Had this conversation just now with a Vietnam combat veteran, who struggled for decades with severe and chronic PTSD. (Read about him in the "Eyewitness to Combat" section. It's gripping...)
It's been almost two years now since we first started talking, and I was looking back on how very much he'd changed. The most noticeable thing to me is how consistent he is now, along with the much lower intensity of the darkness and despair. Back then, when he was suicidal, it was a constant feature. I never knew from one conversation to the next whether that would be our last talk, so close to the edge he was. But that was a phase...and the phase changed, and the "mood" of that phase "lifted," and now I can look back and think how very long ago that seems, even though it was "just" two years ago.
In trying to find words to convey how much I'd seen him changed, I found the analogy of a staircase, maybe one with gigantic stone steps. It seemed that though he was still climbing -- we all are, of course -- he'd cleared those gigantic steps found at the absolute bottom and walked up a few more as well. Now when he slides back down, as we all do, also to some degree -- he no longer hits rock bottom --- so it might still be low, but it's much farther up from where he was, and that progress he made, he gets to keep.
He agreed, and said that it wasn't so much that the demon of despair wasn't there anymore, as that it was something he could now overcome. "Healing," he said, "is when you're able to use what you've been taught" from all those hard experiences. And one of the most key, is not to give up, but to do what you know to do. Whether it's to stay on the lowest dosage of the medications that keep you functional; or the healing techniques you know can help -- whether by going to a practitioner, or even the ones you can practice yourself. And ideally both: appropriate medication AND healing work. Together: an excellent, therapeutic combination. Singly? Not so much. It's like there's something missing...and there is. Synergy, for one thing.
St. Patrick's Day is this vet's "Alive Day," or as he used to call it, his "Kill Day." The day that everyone else was shot or killed, and he was shot and almost died, and barely didn't. Not a major celebration in his life; one with a whole lot of guilt for surviving, and one guy in particular who died who was a short-timer, and went into the fight with him because of their friendship.
St. Patrick's Day last year, this vet was doing great. On his medication AND doing healing work. Pleasant, engaged, out in public (even in crowded places), managing, letting his whole personality out, the bad as well as the substantial good. Major progress.
This year, St. Patrick's Day, not so much. Kinda "backslid," as the old churches would say. Had abruptly stopped his medication, because he wanted to "feel again," or "feel more." And what he felt wasn't so pleasant for him or anyone he was around. His personality was coming out then too: but it was the dark side, with only glimmers of the light.
That was a learning experience, for everyone. Get back on the meds, but don't stop the healing work either. They're BOTH important. They both produce the synergy necessary. With both, he says, he's able to stabilize; see the triggers and the red flags for what they are, but not react in the same way. Without the medication? As he describes it, "I'm looking for the switch..." to turn off the triggers "but there is no switch." Together, it works. And together with support from others: WE all work better too :-)
(Interestingly, though, he was still able to do one major thing THIS St. Patrick's Day. He told the story, in a powerful, moving and very public way, of the last seven days of his friend's life, leading up to his tragic death on that infamous "Kill Day." He said he'd never before had the strength to tell that story, and this time he did. Fellow combat vets eyed him nervously, preparing for the big crash...that never came. How well did he make it through? With an enormous sigh of relief. He went to bed and slept deeply, finally able to lay that burden down that had dogged him for 43 years. He was able to let the haunting memory go, without giving up the love of his friend. And that's what you'd call...healing. Bonus points were when the dead friend came to him in a dream that night, and they saluted one another. As though it were safe to let that memory go...but let the love remain.)
---
"Life for me ain't been no crystal stair," the great American poet Langston Hughes wrote in his poem, "Mother to Son."
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
-- "Mother to Son," by Langston Hughes.
The same could be said by so many veterans who suffer. But yet there is still hope, and it's in the climbing, not the "setting" down :-)
Returning to the conversation with the Vietnam vet, I told him how much I appreciate the consistency since he's been back on the low dose of medication he takes. Failing to find a better word, I said how much I appreciated getting to see his "charming" personality again, instead of the roller-coaster of pain, frustration, anger and despair. "ALL of these guys have charming personalities," he reminded me; "That's why their wives married them...And that's what we've got to help them return to."
