Valentine's Day -- and coming up next week, five years of writing this site -- are making me think about holding the space of loving veterans with PTSD in my heart, and the "heart-ship" sometimes of doing so.
I was warned early on about this, by none other than Kathie Costos, who I esteem highly to this day. A few years into it, she wrote me in response to some problem I was bringing up, "I told you in the beginning when we first started corresponding that they would break your heart while you did this thankless job but the rewards would be worth millions for your heart. I told you they were magnificent! I am so happy they are starting to tell you how much you mean to them. That's really wonderful and even more important they are opening up. That is a big compliment to your work. They have a hard time opening up to anyone."
Well, open up they have...especially in a forum linked to this, which is the Healing Combat Trauma site on Facebook, and all the different relationships that have come out of that.
Mark Twain once said (in 1907) something that's relevant to us here: "Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection--that is the last and final and most precious reward that any (wo)man can win, whether by character or achievement."
Twain is (was?) right, of course, and in addition to the "symbols" of veterans' affection, I have to say that it's their trust that means the most to me. Young or old, recent or quite a while since they've seen combat, it means the most how much trust they seem to put in me. I have no idea why, but I'm thankful for it. A common refrain is that they've told me things that no one else knows about them; that they wouldn't even think about telling their closest friend. Why is a mystery to me; but I'm thankful for the trust they put in me, I guess, and I do what I can to honor that and preserve it.
In the past five years I've learned a lot -- seen a lot -- been exposed to a lot, and in some ways I feel like I'm still scratching the surface of what there is to be learned. Not about what helps veterans -- that's almost simple by comparison to find out. And it does very much start with listening and caring, though perhaps not in that order. The largest lesson seems to be how no one came back from war unchanged; and the variations in how combat affected them are as different as individuals. But the underlying expectation to start with is that nothing is the same as it was before; and that very many veterans long for...and need help getting to...how they were before, an "earlier" version of them that seems to have all but vanished.
While I appreciate the conversations I've had with Vietnam-era veterans whose humility, vulnerability, and long-suffering are to be commended (may they get the help they need and deserve!), I also hear the same sentiment from younger veterans. From an Iraq veteran, Marine, just the other day: "What wouldn't we give to feel 'alive' again?" The disconnect with their former selves is real; and frankly, psychotherapy and medication isn't doing enough to return them to the selves they've lost. If that's the gold standard for care these days, and it is, things need to be added to it to flesh out the whole picture, so that care is broader, deeper, richer and more satisfying (and effective) to the veterans. I would also argue that there's things other therapies can do for veterans with PTSD that perhaps even lessen the need for talk therapy and medication. Not eliminate it, but lessen the need for it; or work hand-in-hand with it for a more effective combination of solutions.
Young veteran or old, male or female, short time or long time -- these are some amazing people -- very deserving of our love and respect -- and creativity in finding solutions to help them on their path back to wholeness. Five years into this, MUCH more needs to be done. And not enough is being done, because too many veterans are feeling not themselves, to this day, after combat and its aftermath.
Editor's note: For more on Kathie Costos and her wise words about veterans and their families, one sample here, with links to others.
