Healing Combat Trauma

The Tao on Trusting in the Power of Touch

I remember reading in Kurt Vonnegut's book, Slaughterhouse-Five, as a kid about this mythical person the narrator knew, who made a point of sanding down his fingertips so he would ever so much more skilled as a lover, and be able to pick up the subtle electricity of his partner.  I highly doubt someone ever did that, but still, as a metaphor it's got its place.  Maybe set to the tune of the Pointer Sisters singing, "I Want a Lover with a Slow Hand..." (and sanded fingertips, besides :-). 

Anyway, it probably won't surprise you to learn that the ever-balanced Tao has something to say about the power of touch, too.  Interesting how it combines it with hope.  Thinking about how babies who are never picked up experience "failure to thrive."  As babies in adult bodies, perhaps we are all more alike than different there, after all.

Touch.

“To touch, to feel, to rub, to caress.  Our lives cannot be sensed whole.  We have to feel our way forward.  And what we feel, we have to trust.”

 

One of the hardest things to do is to trust our own feelings.  Beginning with well-meaning parents and teachers, we hear so many instructions that thwart and ridicule our perceptions that we eventually internalize this mistrust of our own feelings.  Far too many of us have voices of doubt continuously playing in our minds.  Soon, it is hard to feel anything genuine, because these voices are always telling us that we are wrong.

 

Disappointments and setbacks reinforce these voices.  Maybe we start out trying to be extraordinary. “I’ll be great,” we vow, but then we stumble a little, and then voices become louder.

But we have to stick to our perceptions and to our feelings.  That is where experience, philosophy and self-refinement come in: we know that we have accomplished things, we know that we can coordinate what we perceive with established principles, and we trust that our beings are finely tuned enough to accurately feel what is around us. 

 

What we do in life is up to us and will not be known all at once.  Therefore, we have to feel our way along, little by little, building the vision to know what we are individually meant to do.  We can’t let doubt interfere with our touch.  We have to trust our touch.

Editor's note: If you need some vintage Pointer Sisters to go with this, here's the link to their video of this on YouTube.

Soothing Sounds: Dean Evenson and Dudley Evenson Make Music for Troubled Troops

Pacific Northwest musicians, Dean and Dudley Evenson, have found a way they can “support the troops” with their music and DVD offerings.  Their latest release, the Eagle River DVD has found its way to Walter Reed. This beautiful 62-minute DVD with widescreen and 5.1 surround sound features soothing music and visuals of eagles and other wildlife along the wild river in the Pacific Northwest which Dean has been videotaping for the past 15 years.  Also included in the package are Guided Relaxation Bonus Features and a printed Relaxation Training Guide designed specifically to help PTSD and trauma victims.

 

Realizing that many people coming back from combat zones are dealing with extreme physical and emotional wounds, the Evensons wanted to put their music and media to work to help ease the suffering.  For more than 25 years, they have been producing music for health and stress reduction through their independent record label, Soundings of the Planet.  Their music has been so popular with healthcare practitioners that the Evensons realized it could possibly be of benefit to soldiers returning from combat.  When they first contacted Walter Reed several years ago, they found that the head chaplain there, Major John Kallerson, had used Dean Evenson’s music in his own healing process so he was quite familiar with its benefits.  Now he hands out Dean’s music and DVDs to his patients, often amputees suffering the results of IEDs in Baghdad.

 

Chaplain Kallerson told the Evensons “The music helps our patients focus on their healing and not the chronic pain they endure constantly. The soothing music of Healing Sanctuary and Healing Dreams provides a needed respite from the dreams and flashbacks of the terrors that our wounded have seen and experienced.  It is helpful for them to relax and not dwell on the bad dreams or images that they can see… Some find them very helpful to get to sleep.” (Editor's Note: The Evensons have also produced the highly-rated Tao of Healing.)

 

Inspired by this feedback, the Evensons began to research the effects of war and the stress disorders that often plague veterans of violent conflict and learned that soothing music and visuals can offer an antidote to some of the emotional traumas experienced.  They put together a Relaxation Training Guide to help returning soldiers in their healing process.  In this guide, they present concepts and techniques incorporating the music, breath, muscle relaxation, visualization, meditation and mantra that can help anyone dealing with trauma and stress.

 

Last year at Walter Reed, Dean and Dudley Evenson performed for wounded soldiers, their families, and hospital staff. The event was televised throughout the hospital so the staff of 5000 as well as the patients in their rooms could view it.  Behind them played the Eagle River DVD and the response from patients and hospital staff was very gratifying.  They commented that the music and DVD were extremely beneficial in helping soldiers suffering from PTSD and other wounds of combat.  The beautiful natural images of the  Eagle River DVD were also helpful in overcoming the nightmares and images of war that plagued so many of them.

 

Video clips of the Eagle River DVD are available at the Evensons' website, linked here.  Click the special section for Service Personnel which offers information to veterans about using music for health and relaxation.  Soundings of the Planet has initiated a PARTNERS IN HEALING program to receive donations so they can distribute music and DVDs to VA hospitals and individuals who cannot afford to purchase them, To learn more about the Evensons’ music, DVDs, and work at Walter Reed, check out their website, linked here.

"Must Have Been a Real Mean Bottle" - Veterans, PTSD and Substance Abuse

The relationship between trauma and substance abuse, or in our case, PSTD and self-medication through drugs and alcohol, is well-known. Some "sobering statistics" about substance abuse and veterans -- pun quite intentional -- follow here:

• Substance abuse rates are higher among veterans than their non-veterans counterparts.
• 76% of all homeless veterans suffer from drug, alcohol, or mental health problems (National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, 1999).
• According to an Army Post-Deployment Reassessment Study completed in July of 2005, alcohol misuse among soldiers rose from 13% among soldiers to 21% one year after returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

(These statistics from the excellent fact sheet at the National Veterans Foundation - "The Lifeline for America's Veterans" -- called "Facts about Veterans: Needs and Solutions." Click here for the link to the fact sheet; click here for the link to the organization.)

There's even at least one scholarly book written on the subject, Trauma and Substance Abuse: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment of Comorbid Disorders, edited by Paige Ouimette, Ph.D., and Pamela J. Brown, Ph.D. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association (2003).  [Editor's note: "comorbid" means "appearing together."]

In a review of it by psychiatrist Edward J. Khantzian, M.D., of Haverhill, Massachusetts, he writes that his experience, "spanning four decades of clinical work involving patients with substance use disorders," has led him to conclude that "suffering is at the heart of addictions.  Nowhere is this more evident than with individuals who have developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and resorted to addictive drugs to medicate the distress and pain associated with PTSD."

In future blog posts, we'll cover this topic in greater depth, but for the present, it's important to note how closely intertwined the two concepts are: if combat trauma or PTSD is a "normal reaction to abnormal events," it's no surprise that so many veterans of combat attempt to medicate the most troubling and painful experiences away through misuse or overuse of drugs and alcohol.

(The blog post's title comes from the country song, originally written by Vince Gill, and performed by Bob Seger and Kid Rock on Seger's latest album, Face the Promise.  To see a video of Seger and Rock singing this in concert recently on YouTube, click here.)

The toll free number for the National Veterans Foundation is 1-888-777-4443.

"The Gentle Heroes Left Behind"

In the Wikipedia entry about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., also and previously known colloquially at least as "the Vietnam Wall" -- and whose 25th anniversary is coming up SOON -- there is a beautiful photo of the back of a Vietnam vet, in silent contemplation at the Wall itself.  The photo, reproduced here, is by French Canadian photographer, Patrick-Andre Perron, whose website is here.  Interestingly, on Perron's website, he "illustrates" this photograph with a poem he must particularly like, that he apparently saw on the wall.  We include it here:

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978

[This poem is not included here to express any particular pro-war or anti-war sentiment, but to honor the feeling of brotherhood among those who fought and died.  It's also possible that in the case of PTSD, veterans and their families consider themselves unfortunately to be "the gentle heroes" left behind on the battlefield...]

Perron also links on his website to a stunning collection of Vietnam war photographs by combat photographer Richard Calmes that are well worth viewing.  We include the link here.  If music is more your thing, the Vietnam Veterans of America is promoting a CD of music that brings back the in-country experience, both good and bad, with classic rock tunes from the era, and proceeds being shared with worthy charitable causes for vets.  That link and more information about the music is here.