"Unchain my heart, set me free...I live a life of misery." So sings British rock and blues legend Joe Cocker in his 1987 hit, "Unchain My Heart." But the same could be said by a combat vet with PTSD, confined to life in his bunker, a place of protective, yes, but also severely limiting isolation. A life of misery...perched just at the periphery of a full and engaged life with family and friends that the veteran often wishes he or she could still have.
This summer, one such combat vet -- the star of the "Eyewitness to Combat" series whose transformation is chronicled in the short film, "A Veteran's Healing Journey," linked here -- wrote a series of articles about life in the bunker.
Because they've been widely circulated, and apparently have been of great help to various veterans who've read them, we're putting them together in a series, below, for easier reading:
- "Going to the Bunker: A Combat Veteran with PTSD on the Purpose of Protective Isolation";
- "Busting Out of the Bunker at Last...Made to Be Social Beings, We Die in Isolation"; and
- "Out of the Bunker and Walking Back to Life."
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© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution.
