"HHappy birthday to us:
We're an amazing five (5) years old today! Almost 1,000 entries about veterans, PTSD and the possibility of recovery. Over 200 recommended books and experts. And a lovely three-minute film, documenting one veteran's healing journey.
Along the way we've gotten some great training, involved some wonderful practitioners, and touched some veterans and their families' lives with an improved quality of life. We've also built a thriving community on Facebook, gotten some awards and accolades, created some merchandise about how "healing happens," and published an awful lot of good material (much of it by other contributors) about what possibilities there are for getting better, not giving up.
To give you a sense of what was going on five years ago when this started, here is what we wrote in that very first post, on February 23, 2006:
"Welcome. No time like the present to begin a blog dedicated to the resources for healing combat trauma. This blog is intentionally apolitical. War happens. Veterans deal with the aftermath of going. Let's make sure they get the resources, help and support they need. And let's get started on that...yesterday.
Just to be clear, this blog's focus is: Resources for and about healing combat trauma. The focus is on effective medical and psychological care, and the slant is apolitical."
Well -- some things stayed the same over the last five years. The intention, for one, which continues to be huge -- that veterans find some healing that they're unlikely to find through conventional means.
At the time we started this, it was the very first website devoted to PTSD and veterans on the Web. Truth. We searched and searched, and there was literally nothing out there -- though there were some good books from the past on it, and some experts here and there with their valuable guidance. But nothing on the Web, and veterans and their families would soon be desperate for any constructive help getting healed.
With that as a landscape, we started this. The name itself was carefully chosen to reflect the most core concept, that healing was possible -- and that healing from the trauma of combat was possible. We intentionally did not use the "PTSD" moniker in the title, preferring instead the three most important words we could envision to represent the problem and its solution, other than the veterans themselves.
After a while, other sites sprang up, covering different aspects of the problem -- most often simply rehashing the news or telling personal stories of their own war experience (both have value). Now, there are dozens of sites devoted to PTSD and veterans, of varying quality. The goal here has always been to be original, to provide resources veterans and their loved ones need to make decisions about how to recover, and to keep reminding readers about the importance of hope, without which it's very difficult to heal.
Over time, we were able to drop covering aspects of the issue (such as the legal and medical) because those were being covered capably elsewhere (not so in the beginning, when the landscape on this topic on the Web was quite barren). Today, we focus mainly on one aspect of the topic: how integrative medicine (the so-called "best of East and West") can help a veteran recover; and of course we keep talking about hope, because even the Bible says, "without vision (hope) the people perish." If you don't believe you can get better, it's very difficult to put one foot in front of the other to walk that path.
We also take pains to not endorse any one type of treatment over another, and we stay away from the hype -- preferring to research the validity of claims being made. That's been our practice and it will always be our practice. We also don't find it necessary to rehash what the mainstream approach is, because that can be found very easily through official channels. The VA itself, for instance, has an enormous PR budget, which it can use to tell you what a great job it's already doing (and in many cases, it is.) But you're less likely to find out about other options unless you come to a site like this, which contemplates many different choices, tries to focus on the ones which have potential for good and not harm, and isn't selling or promoting any of them, despite how many requests we get almost daily to do the same.
Over the last five years, the website has transitioned from being "just" an -- by now, enormous -- informational resource, to becoming an actual program, where veterans access opportunities for healing, delivered by qualified practitioners. We need your help making this dream a reality, so as always we appreciate your donations.
The short film, referenced here, shows how healing became a reality for one combat-hardened veteran with decades of severe, chronic PTSD. With over 18 suicides a day by veterans, and one every 36 hours by an active duty servicemember, it's clear to see that the "problem" won't be going away anytime soon.
And while the conventional system relies on the old, gold standards of talk therapy and pharmaceuticals, the need to continue to look for other solutions outside the box continues. That's what we're about here, and we appreciate your devoted interest over the last five years. We want you to help us make our dream a reality -- that any veteran who wants healing from PTSD can find it. Thank you.
