Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is something that many veteran's have to one degree or another who
have been under fire and in combat situations and also one of the most
difficult subject to deal with.
Over the years I have noticed that most being treated or in therapy for
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stess Disorder) have a source to blame for all their
problems, things that may have valid reasons for bitterness and
resentment or can just be "perceived injury" or abuse but in all of the
cases I have known, very few have been willing to take full
responsibility for their own pattern of thinking, i.e., self pity, woe is
me, villains they hate and look for, unwillingness to forgive, always an
outward source to blame for the condition and quality of life or lack of
it.
I can blame the VA for giving me medication that only multiplied the
mental condition that evolved into a mental illness, giving a mixture of
Doxepin and Clonazepam which actually induce hallucinations and caused
behavior patterns that are schezophrenic, but years prior to this I was
really the cause of it all in being wreckless and not taking responsibility for
my actions and thinking, always blaming some other source for anything
that went wrong or why I had a failed marriage and a tortured mind.
What we can not do is make choices for other people and it is a choice to
retain bitterness or not, a choice to be fully into oneself or self oriented or
not, a choice to forgive or not, a choice to be irresponsible
or not, a choice to let God have your life or not, you would think by a
lifetime of failure that people would accept what frees us and accept the
solutions to it all, but many just not willing to do that since it means getting
down and honest with ourself where we really live and what things we are
hanging onto that are kicking our brains out and keeping the well
dirty that we drink from.
All I can offer is what ended so many years of being in a rut between a
rock and a hard place, what ended the nightmares that ate me alive for
almost thrity years, what dumped the trash that was overflowing and what
gave life real purpose rather than the Purpose Driven Fad that mocks God.
The moment I run into the never ending flow of critics who still want to
make their own way in spite of seeing no way to go to make things any
better, all I can say to them is to keep what you got since it will never
get any better but will certainly get worse, will never move forward but
just go in circles and end up back in the same place again like chopping
weeds at the surface, not going to get the job done until you kill it at
the root and eliminate the sources.
I heard a man talk the other day about how to raise a loser in always
telling a child that they are no good, useless, never amount to anything,
deficient, wasted. A child will begin to play out that role if that is what they
are convinced about and instilled in their mind, never recognizing any
good thing they do but never letting them forget the failures and blunders
in their life, no encouragement or vision for something to aim at and become
or work towards and it is the same with many who are crippled with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, convincing ourselves that we are in a rut and no
way known to get out of it, just seeing what is going on and letting these things
govern our thinking and direction and feeding on the very things that insure
a wasted life without vision and true purpose. Solomon said it a few thousand
years ago:
"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that
keepeth the law, happy is he." Proverbs 29:18
I hurt for people who insist on retaining bitterness and resentment and
feed on it day and night, hating every moment and yet that is the diet
for the brain, never knowing what freedom is there for the asking and
what is available that takes effort or a total desire to move forward, but
only a fool will sit in one place like a caged animal.
A story related some time ago had to do with a bear in one of the older
zoos that only had twenty feet of space to walk in, so the bear would
just pace twenty steps one way and twenty steps the other way and that
was his whole life and activity which I would call a rut for sure. A day
came when a whole new environment was made just for this bear to have
all kind of space like in the wild, cave, running water places to hunt or dig
for food, abundance of vegetation and other bears to socialize with. The
big day came when the bear was moved to his new location with all these
things there for him, but still all people saw was this bear still taking
twenty steps one way and twenty steps the other way, conditioned his
whole life to do that and it just never settled in that he was free to do
almost anything that wild bears do and all the space needed for it.
Does that tell you something about how we can be? Some people just
quit as I did, depending on doctors to make me all better again but that never
happened, as they were more like zoo keepers and pumping medicine in me
that actually induced schezophrenic behavior and often out of control,
strapped to a table for two days after flipping out, put in a drunk tank
and a threat to myself and everyone around me, out of touch with reality
and scared to death that this was the end and all I had to look forward
to, not wanting to live one more day that way, but just not knowing what
to do about it or where to start.
Have already spilled my guts enough on the website but need to relate the
good stuff and where the real healing process began, needful to see it all as
a process and not a project since it is a daily thing one step at a time.
In 1995 when first moving to this area near Mount Baldy, I recall standing
out on the patio with the mind drifting out there wondering about the future
and if I had any that was any better than now, not expecting to hear what
sounded exactly like 20mm aircraft fire and instantly the brain was back in
Nam remembering how we had been fired on by mistake in 1966 or very
early in 1967 prior to moving to Kontum, but think it was just a door gunner
who unloaded on us when mistaken for NVA, but some were caught out in the
open while others were hit who were so tired that they slept on top of some
sandbags, hearing one man yell "Who slapped me?" but I knew we had been
fired on from a chopper or aircraft as a trail of rounds dug up some dirt between
me and another man and missing us by inches as we could see it coming and
jumped back, but Leroy Burchette had been shot in the head and didn't know
it until I ran over and saw the blood flowing but had to alert the Company
Commander Capt. Keuker who was sleeping inside a bunker and trying to yell
for a medic at the same time, seeing old Doc Seymore running over to stop the
bleeding and telling Leroy that just a hair closer and it would have been fatal.
While the mind was caught up in flashbacks, more of those sounds were
heard and I just went berserk, almost yelling for folks in the swimming
pool to hit it, but caught myself just before yelling at them, heart beating like
crazy and everything seeming strange in knowing I was not in Nam but still
being shot at, but this was actually the sound of the high powered drag racers
from the fairgrounds and the sound had just carried along way in the night.
It was very strange but some voice way back in the head that I could hear
very clear was saying "Forgive Them" forgive the door gunner who fired on
us by mistake, forgive everyone else who may have offended throughout an
entire lifetime, turn loose of that right to be bitter, forgive them all and let it go.
This was not something I had the ability to do but I knew it was right to do it,
just against my nature in being someone who always had to square things to
make it balance, but I knew I was wrong to have an attitude of a vigilante or
even a revolutionary needing a justifiable reason to unload the anger, but
forgiving just wasn't part of all that and never something offered by the shrinks
as a way through all this stuff.
I can recall saying "OK God, if that is You saying that, I sure want to
comply, but I don't know one voice from another and had a whole herd of
them talking stuff to me in the past when the brain crashed, but I know
it is something right to be doing, just need a whole lot of help in doing
it, but am willing to go for it."
I will not say it was God who whispered the words, but I do know it was a solid
beginning, seeing that forgiveness is not forgiveness unless it is total, which
meant that I had no more excuses or reason to be angry or bitter or holding
anyone at fault about anything, forgiveness meant turning that all loose and
starting out clean without any of it hanging on to fester and start the ball rolling again.
This did not seem like an answer for PTSD and yet it proved to be the
very thing that ended the nightmares and dumping all the trash in the
brain and replacing the inbuilt anger with the kind of things that have
enduring qualities, no condemnation of anyone or myself, whole new
beginning which it proved to be for me and being able to look back on it
to see what the things were that were kicking my rear end all these years and
how we can unload it like excess baggage and not have to carry the weight
of all the junk, certainly going to be scars but scars say that healing
happend and no more open wounds, but healing is a process and don't
happen by itself, starts inward and not outward and change starting with
me before going anywhere else, had to clean my own front porch before
looking at any mess elsewhere that could be just as dirty, but had to
start with me and it all starts from the dungpile and goes from there,
stink will wear off along the way.
