We wrote an article on this site more than a year ago that was read very heavily, entitled "A Combat Veteran Asks Himself, Who Am I, on the Inside?" linked here. His response at the time to the question, "What's your greatest problem right now?" was very direct, raw and hard to hear: "I'm an exploding ball of hate," he said.
As tough as that "conversation" was to absorb, it might be time for a rematch, but on a slightly different topic. How does -- or does it actually -- a combat veteran with PTSD's self-image change, after combat, from what it was before combat? (Or before and after PTSD. Really, either question would produce interesting results.)
It does seem that even in the literature, very little attention is paid to how servicemembers and veterans view themselves after combat. What was their self-image before -- and then did it change, or HOW did it change, after combat?
(By way of definition, "self-image" is different from "self-esteem." Self-image is basically how you look at yourself, pros and cons -- your sense of yourself and who you "are." It can be as simple as, I'm so tall and weigh such and such; I'm a good student or I'm good at sports; I'm social or I'm a loner, etc. Self-esteem has more to do with how highly you regard yourself (e.g., belief in yourself and/or self-confidence). It's also not the same as "self-worth," which is the value with which we regard ourselves. It's more purely "just"" how we see ourselves: bad, good or indifferent.)
Our self-image is who we see ourselves are -- how we would describe ourselves to others. "I'm fundamentally a good person." "I'm fun to be around." "I'm responsible." Ways we describe ourselves to differentiate ourselves from others.
The illustration at left may help. It's a drawing a combat veteran with PTSD made based on an instruction to "draw himself as he saw himself, right now." Meaning, at this point in his life, not necessarily right after combat. He drew what amounts to a split personality, a "bad" and a "good" self, about equally weighted. He saw himself as both, at the same time.
(Example from non-combat-related psychology, to further define what self-image is, by taking a look at what distorted self-image is: When an anorexic woman looks at herself in the mirror and "sees" herself as overweight, though she is underweight, we say that she has a "distorted" self-image. In other words, her correct self-image would be accurately that she is too thin. Instead, she projects onto the accurate image the distorted image she carries of herself, and she is able to see herself, wrongly, as not thin enough.)
I'm torn about including several quotes about war and the warrior, to get the discussion going...but I don't want to tip the scales one way or the other here. It's probably best to just think of the actual question: How did I view myself before combat/PTSD, and how do I view myself now, after combat/PTSD -- and have those two views of myself changed?
