PTSD Spirituality

Two posts in one day, I am like Lazarus coming out, I am.

 I am speaking in Madison, Wisconsin, later on today at an ecumenical Jewish-Christian PTSD healing service.  There will be a presentation about PTSD and its spiritual elements, followed by questions, hospitality and then a healing service.  Since my hands already are hurting, I will lift the information and paste it in below.  As I try to make a come back as a PTSD Spirituality blogger, I shall attempt to be more up to date and provide lead time to PTSD healing events that you may find of interest.

Please accept my apologies for being away from the writing.  Combination of ill health and a lot of grading diverted me from what is really important, healing souls afflicted with PTSD.

 I want to inform you of a wonderful program that is designed for healing souls wounded by Combat PTSD.  It is called Vets Journey Home.  It used to be called the Bamboo Bridge prior to the current activities in Afghanistan and Iraq.  You may link directly to them at http://www.vetsjourneyhome.org/index.html

I have lifted the following from their website: “Some veterans return home feeling unappreciated and hide their service from others. It’s finally time to come home–in a good way—and, all the way.

“The Vet’s Journey Home invites veterans to come all the way home and find out that they are not alone. There are many who care about you–who are willing to walk point, be at your side, and cover your back. This time, you’ll be coming home together with other veterans, and welcomed with respect and honor.

“All combat veterans are urged to attend. The Vet’s Journey Homeis also recommended for incountry and offshore non combatant Vietnam veterans.

“Additionally, all combat zone veterans from any era are urged to consider attending. Both men and women vets may attend the Vet’s Journey Home.

“Our intention is to turn away no vet. Scholarships are available. Registration closes one week prior to the event.”

Upcoming session are as followed:

a. Houston, TX., May 31/June 1, 2008 and August 29-31, 2008.

b. Mt. Airy, MD., April 11-13, 2008.

c. Milwaukee, WI, August 22-24, 2008. 

I expect to be at the upcoming Milwaukee session.  I know one of the co-directors of Vets Journey Home and am very impressed with the compassion and expertise in helping women and men heal from PTSD.  Compassion and expertise are a rare combination in my experience when it comes to dealing with the soul wounds of PTSD.

The Vets Journey Home is focused upon combat veterans.  My own focus is broader, endeavoring to heal whoever is wounded by PTSD and trauma, Vets Journey Home are doing exemplary work that will serve as a model for others.  They also desire to train volunteers to help with the healing and as with all missions where compassion and expertise are combined, they can certainly use a donation to help offer scholarships to veterans seeking healing.

http://www.vetsjourneyhome.org/index.html

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

As a follow up to my previous post on how unemployment can magnify some of the effects of PTSD:

We have the most recent report on unemployment indicating an additional 80,000 Americans who have lost their jobs.

This moves the current unemployment rate from 4.8% to 5.1%.  Thankfully this is not a Depression Era unemployment rate.  However, the real rate is higher than that reported because the government does not count those workers who have dropped out of the labor market due to despair.

 Please recall that the unemployment rate for recent Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is 18 percent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicts additional rises in the unemployment rate will occur over the next several months.

Unemployment causes the sense of personal worthlessness, it damages one’s self value.  This is also a feature of PTSD that leads people to despair and self-destruction.

As I noted in the previous post, the creation of jobs is a moral issue.  We save lives, we save families, and we provide positive treatment of PTSD by allowing our veterans to have meaningful work.

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

The Washington Post reports that 18% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unemployed.  While the Veterans Administration has stepped up programs to help vets find work, 18% remains a staggering number.  I can always look at this as a glass half full (fooled?) possibility and imagine that without the VA programs (for example, the Coming Home to Work program), it would be dramatically worse, maybe 36%.  I’ll let your own personal experiences with the VA be the lenses through which you view it.  Either way, nearly one out of five American Veterans, cannot find work.

 One of the characteristics of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is afflicting the victim with a sense of worthlessness.  This is connected with a characteristic  common to all of us: We need to have meaning in our lives.  Most veterans, peace-time or war time, had experienced significant meaning in their roles as service members.  Whether it is combat, humanitarian missions, keeping a flight-line clear of obstructions, or being called out to fight forest fires (or called way to late to offer assistance in a hurricane), the man or woman has given of themselves to a cause that is much greater than themselves as individuals. 

In these acts veterans had found intense personal meaning (and sometimes that is discovered only upon further reflection).  What they do really matters.  What their buddies do really matters.  And they all put it on the line to ensure the mission is done.  This is why soldiers protect their buddies in an almost feral way.  They had bonded in something that provided great meaning.  Surveys have repeatedly shown that most front-line troops don’t fight for a national foreign policy or vague terms like victory.  Rather they fight for each other and it promotes extraordinary caring and heroism, it promotes mean.  We pray that the missions they are used up on are those which promote the common good.  And, thanks to the U.S. Constitution we can debate that point and not be deemed as non-patriotic or not supporting the troops.

 Where does unemployment mean in regards to PTSD?  Men and women come out of an environment in which they constantly had meaning and worked for goals greater than their individual selves.  Military service will do that to a person.  For all of its other traits, it does give a person a sense of meaning and purpose, a chance to put others before themselves, something which popular American Culture abhors. 

 A soldier returns from meaningful experiences where lives and high value equipment turned on their performance to one where they can’t get a job selling tires, hot dogs, and other mundane essentials to American life.   They go from being a worthwhile member of the Team to an individual who cannot find work.  The system tells them they are worthless because no one will hire them.  It is made even worse by the persistence of our current recession.

 PTSD inflicts a sense of worthlessness on its sufferers.  This is further exacerbated by unemployment.  The human person goes from being incredibly relevant and necessary to being incredibly irrelevant and shown to have no value in American society.  This sense of worthlessness will promote depression and isolation.  These are an ugly spiral that destroy one’s own appreciation of their self-worth.  If the PTSD monster gets you in that situation it becomes even harder to climb out and attempt to readjust to “normal” life.

Veterans Unemployment is a Moral Issue.  Creating jobs for veterans is not simply an economic necessity with the happy by-product of lower welfare rolls and a wider tax base, but it is a moral issue where the people we trained and deployed need to know they will not end up homeless (20,000+ homeless Iraq war vets), on welfare if their lucky, and made even more vulnerable to the soul killing effects of PTSD.

The Washington Post Article can be viewed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033102586.html?hpid=sec-business

 Information on the Vets Coming Home to Work program can be found at http://www.vetsuccess.gov/cominghome/

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

By now it is no secret that at least 4000 Americans have been killed in Iraq. 

It should also be no secret, but is usually left off the table, that we also have at least 40,000 more people who are swamped by intense grief.  If one figures in families and friends and people who cared for each of these killed, then 40,000 is probably a low estimate.

Most of you who will read this blog have already experienced intense grief before.  It is a horribe darkness that can ravage one.  One of my closest calls with my own life since the current war began was when my nephew was killed.  The Pentagon won’t count him as a KIA, he was killed by his PTSD after three tours.  My grief for that young man nearly killed me.  It was combined with a grief for America, what it has become compared to what it used to be.  It helped to make my own PTSD even worse.  And, it almost killed me.

After the media and journalists are done gleaning all the life out of the grieving, the families will be left alone.  The media won’t care anymore, they’ve already scavenged those poor folks for every tick on the ratings chart.  But these families, these friends, will be set up for their own PTSD, from the trauma of losing someone for whom they deeply cared, and then less so from the emotional rape that the journalists will put them through.  After all that, they are left alone and suffering.  They will be at risk of suicide.  PTSD will try to kill them.  (A person does not have to be in combat or even in the military to acquire PTSD.  All they need to do is experience trauma.)

If you know these people, then it is time to buck-up and truly be their friends.  Proper grieving takes two or more years to go through.  Help them keep appointments.  Help with the kids.  Just be there.

 I say all the time, becuase I believe it and know it all the time, that prayer has kept me alive.  Deep prayer can touch us in the grounding of our souls and fend off the seduction of death.  If you don’t have or cannot find words, that is just fine, the deepest prayer is held in Silence.

We pray for the 4000, the 40,000, and all those killed in these wars. No sides, no good guys or bad guys, just human beinigs tormented and fractured by war. 

 We pray that we will all survive this grief and the seduction of Death.

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

The Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee is holding a series on “Moving Toward a Just and Peaceful World” from noon to 1:30 p.m. on three Tuesdays at the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee, 1342 N. Astor St.

The speakers are: Tuesday, Father G. Simon Harak, director of Marquette University’s Center for Peacemaking, on “Resisting Empire”; March 11, Athan Theoharis, retired Marquette history professor, on “Security, Morality and Realism: The Government’s Response to 9/11″; and March 18, John Zemler, visiting theology professor at Marquette, on “From Soldier to Healer: Transforming the PTSD Dragon From Death to Life.”

The series costs $28, or $10 a session, including lunch. Make reservations at (414) 276-9050. 

I apologize for the late notice of this speaking engagement.  Below is a synopsis of my talk.  

* * *

Dr John Zemler, a former Army Captain, now a Disabled American Veteran and Disabled Catholic Theologian will speak on the topic: “From Soldier to Healer: Transforming the PTSD Dragon From Death to Life.”

In his talk he will briefly explain the horror of what is like to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), how American Society generally blames you for your wound PTSD soul-wound, and how PTSD tries to kill all of those whom it afflicts. John identifies PTSD as a wounding of the human soul.

In the transition from Solider to Healer, From Dragon’s Prey to New Lamb, Dr. Zemler will discuss how American Soldiers are trained to kill the enemy and how their lives have no real meaning to decision makers. Their lives are used up by politicians and those other Americans who drive SUVs and Hummers. Soldiers are not allowed to choose where they will have their lives expended nor whom they are to kill. Even if they never kill or are deployed to combat, this conditioning damages their souls.

In his life as a healer, John, explains a portion of how he himself survives PTSD and has not killed himself; that is, how his own soul has received healing. Religious faith and ritual, primarily Catholic and Buddhist, and the crafts of art and music, provide important means for him to stay healed and help in the healing of others afflicted with PTSD.

John Zemler will describe how those who have survived PTSD, whether military or civilian, may become healers in their own right. The PTSD-Survivor can become a Bodhisattva to those who need healing. In early Christian terms of the first-century, the PTSD-Survivor learns how to bear one another’s burdens and how to fill out the suffering of Jesus Christ (See Letters of Paul). Where as before these human souls were being consumed by the Dragon of PTSD. They can now take on the death-burden of those people of whom PTSD is trying to kill and thus enable them to find the strength, ability, and means to stay alive.  That is, they can enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death for others and carve out some space to live.

All in all, it is about helping women and men with PTSD have their souls healed and not allow Death to consume them.

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

The New York Times on-line reported today that Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of American forces in the Middle East is to retire.  Fallon will have completed at or near one year in that command position.

Recall that a previous Chair of the Joints Chief of Staffs predicted, in congressional testimony, before the wars the high level of manpower and money that would be required for the mission.  The White House balked at these experience-based estimates of the real cost of invading Iraq.  The General’s assessment disagreed with that of the civilians in the Admninistration who had no or very little experience military.  He was forced to retire.  The results are the current quagmire in Iraq and his predictions came true.

 While I usually focus my blog concerns on PTSD Spirituality, I am quite concerned that now that with Adm. Fallon gone, we will have an “event” to start a war with Iraq.  I am grateful that both Giuliani and Rommney are out of the presidential race as they both had affirmed that they would attack Iran based on what the Bush Administartion had asserted…having learned no lessons from the missing WMD in Iraq.

 Please pray that the Unites States of America will have the wisdom to not go to war with Iran.

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

PTSD seeks to kill those whom it afflicts.  It seeks to take formerly vibrant human beings and transform them into the Undead until it can kill them flat outright.  Whether a person suffers PTSD from combat, rape, a natural disaster such as Katrina, or some other trauma, they now live with a new threat that seeks to take their life.

It does this by wounding our souls.  Many of us with PTSD end up killing ourselves fast or slow.  The fast cases are pretty obvious.  Slow cases of PTSD suicide comes from drug abuse, alchoholism, and cumualitive neglect from the rest of the country.  As this blog and my professional writing grow I will mention more about these in detail.

Regardless of how any of us feel about the current wars, PTSD is a confirmed result.  It is not retreat, disloyalty, or cowardice to acknowledge that trauma affects human beings.  It is simply realism.  Regardless of where we stand, saving the lifes of trauma surviors and their families should be an easy priority.

Untreated severe PTSD kills its victim.  My goal is to help increase PTSD awareness and to offer some spiritual advice.  Just because someone has PTSD and has been neglelcted by self and/or others up till now is no cause for despair.  That life can be saved.  That life has value.  That life has too much value for us to allow PTSD to consume it.

Semper Pax, Dr. Z

Hello and Welcome to the PTSD Spirituality blog.

Until I am able to master enough of blogging to find the correct applications to fix my typing, I must apologize for the frequent spelling errors or eratic typing.  Simply said, I have numerous disabillities.  Some are connected to my military service as an Army Officer and others are just plain bad luck or bad genes.

 I suffer from chronic pain and additionally my hands do not work very well.  I have tried voice processing software with varying degrees of success.  Since I take more medications than most people have socks, my voice changes based on side-effects and it also changes depending on my level of pain and fatugue.  When I am relatively well, the voice-processing software works great, when I am in my usual health-demolisihed state, it does not read me.  In fact, it laughs at me and pelts me with very small pine cones…the kind with points on them.  Ouch!

 So please bear with me on my funny typing skills.   As time goes on I will fill you in on more of my background.  For the present: I am a veteran, I am disabled, I am a theology professor, and I think I have some things to say that will help folks better grapple with their PTSD and not let it kill them.

last but not least: This blog is on the Word Press platform.  It seems to have a bit of a learning curve compared to some others I looked at.   But it also looked to be the best for a blog which would grow and develop…and best of all…it’s free!