Where were you when you first learned of the attacks of 9/11? What did you do next? Did you call friends or family to find out if they were OK? As the days and weeks past, did you exchange stories with acquaintances and friends? For many of us, simply talking about the tragedy helped us process the loss. Tales of bravery and selflessness helped to balance the inhumanity of the suicide attacks. The more we shared our stories, the more connected we felt.
Unfortunately our culture doesn’t seem as comfortable with the tales of warriors. There seems to be a split between those that sacrifice for their nation and those of us that stay home. How can we bridge that divide? When I first volunteered I had to go to the hospital for my PPD test and to fill out forms. The hospital is the size of a small town, in a parallel universe alongside. Many of the clients down the hill from the hospital complex, live nearby for easy access to medical treatment and housing opportunities. Coming from a Shoreline community where there is no evident military presence, I was shocked by this large community devoted to the rehabilitation of our armed forces. In addition to helping individual veterans through the practice of yoga mindfulness and relaxation, I began to see the importance of acting as a witness to this hidden community of patriots.
PTSD leaves its mark on generations and the sooner we recognize this stress pervading our globe and deal with it mindfully, perhaps the more humanely we can welcome our current warriors home and the more carefully we will consider entering armed conflicts in the future.
Veterans and mental-health experts shared their perspectives and research on post-traumatic stress disorder, resilience, and the human experience of war in a heart warming and heart breaking 4 person panel. One of the presenters is a national expert on war-related mental health issues who was deployed to Iraq in 2004 to improve combat stress care. His book, Once a Warrior Always a Warrior, Hoge incorporates the personal stories of veterans to describe PTSD, Combat Stress, and mTBI and to suggest pathways to navigate the journey home. Reading down the first page of the table of contents, a majority of topics could be headers in a mindfulness text: Become more aware of your reactions ; Learn to accept your reactions without judgment or anger; Improve physical conditioning and relax muscle tension; Improve sleep; Learn to pay attention to your physiological reactions and anxiety level; Learn to pay attention to your feelings and emotions; Create space between your reactions to stressful events and behaviors; Learn to monitor and eliminate “should” and related words or phrases; Notice your breathing; Improve your focus and attention through meditation and mindfulness.
A former veteran himself and a Peer Specialist where I teach yoga, was also a member of the panel. He has become a touchstone for me to make sure that my services are as helpful as possible to my students. His most helpful reminder is that the more I learn about PTSD, the easier it is to assume I know what is going on for a student. Stop right there! Listen! Each veteran knows their own concerns better than I ever will! Each person has personal priorities and goals and tuning in to their needs is the only way to proceed. One gentleman needs to get a license and access to a car so he can visit his mother, another wants to sleep more peacefully, and so on.
Yoga can help rewire our brains and counteract the floods of cortisol that put a well trained warrior on permanent alert. Anger is a useful emotion in battle and we train our soldiers to cultivate their righteous wrath. This isn’t as useful in daily civilian life and mindfulness training can make us more aware of when the emotion arises, how it feels (and injures our physical bodies), and give us time and mental space to choose how to react to it. The adrenaline rush of saving one’s comrades from danger every day makes civilian life pale in worthiness. The pettiness of civilian complaints may seem absurd, while the sense of danger, or arousal at loud noises, in crowds, or in traffic may be heightened. Individuals have multiple ways of coping with this transition, retraining themselves for civilian existence. Some fill their days with multiple jobs and obligations to recreate the sense of worthiness they may have felt over seas. Others self medicate with alcohol or drugs (effective in the short run, but obviously not a healthy solution).
My role, however, is to see beyond these stereotypes to the individuals in my classes. Letting go of the clinical descriptions liberates me to help my students view their own issues with more clarity and to find creative coping skills. They usually know what helps them, if I take the time to listen. Sometimes a safe place to be quiet and listen to their own soft, knowing voice is what is most needed. My role is to provide safety and compassion. The warrior has the intelligence and self knowledge to make a mentally sound transition to civilian life once his or her difficulty is acknowledged and accepted. It’s not easy and no one should have to go it alone, but I’m sure it is possible.
One of the most striking emotions veterans, and I believe civilians as well, suffer in the aftermath of conflict is survivor’s guilt. Combat soldiers regret they couldn’t have done more to protect their peers. Veterans in support roles feel shame that they weren’t in harm’s way. I spoke to a Vietnam volunteer who was sent over to join a ship. When he arrived, the ship was instructed to bring the men back to the US. The volunteer felt guilty that he was sailing away from harm with a boatload of drafted men that had risked their lives.
