Combat PTSD: A Love Story That Doesn't Have To End

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 8, 2014

Today is the Veterans Day Parade in Orlando Florida. As I'm getting ready to head out there I'm thinking about how many veterans won't be there to see the massive celebration to honor what they did for us. After all, while they carry the title of Veteran everyday of the year, there are only three times the rest of the country takes time out for them.

Memorial Day is the day we honor those who gave their lives serving this country but we don't remember those who died because they served. We don't remember the families left behind after their families paid the price following suicides, divorces and breakups that didn't need to happen. Far too many citizens treat this day as the kick off to the summer with parties and cookouts but you'll see families at the local cemetery. We remember what the day is all about.

July 4th is the day we celebrate our independence and the brave citizens who fought to gain it but we tend to forget the generations following them doing whatever was needed to retain that freedom ever since those days when loyalists to the crown were trying to kill the patriots.

Then it is the one day out of the year where it is all about Veterans. Veterans Day never changes. It is always November 11th. The other days of the year, they are on their own until some news scoop breaks and the rest of the country hears about their struggles trying to get help and benefits they earned. For families, it is with us everyday.

The days are hard for far too many but as they years go by, we forget about the generations before the new veterans had the same struggles and hardships. Some think Combat PTSD is new but research went into full swing in the 70's even though the UK started to study it during WWI, a hundred years ago.

By the time I met my husband, I was the daughter of a Korean War veteran and niece to several WWII veterans. I ended up marrying a Vietnam veteran and we've been married 30 years.

I can tell you that PTSD is a love story that doesn't end. May sound strange but that is exactly what it is. It comes from what we love most about them. It comes from what is in their souls. The very thing we love most about them is destroying them. It is also the same thing that can help them heal.

It is their capacity to love. Some folks feel more strongly than others, more deeply and unselfishly. Usually they end up feeling pain more strongly as well. They take the pain of others with them and then they take the pain they inflict on their families onto their shoulders even though it isn't their fault. The blame belongs to that same soul being sent into hell and thrown back into the foreign world they used to belong in.

Sometimes they have the notion that they are evil because of the things they had to do and what they had to see. It is hard to imagine a loving God when everything they saw was about killing yet at the same time, without noticing, there were loving, tender moments happening to prove that God was stronger than the worst man can do.

A hand reaching out to help and to comfort did not always require words. Sometimes there were no words capable of reflecting true, pure emotions that survived the horrors. A tear shed in silence as the smoke cleared and the carnage lay before them. Every emotion felt showed that God was right there and the love inside of them was so strong it survived.

That same love that caused them to be willing to die for the sake of others coupled with an abundance of courage few others possess, are the things we were drawn to.

It is all still there, buried under pain, even though they no longer see all that is good within them.

We can. We can see it as clearly as we always did if we understand where to look. If we know what caused them to change are the same things that can help them to change again. That strength is key to healing as much as it was what unlocked the door to PTSD getting inside of them.

They don't need to tell you everything that happened, anymore than they are willing to share, but they do need to let you know they are hurting otherwise you may think they are just acting like a jerk or think they just don't love you anymore. Been there and done that even though I knew all along what PTSD was and what it caused.

If you understand it, then you have a tool to fight against what you may think and stop blaming them as much as you're able to stop blaming yourself. If you have no clue then human nature searches for answers, reasons for everything falling apart.

If you have no one to talk to, no one understanding, then it is easy to accept their knee jerk solution of "get divorced" as the way out instead of telling you how to fight for those you love with the same courage as they fought for those they loved.

Do you love him/her? Do you really love them? Do you have the commitment within you or did you just imagine it when everything was wonderful?

Love is always a test but when you love a veteran, it is tested far beyond where civilians are asked to go. We have all the same problems they do but we have to fight their yesterdays everyday.

If you remember what love is, then this is a love story that doesn't have to end. Everything you loved is still there inside of them and they need you to help them to find themselves again.

Do you love or did you just imagine you did?

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.