Get shame out of the way of healing PTSD

I just flew back home from the United Female Veterans Convention in St. Louis. It seems no matter where I go, the main topic of conversation is PTSD. Most of the time I try to just listen thinking that one of these days I'll hear something new, something hopeful, but there is really so little new begin done.

Sitting in the airport waiting for the flight, I sat next to a young man with a very shot hair cut. Not wanting to assume anything I stopped myself from wanting to ask if he was in the military. He saw my Chaplain shirt and we began to talk. My first impression was correct and he was a Marine. He is training for deployment. We sat together on the flight. This was very hopeful. He told me of some of his friends on a 4th deployment and how some people he knew came back changed. The hopeful part is the attitude this young man had. He had knowledge, faith and an abundance of compassion for his brothers in the Marines. This generation is more aware of PTSD and in that there is hope.

Talking to him was a much needed event for me. I had received an email from the wife of a veteran I did a post on, taken from Time magazine online. At least that is what I gathered from her email. It was not filled with much information but she seemed bent out of shape that I posted what was on Time. I can only assume her husband must have PTSD. Given the fact Screaming In An Empty Room blog has almost 10.000 post and this one has over 2.000, it's pretty hard to guess who this person is. My problem is that there are still people out there who don't get it. They don't understand that there is no shame in having PTSD and loving someone who does have it, as I do, should be worn as a badge of honor. Emails like this bother me incredibly.

Let's assume for now that this woman's husband told his PTSD story to Time. Evidently there must be no shame in him or he wouldn't have told his story. How could there be any shame in being wounded? How could there be any shame in serving your country, stepping up and doing what you believe you were called to do and then have the government refuse to take care of you? It's the government that should be ashamed and not the veterans who have been wounded simply because they were willing to serve. How could a wife be so ashamed that she would complain about a post being done taken from a publication the size of Time magazine? This kind of attitude makes me always question the work I do to the point where I wonder if it's worth it or not.

All these years, dedicating my time and energy to do whatever I can for these veterans, for free, and some people would rather attack me for doing it. Everything I post is public information. No email gets posted unless the veteran asks me to make their story public and usually that's done so they can let others know they are not alone. There are only a few veterans I can think of who wanted their story public. It is always up to the veteran. The PTSD veterans going public, to me, are heroes in all of this. They will be the reason the stigma of PTSD vanishes and lives will be saved. Advocates like me across the country have been doing this since veterans came home from Vietnam. I've only been in this for 25 years but others have been in it since early 70's telling their stories and trying to change the minds of the general public. Most of us have very little regret except the fact that there are still too many in this country and around the world still thinking there is a reason to feel any kind of shame. I'm sure the others feel the same way that we will not give up until every veteran and every person with PTSD is treated with the same kind of compassion we would treat any wounded person with. It will be a wonderful day on this planet that every person with any kind of mental illness would be treated properly but we are far from it. NAMI gives me hope that this will happen one day because of all the dedicated people working on this around the country.

I have a lot of posts to catch up on but I wanted to get this out first. I want to ask all of my readers to keep this post in mind the next time they hear anyone with any kind of shame in their voice to address it. We must eliminate any kind of shame from PTSD so that the wounded can be helped as soon as possible without hesitation. The longer they wait because shame is standing in their way is time lost forever. If they are ready this second then this is the second the help should begin and they don't need someone clinging onto shame getting in their way.