the images and has sent me back to the aftermaths of suicide bomber attacks on civilians. That is my weight to bear and is less important than trying to make sense of days like today. All of the television footage of the explosions do not hold a candle to what was actually experienced.

With the shock-wave of high explosives sensations of heat and concussion hit you before your brain can process the image. So the television cameras are less of  an expression of the actual experience, instead, they provide an illusion of clarity. When you see people still running forward its because their brains haven't even put two and two together yet. It is worse for the injured because they are physically affected by the injuries prior to even full rationalization of what is happening.

When you come to a location after a bombing, people have almost no understanding of their injuries. The adrenaline of the attack will cover up the pain, but there is still such a look of terror. I was just standing here and there was this loud noise, heat, pain, and I am now on the ground. The emotional shock of the event almost overpowers the physical aspects until the chemical groups that manage adrenaline fade away. Medical professionals call this the golden hour. Shell Shock was the moniker of the First World War because it speaks to the confusion and chaos that goes on in the brain in the wake of explosions like today's. These chemicals often damage memory and will always make these memories difficult without the tragic nature of their content.

Watching the images of people on the ground just looking around aimlessly illustrates how the events are much more chaotic for people present. The capturing of multiple still images does very little to capture it. Just think of the smell of it. You never forget those smells and anything that reminds me of the smell of burning flesh make me sick for weeks.

Despite the horror and misery that these poor runners and bystanders absorbed today, no justice for the terrorist(s) who did this will make it right. The important part of the narrative that will diminish over time is the human capacity for compassion illustrated by this tragedy. It is important that we remember the good that was demonstrated today. Watch the video. One person or a small group of people did this, but before the smoke cleared people were running to help. You could see some bleeding themselves and doing all they could to save others.

That doesn't make everything better, but when things like this happen it is important to note that when one or maybe ten people conspire to do something this terrible, hundreds of people will rush into that danger to help others. There is no divorcing today's attack from the tragic impact it has made on the lives of the injured, but it is another reminder that their will always be many more people rushing to help. Some people have no problem doing terrible things to innocent people, but more people will fight to help the injured. In senseless tragedies we see the worst of a few people, but the best of so many more. It doesn't make the suffering from today's events any less acute, but it does speak to the human spirit and how we can stand in the face of tragedy. In the coming weeks we are going to be bombarded with what went wrong today, and I am sure there may be some finite oversights that could have prevented this. However, there were many more good people stepping up as heroes than there were terrorists using the misery of the innocent to draw attention to their cause. We would be wise not to forget this hard earned fact, that many more first responders and bystanders did all they could to save lives today.

Fighting the Battle For Your Indentity One Tattoo at a Time

The work of Jonathan Shay, on the Odyssey and the Iliad, illustrates the long history of the phenomenon of PTSD. Shay cataloged Odysseus's effort to return to an immemorial sense of home. Though I value the majority of Shay's claims, and I applaud his life long commitment to helping veterans I am however, troubled by a few of the approaches he has taken into his study of PTSD. He seems to wipe away all of the chauvinism in the Odyssey and in veterans as if it were caused by PTSD. This has real problems because, as this blog shows, women in combat are actually more likely to have PTSD because the increased risk of sexual trauma. Moreover, he portrays PTSD as a completely determinate condition that a veteran cannot be self aware of or win his internal battles. Certainly these symptoms are hard to shake and are permanent, but as veterans we do have power to fight for our identity and preserve themselves.

I think a key obstacle in retaining the best parts of our identity is breaking away from the aspects of the immemorial homeland. Certainly at war we use the concept of home as place for our minds to escape the harsh realities that we lived in. I often wish that instead of the figure of Odysseus we looked at the life of Aeneus. He was a Trojan figure who lost his homeland and was forced to rediscover and redefine one after the Trojan war. I wish that instead of trying to regain a sense of the immemorial home, we would struggle to redefine our home after war has changed our lives, and preserve the best parts of our identity and our values.

One way that I have fought for my identity, both consciously and intuitively, has been with tattoos. After the suicide bombing I slowly recognized that I could not feel anything but anger. I noticed that I could not develop a close relationship with anyone (accept other people in my unit) and I was becoming an individual obsessed with instincts and self preservation. I tried to go to church, but all of the silent prayer made me have flashbacks (my first serious flashbacks came at services) and all I could do was sit there and be angry. I could sense that I was loosing who I was and my value system. I had experienced other veterans who began to think of all Arabs or Muslims as terrible. I feared that I might lose my moral compass because of how angry I consistently found myself.

Team RWB

I had seen and experienced what it was like to watch a man's life end and I was afraid that I could never forgive myself if I ever took an innocent life. As a person raised in a religious evangelical family, I was a faithful person. I could no longer endure church services, but I wanted to express my values in a way that would constantly remind myself who I was. I started by expressing the hopes that I would never taken an innocent life by tattooing a double edge sword and the words god's breath on my firing arm. I could effect what I could effect, but I desired divine intervention every instance that I used my weapon. I had a great desire to never be the agent of the horrible things I saw after the suicide bombing.

There was something really freeing about that experience and it made it easier to grasp who I was. PTSD as a culturally negotiated and defined soul challenges our ideas about our self, but as a simple neurological phenomenon it damages the place in our brain that manages conscious memory, and identity. Both have extreme impacts on our lives so tattoos can become powerful reminders of who we are when the world that we know falls apart. I recognized the utility of wearing my values on my sleeve so when I was having trouble conceiving of them so I permanently placed on my body.

I recognized that with grace and perseverance that any storm could be weathered. There was a simple solution. I tattooed the words on my forearms and recognized that my greatest resource was myself. The left forearm would be perseverance because "the first rule in a knife fight was that you are gonna get cut, get cut in the left forearm" and reinforced my desire for divine help with grace on my firing arm. I deployed again and it was the worst year of my life. I had serious PTSD and mTBI, but I was officer and lives depended on my performance.

I was broken and worn down, but I had my values on my sleeves. My attitude was terrible but my performance never waned. I could perform my job, but everything was painful. I left the Army bitter and alone. I began blaming myself and thinking that is my fault that I had succumb to an invisible wound. I began to believe that I was letting soldiers down in Afghanistan. I should be better by now, right? No one would ever concede that I even had any problems because I was articulate and I was in shape. No visible wounds.

I began to really despise myself and believe that it was my fault. I was weak, a coward, or immoral. Three tours in Iraq as infantry platoon leader and Iraqi Army Operations officer was not enough service. I was letting my country and soldiers down. I was training Cadets and no matter how well I did by winning the top instructor award, I was not doing enough. I was not on the line fighting, keeping soldiers alive, bringing drinkable water to villagers, and safeguarding civilians. I could do more, I thought it was my fault that I was no longer fighting. Their was something wrong with me.

But this was bullshit. Sure the feelings were strong and survivor guilt is unshakable, but my logic was absurd. I had done everything I could, fought as hard as I could, and longer than most in my situation. An army officer who fought on the line for 20 months before company command is more than rare. An ROTC instructor who despite serious medical issues won the top instructor position has done enough. A historian working to challenge the notion that PTSD has existed and been a problem for every generation of American veterans is still producing fruitful work and still serving soldiers. Nothing was good enough so I  had to step outside of my emotions and look at what I contributed on paper. In writing.

Just like when my world first collapsed I had to give myself a visualization, on my body, that this was not my fault and in a lot of ways I am better. I was beginning to become open unashamed and even in ways proud of my struggles after my service in Iraq. I read Hemingway's "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, many are strong at the broken places." Though I did not yet feel strong, I again decided to fight for that idea. To place it on my body as commitment to myself and my identity. I also wanted to to use Hemingway because, in the end, he lost his battle with mental illness and took his life. I wanted to be reminded that even in a victorious idea that we, who have had our identity challenged by the crucible of war, have to fight everyday to preserve ourselves in spirit and in body. That this is both a neuro-chemical battle and fight for our own souls.

There is nothing wrong with anyone of us who struggle to come home. Tolkien's famous "not all who wonder are lost," is such a fitting metaphor for the long road home. I think it is a never ending battle to preserve our identities and I would challenge others by stating that the fight is worth it. If you have this conflict your are not alone, this is not a new problem, you are not weaker and the world needs people who have been broken by trauma. Tattoos are culturally ubiquitous in our generation but they can be a kind of cognitive therapy. An idea that you choose to embrace, even when you don't initially feel it, that changes patterns of behavior and eventually emotions. We can only spend so much time with our therapists, but our greatest resource is ourselves. So fight for yourself as hard as you fought for your country.

I would urge others to share their tattoos stories in the comments.

The Writings of J. R. R. Tolkien: A Tale of Post Traumatic Growth

The World War I generation is often only characterized by writing influenced by transubstantiation. Many of the writers who fought in the Great War never quite recovered from his experiences. Their collapsed worldview often overshadowed those who used their experiences in war as source of understanding humanity. J. R. R. Tolkien’s service in the trenches invalided him for years after the war. Despite losing two of his best friends and his immediate difficulties after the Battle of the Somme Tolkien utilized his experiences to create a truly powerful story. Rather than focusing solely on loss Tolkien found away to use his service in the trenches as a source of personal growth(This is an adaption of a khronikos post).

J. R. R. Tolkien was an outspoken critic of a young intellectual discipline of psychology.[1] His stories were often criticized because of their setting in the fantasy world of middle earth ignored the world that Tolkien lived in, but this view ignores the parallels between his characters and his own life. It also ignore the fact that the heroes of his tales, Hobbits of small stature that lacked physical courage, challenged the notions of ”Social Darwinism.”  This ideology dominated British jingoism and the early profession of psychology.[2] His two heroes Bilbo and Frodo Baggins challenged archetypes of masculinity while criticizing nationalists that attempted to subsume or overtake other culture. The Hobbits fought for other homelands because of their attachment to the shire.

Bilbo Baggins’s decision to support the quest of dwarves struggling to recapture their homeland would parallel Tolkien’s decision to serve in World War I. Moreover, Baggins’s selection was a purposeful rejection the ideals of soldiery. In his undergraduate education J. R. R. Tolkien joined a group of friends called the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (TCBS).[3] Like Bilbo Tolkien was a reluctant to serve and was the last of his peers to join up. He instead finished his degree at the top of his class at Cambridge and, though he could have easily taken a less dangerous assignment, he followed his friends into the Lancaster Fusiliers. Unlike his friends who served in the intelligence or in the infantry Tolkien became a signals officer, and would play a supportive role. When Baggins was selected as a thief Tolkien stated that a warrior would have been more appropriate, but the wizard Gandalf observed that the “warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands.”[4] Tolkien was no advocate of war but his love of his country urged him to serve and his friendships urged him to serve in a front-line battalion.

Like the Hobbits of his tale Tolkien would be constantly exposed to danger. Tolkien survived the Somme—which was largest battle in history. Though not serving as an infantryman he was repeatedly exposed to artillery inside of underground command posts. His insights are evident in the Lord of the Rings by his use of onomatopoeia for drumbeats of “doom, doom” inside of dank tunnels while being chased by orgs.[5] Even the poisoning of Frodo by the Black rider held correlated with the death of his friend Geoffrey Smith after a minor shrapnel wound proved fatal due to “gas gangrene.”[6]

For Tolkien challenged the “Social Darwinist” theories championed by Kenneth Spencer as well as the eugenic theories of psychologists Francis Galton, H. H. Goddard by his use of non-archetype heroes.[7] Hobbits broke the mold of stereotypically larger heroic figures, but their value system gave them a unique strength against the dark power of Sauron that stronger men could not resist. He also challenged Galton’s concept of nature over nurture by making Frodo the adopted son of Bilbo Baggins rather than the genetic offspring. Again Tolkien’s value of place as significant source of person’s culture and identity without justifying ones place as superior to any other. His mythical world was a nuanced of expression of cultural values in reaction to scientific and psychological theories of his day.

 Tolkien was also illustrating how individuals were corrupted by conflict and a quest for power. Bilbo and Frodo desired adventure and wished to help their friends yet the only ones to fall in their circle of companions would succumb to their desires for power. Boromir would try to prevent the destruction of the one ring and Thorin would succumb in battle only after alienating allies in securing wealth for themselves.[8] In both cases Hobbits strengthened by their values, which were a product of love of their home (environment), alone secured the a the quest’s outcome. Bilbo would broker an alliance in The Hobbit and in the Lord of the Rings Frodo, Sam and Gollum would alone reach mount doom to destroy the power of Sauron.

Tolkien’s precise critique of “Social Darwinism” and genetically deterministic psychological theories are only present within in a proper understanding of the historical development of psychological theories. For Tolkien WWI, like his stories was an internal battle of the individual’s character. One could not sit on the sidelines while their colleagues were fighting terrible war and their homeland needed them, but one should also not assume that ones homeland was superior to others. Tolkien said, “I don’t defend ‘Deutschland über alles’ (Germany over all) but certainly… ‘Alt for Norge’ (all for Norway).”[9] For Tolkien love of nation created empathy for other cultural understandings of place. His values did not praise violence, but equally would not abandon his friends and countrymen in their greatest struggle. His mythological world became an escape and means of expressing his own difficult experiences and values in relation with the Great War. Even in victory Tolkien and Bilbo believe it seemed “a very gloomy business.”[10] Most importantly, for Tolkien “The anxieties of war… stoked his creative fires,” and the culturally iconic figures in his stories also served as a social commentary about World War I.[11]


Tolkien did a few things that enabled him to grow as person following World War I. He kept friends who pushed him to succeed and who also understood what it was like to survive a war. The remaining members of the TCBS pushed each other towards continued success and used their loss as catalyst to speak for these who no longer could. In this way they leveraged survivor guilt to push they’re lives forward. Tolkien’s work was both a commitment to his own growth but also an act of morning. At my lowest I think about the gift of life that I have and the men I served with whom no longer have that gift. Tolkien also found a way to escape and express his own difficult experiences through the mode of writing. Fiction is often clearer than the truth and the sentiment of his books have deep insights about the nature of war. I would urge veterans to pick up his novels both to recognize his insights about war, and to recognize a figure that endured the worst campaign imaginable, and found a way to grow because and not in spite of it. Growth is hard, but Tolkien found a way. So by studying his life and writings you might find inspiration for your own problems.




Image credits
LT. Tolkien
Bilbo and Frodo Baggins
Tolkien




[1]John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-Earth (Mariner Books, 2005), 14. iBook.

[2]Ibid., 66

[3]Ibid., 23

[4]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Mariner Books, 2012) 27. iBook.

[5]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005) 441-448. iBook.

[6]Garth, Tolkien and the Great War, 271.

[7] See H. H. Goddard. See Francis Galton. See James C. Goodwin, A History of Modern Psychology (4 ed. Wiley, 2011), 215.

[8]Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 536. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 257.

[9]Garth, Tolkien and the Great War 77.

[10]Tolkien, The Hobbit, 267.

[11]Garth, Tolkien and the Great War 245.