Veteran on the Edge

This post is inspired by reading Patience Mason's PTSD Blog about her new book idea. She asks, "Reality is that most people who come back from war, or survive another trauma, are not fine, so if that might fit you, here are some questions to think about: How or why might you be fucked up?"

Dear Joe Public,

I would doubt you were in the military or a veteran if you could not recite two or more times a curious and insensitive clod trampled through your trauma to relive his boyhood romanticized thriller of the military life.

For the insensitive thinking that leads a stranger to ask intimate questions, and then discount my story because it does not match the official narrative. Even though most know the television and government lies about everything.

I am not fine. Why the fuck would you expect me to be? Because my war was a little war and does not matter? I hear this all too often, recently and even from veterans.

I am angry and full of rage when not numb or heavily medicated. Hear my witness, in three days my brigade killed over 24,000 Iraqi soldiers under the Desert Storm.

When I got home the idiot box repeaters called me a liar further altering people's perceptions of me as unstable. Caregivers know the safest people in the world are standing next to veterans with PTSD.

When I got home it took filing seven times with the Veterans Administration to get a 0% service connected rating for hearing loss.

In 2005 unchecked PTSD led me to get stabbed in the face and precipitated a crisis. Hospitalized for two weeks in psychic ward and then transferred to a two-year intensive treatment center for veterans.

It took the ninth case, to get a 30% rating for PTSD. Without the support from the treatment center I would not be alive or have a stable life.

Fast forward past the bouts of homelessness, and over 12 hospitalizations for suicidal ideation, in 2007 and the eleventh case, I was finally awarded an 80% service connection for PTSD, hearing loss and tinnitus. Which seriously exacerbates PTSD and infuses the flashbacks and hallucinations with sound, when I am doing deaf.

Do not ever forget. I participated and witnessed in a massacre. For I cannot. My mother shared stories of our great-great grandmother walking the Trail of Tears as a child. I now know her level of sorrow, a lost Cherokee of an unknown clan, branded with genocide where the past meets the present.

Today, if I make perfect financial decisions every month I can barely get by. But, I am not only human and prone to the same mistakes and stresses everyone faces. That is a base for a veteran with combat PTSD, MST and TBI, welcome to our good day. Now heap on hyperstress and crippling anxiety that literally makes your skin crawl. Welcome to our good day. For a great day, heap on cannabis. I don't make enough money to have that the whole month though.

Why the fuck would I shoot bullet eyes when you ask, "Are you okay?" No, I am on the edge. Are you ready to listen?

Suicidal Thoughts: Recovering From the Darkness

NOTE: I am in therapy and have an appointment in an hour and thirteen minutes and will be discussing the below. I have a safety plan called Smoke Break if the thoughts become persistent. When I can think of nothing else, it's time to check myself in to the local VA, for the 7th time if necessary.

If a veteran admits they have thought about killing themselves, then they mean yes, hell yes, too much and maybe even all the time. We talked about the compulsions to kill myself in the last post. Now I want to address the buildup to compulsive behavior; the compulsive thinking and the many reasons not to live rolling around in my head.

If you are feeling suicidal or homicidal, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has helped me several times over the years, so call 1-800-273-TALK.

I have few close friends locally and family comes around every so often; my dog and a few friends, that's it. I do not want to keep feeling this pain in isolation. Been fantasizing about how ending it would 'show them' or how 'they wouldn't care' while stoking my resentments and devising a list of who cannot come to my funeral. The obsessive thoughts of self assisted doom have been patrolling my mind to seize upon my life. There's no loved one or caregiver here, or resources for assistance for a non-Post 9/11 and undeserving veteran. I don't have a plan, just unmet needs fueled by distorted and delusional thinking leaving me vulnerable to the compulsions to kill myself. But, such is life.

Along comes detachment and numbness to replace the physical and mental pain, a different kind of anguish that makes us relish the void and can last for as long as life for some. It's another kind of hell to be cut off from the out going person I used to be, that deep down my desire to be among loved ones out in the world is buried under the fears of loosing my reality to the past, cyclical thoughts fueled by petal to the metal emotions raging on and on to loose myself. Or yourself if you are stuck in this pattern thinking. Below is how I get through moments of utter inner panic, most do not see it. But, those in the know do.

If you need a therapist in person or over the phone, click the Give an Hour picture above to get you in touch with mental health practitioners in your area free of charge.

Chronic traumatization causes our survival mechanisms to become hard-wired into our neuropathways; a veritable surgical steel Swiss Army Knife of fight, flight or freeze. A constant threat assessment on the battlefield was a lifesaving skill to master, at home it can manifest in distorted and delusional thinking, a major component of chronic Combat PTSD. The entrenchment of our evolutionary and primitive defensive mechanisms makes us prone to reactionary and compulsive behavior in civilization. The evolutionary defensive mechanism confound us with cyclical and repetitive thinking that may or may not be grounded in reality. Over time I have been able to become less reactionary by learning coping skills, education on my condition and triggers along with treatment. I can attest to the plasticity of the brain as per becoming a completely different person from 7 years ago, it has been exhausting most days but well worth the hard work.

Accept that you cannot prevent all of your triggering events and see them as a window into your suppressed self. 

The compartmentalized part of the mind acts as projections into the environment as seemingly inconspicuous triggers such as the unconscious sensory stimuli exchange of a tailpipe backfire for a battlefield bullet discharge. The damaged subconscious suppresses the ability to consolidate past and present memories thus giving birth to the dissociative features of Combat PTSD; a phenomenon we experience most days. It will make you question your own reality. During PTSD moments our arguments may have paranoid and delusional components set within circular arguments and backed by defensive mechanisms. As we learn our triggers, defensive mechanisms and look into what our subconscious is trying to communicate to us we begin to see a perspective from the out side of the chaotic, we begin to see more options. When we get caught up inside the circle and the battle is on. Anxiety and panic attacks can be coped with to where they pass without making us freak out. Meditation and pray have been my greatest tools to work through mine.

Meditation and mindfulness exercises like guided imagery can give you the sense of letting your thoughts go, or clearing your mind.

How? Imagine a body of water representing and matching your emotional level from raging seas to the calming stillness of a pond. Start with was an open body of water with the waves matching the level of your stress and anxiety. Visualize the waves calming to the point of stillness. This tool can be used to gauge internally your stress level and as a way to self sooth during these moments. Where there was no emotional gauge before, now if I am out of touch with my emotions accessing this image helps me gain perspective again. Coping skills such as guided imagery and other mindfulness techniques help by giving us a visual representation of our emotions so that we may better self sooth our anxiety and stress levels. Keep practicing and remember is not about perfection, it's about addressing our dangerously detached and compulsive behavior.

I ask God to take the power of it and practice letting go rather then holding onto.

Part of Prayer is asking God's blessing, an oft looked over piece is the sharing of the burden. We do not have too onerously endeavor, a trick of the Defensive State of Mind is to believe that we are alone. The sharing of the burden is living a prayerful life, venting to God and all who will listen is doing His work. Do you think the Apostles and saints talked calmly to God? By sharing your experience, you are the change you wish to see in the world. Your footsteps blaze the path where many will follow

Maybe it's time for us all to begin healing, if in your heart you feel the welling sense of hope beginning. Please, do not squelch this; you will be happy again given time. Also, accompanying may be apprehension and a sense of foreboding. This is a normal response, you were meant for more than you have been living and your being resonates this. You will become what you dream, if you dare to accept what is in your heart and act soon, if not now.

The Price to be Superman: Combat PTSD

Hey, we have those moments that run into eternity sometimes it seems, lol. We must cry to grieve the part of ourselves that we lost in those moments when we had to hold it together. Who said we always had to hold it together? Did we do what was required to save more then we lost? That is why we must cry today, for in doing what we needed to do then we paid a price. Today, you cry for those who were lost. And for what we must accept as our personal responsibility in our actions as weighed against the incalculable absurdity of war (my account of one event where I accept the appropriate level of responsibility for my actions thus enabling me to work through that aspect of my war trauma).

We paid a price to be superman in the moment, to perform flawlessly for days on end without sleep to carry or guide our guys across alien landscapes as war erupted and ripped through the dunes. We were the super soldiers in the commercials they show for brief moments of controlled fear that required our full attention or people would and did die. We were kids with million dollar pieces of equipment with the most sophisticated weapons in the world shooting targets like the video games. Except, niggling behind the commercial appeal of the technology, we were killing people.

While I had the advantage, our enemy fought with a fierce zeal to the tune of over 20,000 deaths in 100 hours. These are the flashbacks that I have and experiences daily. It is frightening when I'm having a really cool moment with people and these images become strewn about their faces, trying to attach themselves. I fight to separate the flashbacks from the people in reality. At times when others act defensive or passive aggressively it triggers me, happened today with a friend of mine. What is the appropriate response to that, "Excuse me, but I need a moment all I can see right now is the bright red glare of vaporized people misting in the air."

Caregivers Need to Learn the Signs of Burnout and Secondary PTSD

You are not alone; welcome home to our veteran’s means something more profound then setting foot back on our homeland. For the combat veteran returning from war does not mean it’s a done deal; coming home. I tell a veteran welcome home to honor their continued sacrifice; the visions of war will never leave us and sometimes they swim in a deluge that reigns.

Add to your PTSD Toolbox

The panic attacks you are receiving are an attunement to the survival instinctual part of us; you have been programmed to react rather than rationalize in the moment. The deluge is the snapping in and out of reality; flashbacks, hallucinations, delusional thinking, the extreme dissociative features of Combat PTSD. The symptomology for chronic combat PTSD or Complex PTSD (CPTSD) has many similarities to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

Switching of personalities to suit the situation, thus the veteran will exhibit extreme characteristics not otherwise in line with "person we knew before war" (Dissociation of the Personality in Complex Trauma-Related Disorders and EMDR: Theoretical Considerations, p. 81-82). In combat we must compartmentalize our spirit or soul, our happiness, compassion, empathy and our humanity. We must demonize our enemy so that we may kill them. Later, coming to terms with taking lives, we trip over our Combat Values Structure; which does not fit in the civilian world. So, we make our home the war zone. Because, believe it or not. We know how to survive in here, outside those doors is a foreign world trying to invade. That's the world you live in now; I see you. You do not have to be ruled by it anymore. You can learn to take care of your veteran AFTER you take care of yourself first!

Go to a retreat for family members, such as When War Comes Home Retreat. There is a way out from under the oppressive emotions that chain us to our past; we survived not because we are weak. God put you on this path. What are you going to do with it?

Go to FamilyofaVet.com to learn more about the symptoms and signs of Secondary PTSD. Family of a Vet and Combat PTSD Blogger are partnering to bring together local resources that may not be available in your area; we aim to become that resource. If you would like to help click the link below and join us.

http://www.familyofavet.com/grassroots_team.html

Memories, Flashbacks and Dissociation as a Function of Combat PTSD/TBI: Experiential Research

I am a Combat PTSD Veteran of the First Gulf War, I saw hectares of blood stained sands strung as the death clock clicked, chimed and claimed 45,000 lives. I lay witness, on point for the 3rd brigade of the 1st AD and beheld the 20,000 lives my unit snuffed in three bloody campaigns lasting 100 hours. I drove for 172 hours straight without sleeping, yes that's 7 days, on drugs they force me to take. I can speak on the horrors of flashbacks; memories that materialize and steal my reality to those thousands of enemy soldiers being wiped out in hours; the struggle with dissociative features of Combat PTSD as it threatens to engulf me everyday for the last 20 years. Imagine you are having a happy moment and the next thing you know visions of bodies and carnage engulf your view, confusion rings and the struggle to return to war or remain in the present resounds and sometimes I do not know where I left off or began. So, I pick it up where my slipped consciousness puts me and take my cues from those around me as to the reality of the situation sets in.

Today I understand these moments for what they are, a window into a place I tried to shut off. I have learned that this window, when open needs aired out. So I feel it and go with what nature needs me to understand. To live my purpose is to find a way.

Just percolating an idea for a paper I have 25 days to write, title is solid. Just needs fleshing out now...

Do We Ask a Combat Vet About His or Her Experiences?

PTSD, Boundaries and a Welcome Home
If someone asks you to do something that you do not feel comfortable with, do not, you have no higher obligation than the one you have to yourself. You will not be able to meet the needs of others if you do not take care of yourself first, even if it seems that others needs may outweigh yours. In combat we had to learn how to take care of everyone at the cost of ourselves if need be, today here in civilization this can no longer be, as this world does not work in the way of a brotherhood born of blood.

Most do not understand that a person with PTSD, through no choice of their own has to deal with phantoms of their past encroaching upon every consideration and choice we make. Some more so than others to the point of crippling indecision that can trigger dissociative states, emotional numbing, anger and even possible blind rage. If someone thinks that asking us about our war experiences to get to know us has no consequences other than polite conversation, then they do not see us at all.

We can think about nothing more, than what we experinced, saw and lost, we think greatly on the person who we used to be and want nothing more than to have that person back. We want to speak freely again of the things we used to dream about, but we have lost that part of us to. We consider ourselves to be the lucky ones who have somehow learned to suppress that part of the night, where the unlucky of us find the terrors of the dark as they can no longer fight these enemies who have no feel or flight.

The next time you consider addressing a soldier or veteran about their combat experiences, or asking them if they killed anyone, or what it was like over there, consider what you just read. We all need to maintain and respect proper boundaries. No need to feel intimidated either, if you feel the need to say something tell them this:

Welcome Home

Book Review -The Haunted Self; van der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele

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.

Primary structural dissociation involves simple PTSD, and dissociative amnesia, where the Emotional Personality (EP) and the Apparently Normal Personality (ANP) have become disenfranchised or fragmented. The EP "...is fixated in the trauma and associated experiences....[and the ANP]...is fixated in avoidance of the trauma, manifesting detachment, numbing, and partial or complete amnesia" (Steele, van der Hart, and Nijenhuis, n.d., para. 8).

PTSD is not only about personal protection or self preservation but in its essence a mechanism of such endeavors, thus becoming a self-perpetual entity in of itself (the EP can develop into a sub-personality, a component of Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]). Almost as if it has become self-aware and not only will it steer one away from danger, but also away from its own demise; a seemingly serendipitous supra-intelligent guidance of the subconscious.

The EP has evolutionary roots in defensive mechanisms that propelled us through the traumatic experience(s), an inborn reactionary system that can become entrenched within the mind. The EP's success in our survival leads us to firmly identify with this part of ourselves and engages in obsessive and compulsive rumination of the defensive mechanisms and exhibits as symptomatology.

The ANP has become the mode of operation whereby the individual can engage everyday operational tasks. Such as "...attachment, energy management, reproduction and rearing of children, socialization, play, and exploration" (para. 12). To do so, the ANP’s main function is to avoid the intrusive thoughts and fear potentials.

In a constant threat environment, the evolutionary response system and the benefits of survival further encapsulates the differentiated states of mind. Secondary structural dissociation is a result of this prolonged and saturated state of being. A fluid environment demands that we engage in concerted efforts to survive, to do otherwise means death. Animalistic reflexive defense mechanisms such as the fight or flight response or submissive freezing, delve into the realm of “…complex PTSD or disorders of extreme stress (DES), trauma-induced borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorders not otherwise specified” (para. 12).

Tertiary structural dissociation results from the complete fragmentation of the EP and the ANP. Whereby numerous ANP’s can develop to engage different aspects of a persons life, such as putting on your “work hat” to enable the separation of a traumatic existence to a work self, the social self, etc. Here we find the diagnosis of DID, where traumatic associations or triggers have inundated the individual and submerges them into a function of constantly changing identities governed by situational exchanges.

Massive Block Grants to Fund Treatment for Combat PTSD

This post all fits together in some fashion or another...dissociation. If you want to discover my perspective on the whole situation, you will have to read all of the roads herein to understand your war veteran.

Dissociation is best written about and described in short and choppy details, blocks really well, because it comes and goes in clarity and can and probably will be anywhere in between. So, now try and keep up. Because now you must check the information you told yourself to remember and now you cannot forget what you just told your self too forget which gets in the way of what you would like to remember, ad nauseum.

The best way I can detail what this means for someone who has combat PTSD is to filter it through my personal experience and hopefully a bit of my wisdom sprinkled on. Since May 7th I have been writing about different thoughts that I have to get back into the "this is my life, again..." to the reality show that is my life. Have you ever watched one? You may wind up in some situations that will require your next move to either save your life, someone else's or die and not necessarily in that order. Better have your shit jacked!

I was writing about the conversation that made me realize the Central Thesis of This Website. If we are not helping our veterans who scream for help, then we are criminalizing the treatment of combat PTSD (More on this to come, hmm cool epiphany). If we can save these mens lives, then we can begin to treat them. Even though they deserve to be saved before they are jailed, become institutionalized, kill others or die at their own hands or police-assisted suicide. If we did not help them, then who's fault is that?

If we were serious about the urgency in treating our modern combat veterans, NOW. We would at this moment be unveiling a massive and expansive vision to triaging the incoming PTSD invasion.Millions going to universities who could put together grant proposals for full federal block grants. Put together a top notched stand alone proposal and you will find an endowment for the best evidence-based solutions in the treatment of complex trauma based on a holistic perspective.

Three years ago I said it when no one else was, "So, does that mean that it will be ok to have a 30-40% PTSD rate for the Iraqi War? We are now, three years into this movement and we must act now to save as many as we can.

If I had a title for this post it would be "Massive Block Grants to Fund Treatment for Combat PTSD." If we are taking the plight of our veterans and soldiers who keep falling, falling from mental wounds seriously.

Then we are committed to them as they were to us! Really, must it be a perfect world for this to happen?

Massive Block Grants to Fund Treatment for Combat PTSD, tweet it, Facebook it, past it on!

Suicide Bomber

A thundering explosion rocks downtown Baghdad, your body recoils at the deafening sound, adrenaline courses through your veins driven by a heart suddenly hammering within your chest. No time to react; the air expands with punishing force as the concussion of a devastating shock wave races through the afternoon air. It roars in your ears, slams you to the ground, snatches the breath from your lungs shaking every structure, and blowing out every window in its unstoppable path.

As you struggle to your feet a searing rush of heat sends you back to your knees scalding your skin with its suffocating cloak. No time to think; shrapnel flies through the air like a million angry bullets simultaneously fired in every direction. Twisted chunks of white hot metal violently crash to the ground like meteors hurled toward the earth by angry gods punishing all in their path. Your ears are screaming, a ringing so loud you cry out but are unable to hear your own voice.

Now on your feet, all around is burning; acrid smoke chokes the air and burns the soft membranes in your nose and throat. In a surreal moment, a gentle Baghdad breeze momentarily clears the scene… are those charred and grizzled shapes within the mangled wreckage human beings? Before you comprehend the horror of what you're seeing, another gust sends a curtain of black smoke across the morbid sight as though to shield the burning corpses from your gaze.


Your hearing slowly returns to the sound of frantic Arabic voices, police and locals swarm onto the street to load the dead and dying into the back of ramshackle pickup trucks. Just how many misguided Iraqis offered up their lives in Allah's name that afternoon? You count the legs, the arms... but the bodies have melded, intermingling in the inferno of the blast. Who knows how many deadly human weapons conspired to sacrifice themselves in that monumental act designed to kill you and as many of your fellow soldiers as possible.

You may not have lost your life that day, but back at home in the US these horrific recurring events have caused you to sacrifice your way of living.

I wrote this based on an account of just one of the suicide bombing missions my husband was caught up in. He says it's an accurate description but rightly pointed out unless you have been through something as horrific as this you cannot possibly convey to others the true force of the impact, explain the indescribable carnage, and the accompanying sounds and sickening smells.

Zoning Out

I sat in the passenger seat of the truck and watched the familiar landscape pass us by as we rolled along toward our destination. Ahead was our exit which I noticed we were approaching at a higher rate of speed than was prudent, and in the blink of an eye we cruised by our turn-off at a steady 60 miles an hour. I looked across at my husband. “We just missed our turn.” No reply. “Hun, we just missed our exit.”

“Huh?” he said, turning to look in my direction with a puzzled look on his face.

“Why didn’t you turn off back there?” I inquired.

“Why didn’t you remind me?” he said as if it was my job to narrate every step of our journey.

“Because we’ve been this way a hundred times.” I said resisting the urge to add “duh” to the end of my sentence.

“Sorry, I guess I zoned out again.” he explained.

At this point I ask him to "please pull over, I’m driving from here.”

Indignantly he responds “I know how to drive.”

I assure him that I’m not challenging his knowledge of driving, fighting back the urge to say; I just want to arrive alive! Again I make my appeal “Take a break, let me drive.” I say this for both our sakes as when he says, “I zoned out again” I know how serious this can be.

There have been many incidents that he’s told me about (and who knows how many he hasn’t confessed to) like the time he found himself in a parking lot not sure where he was or how he got there, and had become filled with panic for what he might have done while “zoned out.” Or the time he set the car on cruise control and then forgot to disengage it and wondered why the car was moving too fast to merge into traffic. Or the time he didn’t stop for a red light, or took off from a red light before it turned green. Or the time his attention was diverted by tire fragments, or road-kill carcasses that might conceal an IED!

So now I don’t take anything for granted, and will tell him “turn here” “turn there” and he looks across at me like “I’m not retarded” and I know he is not. And I curse his PTSD/TBI and how a simple drive in the truck could turn out to be the last thing we ever do.

PTSD, The Signature Wound of Modern Warfare

In this reposting I am explaining the split within the combat veteran that allows him or her to be "one person" in a moment and then shift into another completely incompatible individual in the same second. This manifestation of opposing self-states have become a common experience for those of us who have received the "signature wound" of modern warfare.

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.

Primary structural dissociation involves simple PTSD, and dissociative amnesia, where the Emotional Personality (EP) and the Apparently Normal Personality (ANP) have become disenfranchised or fragmented. The EP "...is fixated in the trauma and associated experiences....[and the ANP]...is fixated in avoidance of the trauma, manifesting detachment, numbing, and partial or complete amnesia" (Steele, van der Hart, and Nijenhuis, n.d., para. 8).

PTSD is not only about personal protection or self preservation but in its essence a mechanism of such endeavors, thus becoming a self-perpetual entity in of itself (the EP can develop into a sub-personality, a component of Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]). Almost as if it has become self-aware and not only will it steer one away from danger, but also away from its own demise; a seemingly serendipitous supra-intelligent guidance of the subconscious.

The EP has evolutionary roots in defensive mechanisms that propelled us through the traumatic experience(s), an inborn reactionary system that can become entrenched within the mind. The EP's success in our survival leads us to firmly identify with this part of ourselves and engages in obsessive and compulsive rumination of the defensive mechanisms and exhibits as symptomatology.

The ANP has become the mode of operation whereby the individual can engage everyday operational tasks. Such as "...attachment, energy management, reproduction and rearing of children, socialization, play, and exploration" (para. 12). To do so, the ANP’s main function is to avoid the intrusive thoughts and fear potentials.

In a constant threat environment, the evolutionary response system and the benefits of survival further encapsulates the differentiated states of mind. Secondary structural dissociation is a result of this prolonged and saturated state of being. A fluid environment demands that we engage in concerted efforts to survive, to do otherwise means death. Animalistic reflexive defense mechanisms such as the fight or flight response or submissive freezing, delve into the realm of “…complex PTSD or disorders of extreme stress (DES), trauma-induced borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorders not otherwise specified” (para. 12).

Tertiary structural dissociation results from the complete fragmentation of the EP and the ANP. Whereby numerous ANP’s can develop to engage different aspects of a persons life, such as putting on your “work hat” to enable the separation of a traumatic existence to a work self, the social self, etc. Here we find the diagnosis of DID, where traumatic associations or triggers have inundated the individual and submerges them into a function of constantly changing identities governed by situational exchanges.

Combat Veterans Bring the Monster of War Home: The Story of SGT Travis Triggs

Image via Wikipedia

Welcome home my brothers and sisters, welcome home. Thank you for your service and continuing sacrifices. I pray that you have a blessed Veterans Day. Below I mention Sgt. Travis Triggs who had lost his way home from spiritual and mental wounds of war. Sgt. Triggs is fast becoming the norm when counting the revolving doors and tours of duty. Imagine having lived through the horrors of war and in going home knowing that in all probability you will run with death again.

How would you release the demon raging in your mind?

I was just reading about Sgt. Travis Triggs again, for those that do not know who I am talking about he was the soldier who had 5, yes FIVE tours of combat, that shot himself and his brother in the head after a police car chase. He went to Iraq 4 times and Afghanistan once. He had never been in trouble before that day even though the media had portrayed them both as having violent criminal histories. Sgt. Triggs volunteered for the extra deployments,

My symptoms went away. After all, I was going back to the fight, back to shared adversity, where the tempo is high and our adrenaline pulses through our veins like hot blood (as cited in Times Online, November 23, 2008).

The article gives an account of a lost soul that had left everything over in a far away land where the blood runs thick as the bonds of brotherhood. He had assumed a culture of killing and the persona of a "combat self," a subsumption of the "Soldier's Heart," shedding all of the remnants of his civilian identity and connections to self and home. He had become the perfect soldier, much too perfect.

There is disconnection between everything that is human and the necessities of killing and what has to be done in combat. Imagine being in an unimaginable situation and having to do the unthinkable. How can this be done? A disconnection between everything human and having to do the unimaginable resounds in combat. For we must wholly demonize our adversary and in the process we dehumanize ourselves, whereas the monster must die. A neurological reprogramming engaging dissociative states and a compartmentalization splitting. In doing so some veterans and soldiers lose their way, not only on the inside of our mind but now they become outsiders in society. Everything at home had become foreign to him, he had become lost within a once comfortable environment.

The parallel contrasts to my article on identity and dissociation and Sgt. Triggs? On the night where I had lost myself into psychosis, if the police had shown up, or if someone had confronted me on my abnormal behavior, it would had became real and the psychotic break would have been complete. I was convinced that everyone was out to get me and I would have responded with violence to "protect" myself due to a warped conception of a perceived threat.

I ran out of that house and jumped into my car and drove away; drunk, high and out of my mind. Easily I could have been in an incident that probably would have resulted in a similar outcome. My death, an innocent bystander and possibly the police.

To survive war is not a relief, it is a sentence of grief, guilt, pain and shame from killing and surviving.

Let me ask again, How would you release the demon raging in your mind?

The Combat Veteran, Detachment and Dissociation

Absence of Prescence and Intimacy
You may or may not know that I am serving an internship in a legal setting. I have been struggling with the opening up and closing down myself along with keeping this separate from my interviews with clients, psychosocial reports and recommendations. Many of the clients I serve have similar backgrounds as myself, that being of course traumatization and retraumatization. The chronically traumatized person can become caught in a whirlwind of triggers, negative emotions and behavior while remaining detached from the environment and the reality of the situation.

When a survivor exhibits detachment from external stimulus and interactions, they have checked out and can remain in this state of mind for long lengths of time. Stressors within the environment that causes distress to the traumatized brain and can trigger the survivors disenfranchised memories, experiences and especially emotions. When this happens we lose a pivotal inner connection with ourselves and significant others. The loved one of a combat veteran can witness this disconnection in them by his or her facial expressions, body language and the absence of presence and intimacy.

Imagine the loss of this connection within yourself, the folding of the self inside out with this other self falling into an abyss. Continuously witnessing your central core falling and never losing site but knowing that, it, will fall forever. While doing this try and pay attention to someone in front of you when your perspective comes from a million miles away.

So, this what I am talking about. I started to write with the intention of explaining the process of opening up of the self to present during interviews and my work as a social work intern. I have trouble with the process of opening up concerning trauma, mine or others; its importance, where, how, when and the emotionality of the process, how to open up and close down. A disconcerted disconnection.

Where Seconds Become Days and Hours Become Eternity

I received this comment today on a post about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment from an anonymous reader. As always I welcome all questions, negative or otherwise. It seems that the commenter has some grieving to do and to identifying some resentments toward the Veterans Administration (VA).

I don't mean to insult you, but my father served in heavy combat in Vietnam for 8 months, and he suffered from severe PTSD all of his life until he died of a stroke. If I posted his experiences, everyone would puke. I read a post about something you said that you missed feeling alive in combat. This is not and never was a part of his illness or what caused it in the least. I just don't think that eye treatment would have helped him. It's not something the VA offers, as he was actively being treated by the VA just 3 years ago before his death.

My comment,

I am not insulted at all. Not every combat veteran experiences the same phenomenon while serving in a battle zone. Additionally, the veterans reactions to unimaginable situations could be polar opposites.

I do not expect everyone who reads my material to have a complete understanding of my combat experiences and reactions. Further, some people do find my writings difficult to read and troublesome. I have included a warning disclaimer at the top of my blog for this reason.

When I wrote the article about missing the feeling of aliveness. I was describing a psychological and phyisological change within myself. This altered consciousness shifts the brains entire focus on the immediate arena of experience. All the rambling thoughts that we incur in normal life cease to exist and all of the minds faculties automatically focus on interpreting sensory input. All of the senses sharpen exponentially and time suspends its rush toward the future, where seconds become days and hours become eternity.

I do not expect you to understand this unless you have encountered a life threatening episode. Please, go back and reread the post and try to get past the line you described. The entire article should be absorbed to appreciate my reaction to an unimaginable situation. I did not think that the killing was beautiful; I was in awe of the massive tank battles, the Apache Helicopters rain of hellfire missiles, the Bradley Fighting Vehicles missiles and cannon, and the A10 Warthog airplanes strafing of the enemy.

One has to distance themselves from that kind of carnage to do what needs to be done to survive and win the battle. Some use anger to create an "othering effect" where they assign a monstrous value to the enemy in order to justify killing them. In my case my experience converged on omnipresence.

The VA does have EMDR therapy at many hospitals. I believe that this therapy is new to the VA, so your father may not have had access to it. I have read some on EMDR and the research has proved many successes using this treatment. I am in the PTSD program at the VA in Louisville, Kentucky and have been considering going through EMDR treatment. I want to stress that not all therapies will help everyone. Thoughtful consideration on choosing a therapist will maximize the benefits on deciding what treatment(s) will the individual profit from. It has taken me three years of extensive treatment to obtain the level of independence that I command today.

God bless you and your father, may you find peace.

Combat Rage and What We May Do With It

I want the reader of this post to know that I am writing about the combat veteran with a severe form of PTSD. Not every combat veteran will fit this category, as a matter of fact most combat veterans do not fit this category. Even though most combat veterans will not experience this degree of symptomology, many will feel several of these symptoms and feelings.

To put a finger on what combat rage feels like and the disconnection between the veteran is problematic in that the separation from such disables the feeling of this affect. Try and imagine a time when you felt an extreme distance to your own feelings and envision, then expand it to a gulf. Now, the anger or rage we all have in us takes a matter of triggering by an extreme stress situation to disengage and embark on evolutionary defensive mechanisms; a survival fight or flight defense. Suppress the flight part and you are coming closer to the realization of fight or die, this switch goes off and now the training kicks in and you become guided by your warrior self, a world of black and white, a dichotomy of kill or be killed. Fueling this fire is the consumption of rage, anger multiplied, like an electromagnetic coil holding the boiling and broiling plasma of fear, rage and humanity in such a precise way as to be utilized to do what needs to be done. Kill or be killed without consideration of another's life other than yourself and your squad.

Now remove this person from the battlefield and look through his/her eyes and tell me of the total ambiguity and discord in society you see and now feel the fight within self to let loose the rage and exterminate all that does not fit the afore mentioned narrow field of forgotten battlefield schemata. Now the real battle begins, fighting for your life when you know the simple rules of kill or be killed verses and weighed against societies norms, now you can do nothing but feel the rage, fear and your humanity. But what do you do with it? Where do you put it?

In combat you project it into the enemy and forgot instantly as you spray lead through the use of controlled anger, rage and fear into a 'combat othering.' Othering is simply the development of placing oneself above another, the mechanism of wielding the tools of oppression in society, or death and destruction in the killing fields. In combat we place the supposed deserving of hot lead into the enemy, we place upon them the responsibility of our actions, we wholly demonize them to save our battle buddies and ourselves. Back in society we no longer have that repository to dump into, we now turn this shell we call a body into the demon, we become the demon, we are the demon. Now we perceive many threats everywhere, including the demon hosted by the facade of me. This conglomeration of selves is inadequate and maladjusted in regular society and can lead to chronically dissociating from self, community and society.

With chronic cycling through anger, rage, hyperarousal, and fear by a misattuned self regulator within the person, we can find ourselves succumbing to the demon without knowing why or how. Our world has been turned upside down and in combat we surrendered to this perspective, but back in society we still have this perception of the world that looks and feels "wrong" and having already adopted this vision in the battle zone, we still operate from this intense sense of right and wrong which triggers in us the demon. On the surface where we now reside we see only the ripples of a foreboding tsunami of emotions. The momentum of such a wave sends us roiling along until we hit the shallow end of coping and then seemingly out of nowhere the hundred foot wave rises above and rolls out over everything and everyone.

The veteran battling this probably does not understand it themselves. With regards to the rage and anger, this disconnect happens on several levels. One level we can feel it welling up and the fear entangles with it, which we can suppress most of the time, except that our loved ones will notice a difference in our demeanor and behavior. A deeper level we feel it slipping, sliding off uncontrollably, succumbing to an even deeper level, where all emotions and affect leaves and we switch over to our combat selves. We have checked out, no longer in command of our facilities and we have returned back to the killing field in all sensory levels except in body. Our mind smells, sees, hears, tastes and feels the acrid pending doom of combat, we have left our body and given over to the demon.

Hope this helped, it seems that the best way to describe it was through metaphors.

Fear of Remembering

A traumatized brain will construct defenses against remembering horrific memories, subdividing the mind into compartments, locking them away. When this has been done, emotions the most salient reminder of the traumatizing event, out of necessity will separate from the other five sensory memories. The bodily sensations, smells, images, taste, all of the senses recorded from environmental stimuli will also have been logged, but separated, wholly unrealized and dissociated from each other. Thus setting the stage for a never ending cycle of fear, avoidance, defenses and generating a transmutable spectrum of negative energy.

The recurring thought intrusions come to bear when the compartmentalized piece or pieces pierces through into our highly guarded and constructed reality. This incursion can be experienced as an all out assault on the person or a mildly disturbing and recurring thought.

Each of the compartmentalized parts represent unfinished or incomplete mental memory and energy, further complicating the survivors life. The split apart parts can have an energetic charge ranging from extremely low to explosively high. Fear of remembering, the "core phobia of traumatic memory" maintains a structurally dissociated memory imbued with a certain energetic level, which can manifest as a nervousness we naturally attach to defenses possibly giving rise to intrusive thoughts ranging from minor intrusions to acute dissociative flashbacks. In a flashback, for a moment all of the separated parts come together for an oppressive and harrowing reunion.

As the memories have not been fully realized and personalized can extrude into active recollection generating a unresolved alternate reality where the survivor relives the traumatizing event as it where happening again, in the here and now. Anger and rage can manifest from such an intrusion, but for the survivor this would be an inaccurate description of the palpable emotive infiltration. Much liked a flame attempting to escape from the grasp of its foundation, the survivor in a moment of dissociation extinguishes anger and rage as a fuel to fire a maladaptive defensive reflexive reaction.

Does the fire think about the source of the fuel firing the forge? The flames reach upward in a fervent and hopeless endeavor, a momentary expansion of bursting heated vapors channeling radiant energy in a quest of expending and consumption. The flame, having a preconditioned propensity for dissipation engages its primary purpose, a natural unrelenting predilection to push past all boundaries to maintain its periphery. There is only a surface connection felt by the survivor between the smoldering embers of the traumatizing event and the flame of raging emotions. Extreme defensive mechanisms upon engagement will now consume all rational thought and display its own surface charge blazing away until having been splayed and spent.

A Spiritual Experience, Piecing Together a Shattered MInd

If you are just now joining us and reading this post, I want to let you know that most of my writings here deal with combat PTSD. I have written about my childhood trauma a couple of times and want to update on where I am in therapy. Below I have put together some connections, associations and revelations. For someone without a traumatized mind some of these connections would seem to be an easy puzzle to put together, but for those of use who have survived, it is experinced as a spiritual experience putting together the pieces of our shattered minds.

Here I pick up from my post from March 17, 2009 "Thoughts of Nothingness We Now Find to be Everything":

Later, to defend against remembering an extreme trauma experience, I had convinced myself that aliens had replaced me, and took me with them to a better place. OH MY GOD, this must have been when I had the angels take me to explore the universe. I wrote earlier about this out of body experience, the angels told me to not look down. They were so peaceful, serene and angelic we soared above my body and escaped to a timeless existence flying away.

I never connected this phenomenon, the memories, beliefs, amnesia, and trauma. I had separated the information into the deepest recesses of my mind and compartmentalized them to guard against fully realizing the terror that little 5 year old boy endured.

I could not for the life of me learn my left from my right hand in first grade, I learned it when I was probably 7 years old. I was at a baseball game and my coach told me to go out to right field. I was ashamed that I did not know which direction right was, so I asked a family friend. He taught me to associate my right hand with my writing hand, so from then on I knew my left from my right. But, still to today I have to picture writing to discern which choice to make concerning left or right.

Another connection I made today was the problem I had with telling time. I did not learn this until I around the same time as the which hand issue. But, that was a digital clock, it was not until my young teen years before I learned to tell time from a traditional clock. I had such an unreconciled sense of time due to the "lost" time frame mentioned before, it lacked such substance that I did not trust "time," it escaped me.

I have had these thoughts periodically throughout my life, I guess when something triggered them and I would have a glimpse of a realization and memories. I never even considered connecting them together, it seemed to me that they were separate and not related. It was not until last night that I was able to piece together the memories and give a complete narrative. I did not see the obvious interrelation of these insights until last night.

I wrote this first on paper, in doing so I had written in third person conjugation and kept writing in this manner. I had to go back and edit it several times. Referring to oneself as him, they etcetera, etcetera, could be an indication of structural dissociation, an unconscious and pervasive referral of self as someone else. The thoughts of having been replaced with a "different Scott" is further evidence of the same.

I Write As I Am

Here in this blog I will be trying to relate to the public how a person navigates life with PTSD and how it interrelates to my everyday existence. If you disagree or do not understand, that is ok, sometimes I disagree and do not understand this arraignment within myself. The nature of structural dissociation of the personality leaves us with great conflicts within that can overwhelm our cognitive machinations and not only confuse others, and many times ourselves.

Many chronic sufferers have had childhood traumatizations, in the last two post I have been writing about my experiences and memories of such as it relates to my combat experiences. They have been muddled together and have not separated within the arraignment of my personality. Both have intertwined to wreck havoc in my today, as I have suppressed my past and now they find their way forward.

I write as I am, at times I find myself quite lucid and others not quite so. So if you find yourself confused, please ask for clarification and I will try and help you understand what I find to be confusing myself...

Deep Down Into The Marrow of my Morrow

I have been having these recurring thoughts about actually having to realize some honest to god awful truth about something that happened to me a long time ago. Before, it was just an intellectual exercise in something that I thought that had no bearing on me, other than some subconscious interaction that I knew nothing of. But now, I feel as if I am on the verge of remembering...and it scares the shit out of me. I cry at the drop of a hat, I do not want to remember...but, I do want to get past this...but I do not want to remember. When I feel intimacy and dip down into the essence of who I am, briefly I feel all that ever was, ever will be and ever has been. So too, especially after the feeling fleeting, floating away...I fell it until I fell no more...flowing away...I feel the sense of pending doom...a fear that resides deep down into my past, down into the mantle of my makeup, the marrow of my morrow.

I never knew that it affected me so, not until I felt that it made sense to go beyond. But, too do that I have to go through. I do not want to remember.

Who Develops PTSD from Combat

I received this comment at A Soldiers Perspective yesterday. My first reaction was to say, "What are you kidding me? Have you even read any of my posts?", along with a bunch of other really negative explicatives. But I had to back up and think about where this person was coming from, and some things my girlfriend has said to me. She told me that sometimes my writing is a bit obtuse (my words--yes a dense thick and hard to understand word to address exactly what she said about my writing, lol--I just love irony). I can get off into jargon and wordy wording of worldly...whatever.

So, anyway. I had to take a step back and realize that,

• one, my obtuseness can tend to be intolerable at times
  
• two the fact that I think from a practitioners perspective can further lead to speculation
  
• and finally, I have magical mystical thinking

which all could and maybe would be evidence that this guy might be on to something as far as someone making sense of what I write. Sooo, I had think about my message; to address the public and speak out about my life with PTSD and how that relates to my everything else.

His comment,

I really appreciate what you are trying to do for our fellow veterans. That said, I am not quite sure that I understand all of your writings. Are you saying that virtually all combat veterans will eventually get PTSD? There is no prevention. There is no cure. Furthermore, we need to hire someone to monitor all veterans for the rest of their lives to make sure that they don't commit criminal acts upon themselves or others in society?

My response,

I do not think that I said or implied any of what you suggest. An individuals reaction to any given trauma has a direct and indirect relation to their development, genetics, upbringing, environment, level of support, culture, level and number of traumatizations and a multitude of other considerations. Most trauma reactions will not lead to a pathological reaction. The implications of reactions to extreme stress have considerable ramifications to those of us who manage day to day with PTSD.

Structural Dissociation of the Personality

Relationship Between Dissociation and IdentityPersonal Attachments, Before and After Combat

Combat Attachments Born of Blood

Dissociative Spectrum

Do I think prevention is a viable cause? Yes, we can do much more to prevent PTSD than we do. Will this prevent everyone from getting PTSD? No, we train to drive a car. Does it prevent all accidents? No.

Fully Train Our Soldiers For the Rigors of War

As to whether a cure is to be had or found, that depends on the severity of the traumatization and the individuals response to it. Most with PTSD (simple PTSD) will become symptom free, others more chronically affected in all probability will not. Every person afflicted with PTSD can find considerable relief from major symptoms. Do I think that chronic, complex or combat PTSD can be cured? For most, no I do not. Do I think that we can find relief from major symptomology? Yes. I have had three years of extensive therapy (20 months in an in-treatment facility) and have resumed therapy again, with probably at least two to three more years to go.

None of the questions you pose brings an easy answer, if it did then we would not see the problems we see today. An attempt to fully answer your questions could be a dissertation topic, to say the least extremely time consuming and cumbersome. If you truly want to understand more, then read these articles. They address your questions,

Statistics, Effects and the Realities of Multiple Deployments

Combat Saturation

Experiencing PTSD

These articles tie together all the above,

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: From A Combat Veterans Perspective

Dissociative Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Influences on Criminality

Combat Veterans and Institutions: A Systems Analysis