PTSD, unlock so you can unload
by
Chaplain Kathie
First know who were and why you were that way.
As a kid your Mom told you "you're a good kid" and she said that for a reason. You were the type to always help her and your dad, the younger brothers and sisters and usually even your cousins.
You helped out the elderly neighbor when no one else wanted to bother at all.
You were the first one friends told their troubles to because they knew you cared and would not attack them for telling you what they would tell no one else.
Everyone you came into contact with, you cared about. You may not have agreed with them or even liked them but you cared about them. The "good kid" your mom saw in you was because of the compassion you were born with.
That pull inside of you to help out when someone was in need came from your soul and you were always doing things to make someone happy or feel better because it made you feel happy just to help.
As you grew older, your compassion fueled great courage. You joined the military, the National Guards and said "send me" to go where few others were willing to. After September 11th when this nation was attacked, you said you wanted to go and defend this country so that it would not happen again. Just as generations before went because their country decided to get involved in wars, most enlisted willingly. Even the soldiers drafted into service found it within them to use their compassion and their courage to take care of someone else.
It is this same compassion where your caring nature came from that PTSD found a way in to wound the part of your brain where your emotions live. When you walked away as a survivor, you walked away with the pain from others on top of your own. You walked away with guilt wondering why you did not die or what you should have done to save someone you believe you could have.
Some veterans are not done serving and they use their skills, courage and compassion to take care of others by their careers. They enter into law enforcement, fire departments as employees or volunteers and emergency services. Some veterans have mild PTSD and if treated, it does not get worse, they can go on with their lives, working, keeping families and learning how to cope with what cannot be healed, finding peace with it.
For others, working is impossible because the wound cut them too deeply or there were traumatic events followed by more traumatic events crushing them. Their families fall apart because no one understands what changed and they assume the worst that the veteran has gone from "good kid" to uncaring monster. They ended up doing more harm to the veteran when they may have wanted to help but just didn't know how to.
When you know what is at the root of PTSD, you begin to understand the fact you can heal with help. When you have help from your family and friends because they understand the pain you came home with, you can share the load to make it easier to carry instead of everything in your life falling apart. It's not that you want to share graphic stories with them and it is not that you have to talk to them about that aspect at all. That's what the professionals are there for. What you can talk about is what you are feeling inside so they understand the "good kid" they always knew is alive still but now needs their help to surface again.
You were there when they needed you because you cared about them. Give them the chance to do the same for you. You saw no shame in them needing help, and they will see no shame in you needing it from them. Help them to understand and stop trying to hide it acting like "normal" when they can see right through you. The only thing you are hiding from them is the reason for the changes in the way you act.
