In our on-again, off-again series on "healthy sexuality and the combat veteran," here are these words of wisdom from someone involved in a healing profession, who's been married to a combat veteran for more than 25 years now. Together, they are the parent of one child.
The veterans' aversion to intimacy, she believes, can be traced to one thing, most of all:
"It's the wall," she says -- not meaning the "Vietnam wall," that's for sure; although they may have some inadvertent relationship (poor attempt at humor, I know." Veterans, she says, "build this emotional wall: the body, mind and spirit join together to "protect" the person [the combat veteran]. Much like the immune system kicks in to fight off illness, the mind sets off a red alert to fight off and keep bad feelings from invading. Unfortunately this also fights off good feelings.
Passion is frozen out along with every other good emotion. Joy, love, hope, excitement, all trapped out. They can act as if they have all of them but they are unable to really feel any of them.
Men will have one-night stands and visit hookers for the act of having sex, but they also do it because it is safe. There is no chance of emotional involvement. In their minds, they know there isn't supposed to be one [the chance of getting emotionally involved]. But if they decide to have sex with someone they are supposed to be connected to, it's a letdown because they are not really attached to them.
When you make love to someone you really care about, you feel the passion between you because all of the "human" is participating in it. With PTSD, the wall stops the unity between the two people. Physically they are there but the rest of them is not. When they touch you, it's as if there is no psychic energy in their hands. When they hold you, their muscles are there, but there is no heat from their embrace. When they kiss, it's a kiss of a stranger.
A lot of this has to do with their age at the time they were wounded by trauma. Most were under 20 at the time the rest of us were finding ourselves, developing the "unity" of the elements that make us who we are. Practicing and forming of development of the "unity" comes with experience and if that is subjected to emotional disconnect, it is broken off. Usually it does not mend.
When they are older and trauma hits, they have already developed the connections of the unity and they tend to not have as much of an issue, using the other parts of "them" to compensate for their lack of unity. Even with age as a factor, there are still the missing elements trapped behind the wall."
In future posts, we will continue to explore this topic further.
