America, I gave you my soul in 1991. I didn't know it then that I would receive a psycho-social and spiritual wound that not even I could see. Of late we have heard much on the common symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD in the media and the soldier or veteran, you won't hear me talk about that much. I deal mostly in the chronic nature of Combat PTSD and it's many flavors and identities as it relates to me. I'm all about talking about the mental, physical, social and spiritual aspects of where going to combat can take us.
Along with the mental health issues where I perform the equivalence of aerial acrobatics in a paper airplane with an elephant pilot. Yeah, go read that again. I have recently started taking a new anti-depressant, Lexapro to help with the seasonal depression which buffers the chronic depression this last year. Since I have a "sensitivity" to such medications I get the distinction of trying novel and 'off label' usage of medications. Or I get to be first again, leading the way with taking new medications where hundreds of thousands of veterans will go!
The year 2011 was a year of grieving and mourning; I went into an inpatient PTSD program in Memphis, TN. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a tremendous tool I was able to learn and apply to novel ways of processing my war trauma. Long story short, I was able to reconcile and mourn 5 marine deaths. In doing so it unblocked a flood of mourning for my grandmother, mother, father and friends who had died since 1991. The year 2011 was the year I took my soul back.
Other symptoms of the Combat PTSD Veteran? Toxic levels of stress hormones and chemicals in the body can cause muscle and nerve damage over years from constant flooding of the body. Stomach ulcers, acid re-flux, chronic bowel problems. Then there are the side effects from the medications starting with erectile dysfunction from the medications to treat chronic PTSD I take 9, down from 15 two years ago. If you or a loved you is not on top of your medications they can kill you!
Speaking of family and loved ones. We have the propensity to push everyone away and many of us will alienate the ones we love. Combined with a sense of loss of community, no wonder we are still loosing veterans at a rate of 18 a day. I have the gift of hindsight for all the good it does me in repairing some relationships, if I can manage to keep dodging those land mines! Yeah, the flashbacks. We don't talk about those for two reasons; one because they scare the hell out of us and two, most of us don't have the language to describe it
I do, drop me a line.
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
January 13, 2012
May 24, 2011
Turtle Women Rising: The Tradition of Honoring Veterans
Eli PaintedCrow,
holds a proud history from the Yaqui Nation and Mexican ancestry. She is the mother to two veteran sons and a grandmother of eight. Eli is an advocate for Peace and an advocate for returning soldiers. A 22yr Army veteran whose eyes were opened in her last tour of military service, while in Iraq. Eli has committed to bring forward the strategies used in this society to continue keeping communities separated and in conflict.[...]
August 22, 2010
Prayer and Community: A Shelter from the Heat of the Day
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| Photo by Scott Lee |
Praying and community; it all comes down to the most successful tools I have ever learned.
January 3, 2009
Update on Me, My Life and Chaos
I have been talking with some veteran advocates from around the country looking into the possibility of starting a veterans court here in Louisville, KY. I start a practicum at the KY Advocacy Program to serve indigent clients. I am certain I will run across some veterans in the course of my activities within the court. I just completed a class in social work and the law, my professor is well connected with the legal system here and everything seems to be coming together for the perfect storm and flurry of new found inspiration and direction by Gods hand. For who else could arraigned things so intricately so as to see no other way than to do his bidding? Yet, for most of my life I have missed his guidance most of the time.
School is getting ready to start and I have been doing some recuperating from all the writing that I have been doing over the last six months. The last paper that I wrote took a lot out of me, I struggled to write all the way till the deadline. THANK GOD for deadlines! Speaking of deadlines, I think that I have been doing everything at the last minute this past semester as a means to seek out chaos and engage the hyper-states toward dissociative states.
Well, such is the life of a combat veterans drama, at least today I can realize, accept and not let my chaos become me.
November 8, 2008
Combat PTSD: Relationship Between Dissociation and Identity
Lately I have been thinking about how identity issues have an integral part of becoming whole in PTSD survivors. During my research I found an article on dissociative identity possibly being a major part of combat trauma. I have experienced this phenomenon many times and once in particular I was at a party and found myself convinced that my life was a sitcom where I was the star of the show (yes, a bit narcissistic) and having just realized this I began to seriously question the interactions I was having and wondering what my lines were supposed to be.
Of course the incident was triggered through a drug induced psychosis (alcohol and marijuana), again a commonality in the deeper spectrum of PTSD and identity crisis; a further distancing with the loss of self. I kept going from room to room trying to get away from the "cameras" that I could not see, but was convinced that were there. I was having homicidal thoughts along with the delusions, I kept hearing voices that was telling me to kill everybody and was convinced that I could hear the "in studio audience" laughter. I was convinced that they were laughing at me, which I told myself, "of course they are you are on a TV show." This moment could have been the breaking point and I was extremely close to totally separating from my consciousness.
In the last quote you will notice that I was not using first person conjugation, but second person. This was a conversation with myself, but I was convinced otherwise. My self dissolution was teetering on a complete psychotic break from reality, where anything was possible concerning my behavior.
In a moment of clarity I realized this thinking pattern was quantitatively deficient and possibly a precursor to violence. I was scared to death when I had this brief awakening and ran out of the house without saying anything to anyone and I believe that this was the last time I had any significant social interactions in my second wives life, we where separated at this point and had entertained the possibility of getting back together.
Thinking back on that now, I remember blaming her for us not getting back together, when in reexamining this part of my life just now I must have been operating more from my shadow self, a shallow self that can dip down into the murky pool of delirium and insanity. It was my fear from the resulting brief moment of lucidity that made me flee, subconsciously I could feel the submerging actualities skimming the opacity of the break waters. Somewhere inside me I felt that I could not do the work I needed to regain my complete sanity by staying, so I left never to return.
Yes I agree that finding an identity would be important in recovery and discovery of self. I had not made this connection until lately, but it seems that a higher power knew of this and governed my arrival to this without me formulating the thought of this brick within the foundation of my life. Thank you for your part in guiding me to this realization.
Of course the incident was triggered through a drug induced psychosis (alcohol and marijuana), again a commonality in the deeper spectrum of PTSD and identity crisis; a further distancing with the loss of self. I kept going from room to room trying to get away from the "cameras" that I could not see, but was convinced that were there. I was having homicidal thoughts along with the delusions, I kept hearing voices that was telling me to kill everybody and was convinced that I could hear the "in studio audience" laughter. I was convinced that they were laughing at me, which I told myself, "of course they are you are on a TV show." This moment could have been the breaking point and I was extremely close to totally separating from my consciousness.
In the last quote you will notice that I was not using first person conjugation, but second person. This was a conversation with myself, but I was convinced otherwise. My self dissolution was teetering on a complete psychotic break from reality, where anything was possible concerning my behavior.
In a moment of clarity I realized this thinking pattern was quantitatively deficient and possibly a precursor to violence. I was scared to death when I had this brief awakening and ran out of the house without saying anything to anyone and I believe that this was the last time I had any significant social interactions in my second wives life, we where separated at this point and had entertained the possibility of getting back together.
Thinking back on that now, I remember blaming her for us not getting back together, when in reexamining this part of my life just now I must have been operating more from my shadow self, a shallow self that can dip down into the murky pool of delirium and insanity. It was my fear from the resulting brief moment of lucidity that made me flee, subconsciously I could feel the submerging actualities skimming the opacity of the break waters. Somewhere inside me I felt that I could not do the work I needed to regain my complete sanity by staying, so I left never to return.
Yes I agree that finding an identity would be important in recovery and discovery of self. I had not made this connection until lately, but it seems that a higher power knew of this and governed my arrival to this without me formulating the thought of this brick within the foundation of my life. Thank you for your part in guiding me to this realization.
August 20, 2008
Warrior Archetype
The military trains us to believe in self sufficiency in all matters other than survival in terms of combat. You know the ad on TV that says an "Army of one". As much as they drill team work on a firing squad, movement, and never leave a buddy; they also instill this facade of invincibility.
The majority of soldiers in the military reside at the level of ego development, where a good dose of identifying emotions and empathy would help negate the aggressive side that young men feel (Sugar, 279-283). In primitive cultures, rituals help identify the aggression and integrate this "warrior archetype" into the complete person. Usually along the way an elder mentors them and helps identify the emotions and differing parts of the psyche while instilling an integration of the differing selfs, mother earth, community and spirituality.
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.
They feel the egoistic interconnectedness with the military, the "warrior archetype" and the battle buddy who has been left back in the combat zone rather than with significant others upon returning. In this mind frame when the veteran goes home they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense as they have been taught not to process the five senses and emotional attachment imperative to social interaction. The combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on a reactionary environment incompatible with the development of long lasting relationships (Sugar, 287). How do I live in regular society if I am stuck in this malposition?
Young combat veterans coming out of the military may need help with accessing and identifying their intrinsic values and principles and the process of reintegrating back into society and reestablishing their new roles.
The majority of soldiers in the military reside at the level of ego development, where a good dose of identifying emotions and empathy would help negate the aggressive side that young men feel (Sugar, 279-283). In primitive cultures, rituals help identify the aggression and integrate this "warrior archetype" into the complete person. Usually along the way an elder mentors them and helps identify the emotions and differing parts of the psyche while instilling an integration of the differing selfs, mother earth, community and spirituality.
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.
They feel the egoistic interconnectedness with the military, the "warrior archetype" and the battle buddy who has been left back in the combat zone rather than with significant others upon returning. In this mind frame when the veteran goes home they become lost in a world that no longer makes sense as they have been taught not to process the five senses and emotional attachment imperative to social interaction. The combat veterans mind acts as if their life depends on a reactionary environment incompatible with the development of long lasting relationships (Sugar, 287). How do I live in regular society if I am stuck in this malposition?
Young combat veterans coming out of the military may need help with accessing and identifying their intrinsic values and principles and the process of reintegrating back into society and reestablishing their new roles.
August 16, 2008
Dr. King's Light and my Emergence
I wrote this in 2001 about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a hero of mine. This paper was written at the beginning of my convergence and symbolizes the subsequent emergence of my true path. Dr. King had the courage to face the world:
Dr. King was assassinated in the year that I was born. His journey did not end on April 4, 1968; it was the beginning of his eternal message of hope. It was his contemplations of ancient to modern philosophies that aided his understanding of the message that he felt compelled to deliver. Which was the rediscovering of oneself. The form of his martyrdom would be solidified on this basis. His connection with spreading the word of "Rediscovering precious values" (Estate of Dr. King, documents), gave him a basis for wielding forgiveness, that being one of these virtues and his greatest asset. His belief of moral implications inherent in the universe, a universal law of right and wrong, held him on his path to enlightenment of the world.
In a sermon addressing his uncle's church at Detroit's Second Baptist Church, Dr. King said "We don't jump off the highest building...because...[the] law of gravitation...is final,...If we disobey it, we suffer..." He spoke in a sense of a lost generation. That we have an attitude of being owed something and warned us of filling this void with material things, which could lead us to stumble over what is not within us. He commanded that we fill our selves with the integration of the mind and soul, to commit to being a complete identity. To live as a human being means to develop into more than we are, through a cause connected to who we are and what we become no matter the consequences of these moral virtues.
In his last speech Dr. King talked of the threats against his life, without saying the words he found forgiveness for his fellow brother who snuffed his life. He found the place in his heart that allowed him to become more than he was, to demand for his dreams to take place among the stars. He became one with the universe as a noble being and claimed our brotherhood for all, through his first consideration of being.
Dr. King was assassinated in the year that I was born. His journey did not end on April 4, 1968; it was the beginning of his eternal message of hope. It was his contemplations of ancient to modern philosophies that aided his understanding of the message that he felt compelled to deliver. Which was the rediscovering of oneself. The form of his martyrdom would be solidified on this basis. His connection with spreading the word of "Rediscovering precious values" (Estate of Dr. King, documents), gave him a basis for wielding forgiveness, that being one of these virtues and his greatest asset. His belief of moral implications inherent in the universe, a universal law of right and wrong, held him on his path to enlightenment of the world.
In a sermon addressing his uncle's church at Detroit's Second Baptist Church, Dr. King said "We don't jump off the highest building...because...[the] law of gravitation...is final,...If we disobey it, we suffer..." He spoke in a sense of a lost generation. That we have an attitude of being owed something and warned us of filling this void with material things, which could lead us to stumble over what is not within us. He commanded that we fill our selves with the integration of the mind and soul, to commit to being a complete identity. To live as a human being means to develop into more than we are, through a cause connected to who we are and what we become no matter the consequences of these moral virtues.
In his last speech Dr. King talked of the threats against his life, without saying the words he found forgiveness for his fellow brother who snuffed his life. He found the place in his heart that allowed him to become more than he was, to demand for his dreams to take place among the stars. He became one with the universe as a noble being and claimed our brotherhood for all, through his first consideration of being.
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