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 Healing the Wounds of War: PTSD and Combat Trauma
by Susan Hannibal
The American military provides the finest training and has the most sophisticated weaponry in the world. All marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen know that personal sacrifice is inherent in the job of service to country. Sometimes the sacrifice is exposure to trauma that impacts emotional and/or physical health. Sometimes the sacrifice is life itself. Spouses and families of military personnel also make huge sacrifices and suffer "collateral damage" when their loved one is suffering from the effects of trauma.
It takes uncommon courage to face down an enemy combatant. It also takes uncommon courage to look your own pain in the eye and not deny it, repress it, run from it, or attempt to anesthetize it with alcohol, drugs or other addictive behaviors. You don't have to be a substance abuse expert to understand addictions. People drink, use drugs, spend money, overeat, because they want to feel better. Simply put, addictions are anaesthesia for pain. Unhealed trauma is painful, and it fuels many addictions.
When you make the decision to heal, when you decide to enter the eye of your own internal storm, you will emerge from the other side healthier, happier, peaceful and more in control of your life than you've ever been before.
The needs of the veteran suffering from symptoms of PTSD are unique. He or she has to contend not only with the menu of above symptoms, yet may also be resistant to seeking treatment for fear of career damage or being seen as "weak."
The military doesn't regard needing surgery for an appendectomy as "weakness" yet some commanders, ignorant of the neurophysiology of PTSD, insist, apparently in the name of "readiness," to instill the archaic perception that training and toughness can supercede brain physiology. IT CAN'T.
PTSD is not a mental illness. Nothing is "wrong" with you if you have PTSD, something HAPPENED to you that is still affecting you because of hormonal changes in your BRAIN, and those changes need to be put back into proper balance. Some veterans may have had the symptoms for so long and have experienced no relief with talk-therapy, group therapy or with medications, that they believe nothing will work. However, stuffing the emotional fallout of war doesn't work either.
What is Trauma?
A trauma is any past event or series of repetitive traumatic events, (a traumatic pattern) which causes us, when we think about it today, to feel difficult emotions such as fear, anger, grief, rejection, guilt, sadness, regret, shame, heartache, etc. A trauma is an intensely stressful event during which a person suffers serious harm or the threat of serious harm or death, or witnesses an event during which another person (or persons) is killed, seriously injured, or threatened.
Severe trauma can also result in a kind of numbness when we think about a traumatic event. In some cases, we may remember very clearly what happened, we just can't feel any emotion about it. That doesn't mean that the damage has not occurred, it usually means that the painful emotional charge connected to the event was detoured and pushed down (repressed) into the body/mind to protect us from being overwhelmed by the experience at the time it occurred.
Sometimes we have no conscious memory of the event at all. Psychologists call that dissociation. Dissociation happens when an event is too painful or overwhelming for the psyche to deal with, so our consciousness "checks out" in order to psychologically survive the trauma.
Traditional classification of traumatic events:
- Abuse
- Emotional
- Physical
- Sexual
- Catastrophe
- Serious and/or fatal accidents
- Natural disasters
- Terrorism
- Violent attack
- Animal attack
- Assault
- Battery and domestic violence
- Rape
- War, battle, and combat
- Death
- Explosion
- Gunfire
If the trauma is horrifying enough, or the victim is young enough, it might only take one experience to incur serious damage. When a person has been exposed to extreme trauma, the emotional and energetic charge of the trauma is imprinted and held in the mind, body and spirit. When part of the energy of trauma is stored in the body, for example pain or reduced range of motion in the shoulders, neck or back, that is called somatization. The trapped energy remains, causing an array of emotional and physical problems until it is healed and released. In the military, trauma used to be called shell shock or battle fatigue. Now it's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Symptoms of PTSD are generally of three types:
- Intrusive
- Dissociative states (emotionally "checked out")
- Flashbacks
- Intrusive emotions and memories
- Nightmares and night terrors
- Avoidant
- Avoiding emotions
- Avoiding relationships
- Avoiding responsibility for others
- Avoiding situations that are reminiscent of the traumatic event
- Avoiding counseling and treatment
- Hyperarousal
- Exaggerated startle reaction
- Inappropriate outbursts of anger
- Extreme vigilance
- Irritability
- Panic symptoms
- Sleep disturbances
Intrusive memories and emotions interfere with normal thought processes and social interaction. Flashbacks include auditory and visual hallucinations. Flashbacks can be triggered by ordinary stimuli such as a low-flying airplane or a loud noise, anything that brings to mind an aspect of the event. Nightmares and night terrors also feature aspects of the traumatic event. People with PTSD commonly avoid stimuli, for example violent movies, and situations that remind them of the traumatic event because they trigger symptoms.
PTSD Complications
Complications develop in people with chronic PTSD and delayed onset PTSD. These may include the following:
- Alcohol and drug abuse or dependence
- Chronic anxiety
- Depression and increased risk for suicide
- Divorce and separation
- Guilt
- Low self-esteem
- Panic attacks
- Phobias
- Unemployment
- Domestic violence
In 1988, it was estimated that 40% of Vietnam veterans had problems with drug abuse, and almost one-half of these veterans had been divorced at least once.
Phobias of objects, situations, or environments that remind the person of the event often develop as complications of PTSD.
Panic attacks can be triggered by stimuli reminiscent of the event.
People with chronic PTSD and complications often become unemployed because severe symptoms interfere with their ability to perform their jobs and function socially in the workplace.
Statistics show that PTSD is more prevalent among war veterans than among any other group. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey reports that approximately 25% of U.S. veterans, men and women, were still suffering from PTSD in the early 1990's.
Men with PTSD identify combat and witnessing someone else's injury or death most often as the cause of their condition. Women identify physical attack or threat most often as the cause of their PTSD. People with PTSD are at higher risk for developing other mental health disorders such as panic disorder, phobias, major depression, and other chronic emotional disorders.
What You Can Expect at Most VA and VET Centers, (Besides Delays)
The VA, (or any government agency, for that matter,) is not famous for cutting- edge innovations. Innovation, critical thinking and creativity scares government bureauocrats to pieces. (Look at FEMA and Homeland Security…remember the duct tape and plastic scare? ) The first thing the VA will do for you if you've got symptoms of combat PTSD is put you on anti-depressant and/or anti-anxiety medication. That is necessary if you're depressed, having suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, can't sleep etc.and you should take them under careful supervision of a doctor. The problem with drugs is that they can sometimes morph into long-term symptom suppression. Many unenlightened psychiatrists are wrongly diagnosing vets from Vietnam, the Gulf War and Iraq/Afghanistan with the mental illness bi-polar disorder, also known as manic depression. From what I've been able to gather, the reason they're doing that is apparently A) they can't cure the PTSD so the best they can do is manage the symptoms and B) if the VA can get away with saying the bi-polar disorder was there before you went to war, your PTSD is not service-related and the VA saves a ton of money.
If they try something non-invasive, non-drug, simple, easy, stunningly effective, fast, harmless, inexpensive, portable and solves a billion dollar problem but hasn't been "proven" by twenty years of "studies," they could get fired or worse, suffer the distain of their professional colleagues.
For reasons known only to the VA, they seem particularly drawn to "therapies" that inflict needless additional emotional pain, such as Exposure Therapy, Desensitization, various forms of ineffective "counseling" and Virtual Reality Therapy which is being tested. Their defense is that these methods have been empirically researched and the studies have withstood the gold-standard of science, the double-blind, peer-reviewed study. I don't dispute that. What I know from several years of clinical experience with over 500 traumatized clients, and the testimony of hundreds of my professional colleagues around the world who have treated thousands of people, is that these methods inflict needless pain and retraumatization and from a neurophysiological standpoint, they don't work nearly as well as energy psychology.
New Healing Paradigm: Energy Psychology
What is a paradigm and why are they so powerful in our lives? The dictionary defines paradigm as "a pattern, example or model." A paradigm is an accepted system of thought that most everybody knows and agrees upon. For example, you might be thinking that healing from the effects of severe trauma takes a lot of time and money and that it requires talking about and re-living the trauma over and over. Using energy psychology modalities, some cases of specific incident traumas can be completely cleared in a few minutes, other circumstances need one or two sessions. In certain complicated cases, perhaps a dozen or so sessions can transform your whole life. You'll be asked to rate the intensity of your problem in each section of treatment, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very severe. In this way, client and therapist both know immediately how the healing is proceeding.
You can red about thousands of actual case histories at the Emotional Freedom Technique website, http://www.emofree.com, click on "trauma and abuse." If you can think about the trauma itself or tune in to a less intense aspect of it, (that night in the alley, the time in the foxhole, ) the protocol does the rest.
What Happens During a Self-Healing Session?
When energy is blocked, the effect in the body is similar to the flow of a rushing river when it hits a pile of boulders. There is white-water, turbulence, and the smooth flow of the water is interrupted and restricted. You will be asked to think about or "tune in" to an aspect of the event or issue that you want to heal, and then rate, on an intensity scale of 1-10, the emotional charge caused by blocked energy that you feel when you think about it. EFT is done by tapping firmly with the fingertips on certain acupoints on the face, hands and trunk, while holding in mind the trauma or issue. The tapping releases the blocked emotion, restores the smooth flow of energy, and brings profound, immediate and usually permanent emotional and/or physical relief.
After a round of tapping, which takes about one minute, you will again rate the emotional intensity of your issue, and it will be less, or in some cases, go right to a zero. If subsequent rounds are required to completely eliminate the charge, they will be done immediately and the intensity of the issue will be rated by the client. In this way, client and practitioner both know how the healing is proceeding.
Client Confidentiality
Client safety, privacy and confidentiality are my foremost concerns. Guided Healing has no affiliation with any governmental entity including the military. All sessions are held at a private North county location.
For a free confidential consultation, I can be reached at (910) 717-4677 or ErasePTSD@aol.com.
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