Healing Combat Trauma

Quotable Quotes -- Joseph Campbell on Joy Overcoming Pain

"Find a place (inside) where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." -- Joseph Campbell

Quotable Quotes -- Victor Frankl on Pushing Through the Pain

"What is to give light must endure burning." -- Victor Frankl, concentration camp survivor, psychotherapist, and author of "Man's Search for Meaning."

 

Quotable Quotes: Steven Pressfield and Lao Tzu on Love and Courage

Two interesting quotes, that share a certain amount of symmetry across the centuries:

‎"Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness." -- Steven Pressfield from "The Warrior Ethos"

-and-

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." -- Lao Tzu

May you have your fill of both love and courage...

Quotable Quotes -- Bruno Bettelheim on Wounds Need to be Talked about

"What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation." -- Bruno Bettelheim, from "Surviving and Other Essays." (Bettelheim was a renowned child psychiatrist and concentrate camp survivor who later committed suicide as an elderly man.)

Quotable Quotes -- Carl Rogers on How the Patient Knows Where the Pain Is

"The client knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial and what experiences have been buried." -- Carl Rogers, American psychologist, founder of client-centered therapy.

Celebrate with Us: Healing Combat Trauma Turns Five Years Old

"HHappy birthday to us:

We're an amazing five (5) years old today! Almost 1,000 entries about veterans, PTSD and the possibility of recovery. Over 200 recommended books and experts. And a lovely three-minute film, documenting one veteran's healing journey. 

Along the way we've gotten some great training, involved some wonderful practitioners, and touched some veterans and their families' lives with an improved quality of life. We've also built a thriving community on Facebook, gotten some awards and accolades, created some merchandise about how "healing happens," and published an awful lot of good material (much of it by other contributors) about what possibilities there are for getting better, not giving up.

To give you a sense of what was going on five years ago when this started, here is what we wrote in that very first post, on February 23, 2006:

"Welcome. No time like the present to begin a blog dedicated to the resources for healing combat trauma. This blog is intentionally apolitical. War happens. Veterans deal with the aftermath of going. Let's make sure they get the resources, help and support they need. And let's get started on that...yesterday.

Just to be clear, this blog's focus is: Resources for and about healing combat trauma. The focus is on effective medical and psychological care, and the slant is apolitical."

Well -- some things stayed the same over the last five years. The intention, for one, which continues to be huge -- that veterans find some healing that they're unlikely to find through conventional means. 

At the time we started this, it was the very first website devoted to PTSD and veterans on the Web. Truth. We searched and searched, and there was literally nothing out there -- though there were some good books from the past on it, and some experts here and there with their valuable guidance. But nothing on the Web, and veterans and their families would soon be desperate for any constructive help getting healed.

With that as a landscape, we started this. The name itself was carefully chosen to reflect the most core concept, that healing was possible -- and that healing from the trauma of combat was possible. We intentionally did not use the "PTSD" moniker in the title, preferring instead the three most important words we could envision to represent the problem and its solution, other than the veterans themselves.

After a while, other sites sprang up, covering different aspects of the problem -- most often simply rehashing the news or telling personal stories of their own war experience (both have value). Now, there are dozens of sites devoted to PTSD and veterans, of varying quality. The goal here has always been to be original, to provide resources veterans and their loved ones need to make decisions about how to recover, and to keep reminding readers about the importance of hope, without which it's very difficult to heal.

Over time, we were able to drop covering aspects of the issue (such as the legal and medical) because those were being covered capably elsewhere (not so in the beginning, when the landscape on this topic on the Web was quite barren). Today, we focus mainly on one aspect of the topic: how integrative medicine (the so-called "best of East and West") can help a veteran recover; and of course we keep talking about hope, because even the Bible says, "without vision (hope) the people perish." If you don't believe you can get better, it's very difficult to put one foot in front of the other to walk that path.

We also take pains to not endorse any one type of treatment over another, and we stay away from the hype -- preferring to research the validity of claims being made. That's been our practice and it will always be our practice. We also don't find it necessary to rehash what the mainstream approach is, because that can be found very easily through official channels. The VA itself, for instance, has an enormous PR budget, which it can use to tell you what a great job it's already doing (and in many cases, it is.) But you're less likely to find out about other options unless you come to a site like this, which contemplates many different choices, tries to focus on the ones which have potential for good and not harm, and isn't selling or promoting any of them, despite how many requests we get almost daily to do the same. 

Over the last five  years, the website has transitioned from being "just" an -- by now, enormous -- informational resource, to becoming an actual program, where veterans access opportunities for healing, delivered by qualified practitioners. We need your help making this dream a reality, so as always we appreciate your donations.

The short film, referenced here, shows how healing became a reality for one combat-hardened veteran with decades of severe, chronic PTSD. With over 18 suicides a day by veterans, and one every 36 hours by an active duty servicemember, it's clear to see that the "problem" won't be going away anytime soon.

And while the conventional system relies on the old, gold standards of talk therapy and pharmaceuticals, the need to continue to look for other solutions outside the box continues. That's what we're about here, and we appreciate your devoted interest over the last five years. We want you to help us make our dream a reality -- that any veteran who wants healing from PTSD can find it. Thank you.

The Heart-Ship of Loving Veterans with PTSD

Valentine's Day -- and coming up next week, five years of writing this site -- are making me think about holding the space of loving veterans with PTSD in my heart, and the "heart-ship" sometimes of doing so.

I was warned early on about this, by none other than Kathie Costos, who I esteem highly to this day. A few years into it, she wrote me in response to some problem I was bringing up, "I told you in the beginning when we first started corresponding that they would break your heart while you did this thankless job but the rewards would be worth millions for your heart. I told you they were magnificent! I am so happy they are starting to tell you how much you mean to them. That's really wonderful and even more important they are opening up. That is a big compliment to your work. They have a hard time opening up to anyone."

Well, open up they have...especially in a forum linked to this, which is the Healing Combat Trauma site on Facebook, and all the different relationships that have come out of that. 

Mark Twain once said (in 1907) something that's relevant to us here: "Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection--that is the last and final and most precious reward that any (wo)man can win, whether by character or achievement."

Twain is (was?) right, of course, and in addition to the "symbols" of veterans' affection, I have to say that it's their trust that means the most to me. Young or old, recent or quite a while since they've seen combat, it means the most how much trust they seem to put in me. I have no idea why, but I'm thankful for it. A common refrain is that they've told me things that no one else knows about them; that they wouldn't even think about telling their closest friend. Why is a mystery to me; but I'm thankful for the trust they put in me, I guess, and I do what I can to honor that and preserve it.

In the past five years I've learned a lot -- seen a lot -- been exposed to a lot, and in some ways I feel like I'm still scratching the surface of what there is to be learned. Not about what helps veterans -- that's almost simple by comparison to find out. And it does very much start with listening and caring, though perhaps not in that order. The largest lesson seems to be how no one came back from war unchanged; and the variations in how combat affected them are as different as individuals. But the underlying expectation to start with is that nothing is the same as it was before; and that very many veterans long for...and need help getting to...how they were before, an "earlier" version of them that seems to have all but vanished.

While I appreciate the conversations I've had with Vietnam-era veterans whose humility, vulnerability, and long-suffering are to be commended (may they get the help they need and deserve!), I also hear the same sentiment from younger veterans. From an Iraq veteran, Marine, just the other day: "What wouldn't we give to feel 'alive' again?" The disconnect with their former selves is real; and frankly, psychotherapy and medication isn't doing enough to return them to the selves they've lost. If that's the gold standard for care these days, and it is, things need to be added to it to flesh out the whole picture, so that care is broader, deeper, richer and more satisfying (and effective) to the veterans. I would also argue that there's things other therapies can do for veterans with PTSD that perhaps even lessen the need for talk therapy and medication. Not eliminate it, but lessen the need for it; or work hand-in-hand with it for a more effective combination of solutions.

Young veteran or old, male or female, short time or long time -- these are some amazing people -- very deserving of our love and respect -- and creativity in finding solutions to help them on their path back to wholeness. Five years into this, MUCH more needs to be done. And not enough is being done, because too many veterans are feeling not themselves, to this day, after combat and its aftermath.

Editor's note: For more on Kathie Costos and her wise words about veterans and their families, one sample here, with links to others.

Quotable Quotes -- Pearl Bailey on Facing the Truth

Self-awareness in healing turns out to be key; it's a little difficult to hit a moving target otherwise. While practitioners, particularly those with an Eastern orientation, might espouse the saying that "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear" -- healing also takes a willingness to look at your life squarely and realize what about it isn't working. That turns out to be the first and most necessary step along the path to wellness.

Another way of saying that is:

"You never find yourself until you face the truth." -- Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer.

Steven Pressfield on the Passive-Aggressive Nature of Being a Victim

Periodically we raise the specter here that there's little to be gained, in the long run, by overly identifying with the victim role -- and in hinting so, it never fails to offend someone. Well, it's been six months since the last time we mentioned it so it must be time to bring it up again. (You can tell it's not a main point if so much time has elapsed since the last time.)

And it's not at all to imply that all, or even most, or even a significant some of those who suffer do so because it's in their (often unconscious) best interests to do so. Yet we've all met -- and sometimes even been -- those who are seemingly unable to get well/happy/better, even when it would obviously be a better choice to do so.

So it's worth raising the question as to WHY we don't, and whether there is some pay-off in staying ill. (Even if you disagree with this point in general, consider the portion of it you do realize is within your control -- the temperature, as it were, you can raise or lower at will.)

Ironically, reading a book on creativity the other day by Steven Pressfield -- an author who's apparently also been a Marine -- this passage about the payoff from staying a victim popped out. His focus in the book is on the battle between creativity (good) and resistance (bad), and how the mind plays tricks on us, especially when we want to accomplish something great, to keep us in a rut. What Pressfield has to say about our ability to manufacture illness in service of "resistance" is blunt, and while most of it may not apply to PTSD, there's a great likelihood that some of it will.

Combat veterans most definitely don't give themselves PTSD...but PTSD can still be a very useful "mask" to wear or barrier to position between the self and others. Combat veterans themselves will tell you that. Here's Steven Pressfield on the dangers of victimhood. The material on passive-aggression seemed particularly relevant:

“Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren’t sick, they’re self-dramatizing…

The acquisition of a condition lends significance to one’s existence. An illness, a cross to bear…Some people go from condition to condition; they cure one, and another pops up to take its place. The condition becomes a work of art in itself, a shadow version of the real creative act the victim is avoiding by expending so much care cultivating his condition.

A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one’s experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes by holding them hostage to the prospect of his own further illness/meltdown/mental dissolution, or simply by threatening to make their lives so miserable that they do what he wants.

Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don’t do it. And if you’re doing it, stop." -- "The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles," by Steven Pressfield.

Quotable Quotes -- A 5th Century Mercenary on the Warrior's Life

"It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life." -- Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C.

If you want to have a clearer picture of what it takes to live the warrior life -- and the ongoing attempt to integrate and embody those experiences into one's current life -- be sure to watch the remarkable documentary starring Rudy Reyes which we wrote about recently, here. The documentary, by In Their Boots, is entitled, "The Way of the Warrior."

I think of all the warriors I have known, and they're all still integrating what they've learned and been into who they are right now. It isn't easy, and it never stops. But healing does and can happen.

"Healing Happens" -- Support Our Work at Healing Combat Trauma

Are you a combat veteran with PTSD, a family member, caregiver, or healthcare provider who believes -- as we do -- that "healing happens"?! Then purchase some beautiful gear at CafePress that shows the world you believe in healing.

We've got T-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, even a baby bib and an awesome-looking messenger bag that all share the same message of healing and hope. A portion of the proceeds from the sale goes to benefit our work. We hope you'll take a look, at our Healing Combat Trauma store on CafePress, linked here.

And thank you in advance for your support of our work.

Drug-Free Breathing and Relaxation Study for Veterans with PTSD

Here's a study that may be of interest to veterans with PTSD who are in the Bay Area (San Francisco). Biofeedback is a useful technique in the stress-management toolkit. It's hard to say whether it will really help with PTSD but learning it will help with stress levels in general; and there are other ways to learn it/practice it even if you can't be part of the study. More on that separately.

From the study description:

Have you experienced a traumatic event? Do you experience:

• Recurrent dreams or memories of the event?
• Avoidance of people, places, or things that remind you of the event?
• Hypervigilance or are easily startled?
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep?

If you have any of these or similar symptoms, you may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

You may be eligible to participate in a drug-free Breathing and Relaxation Therapy study using a biofeedback device at no cost.

The study is conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the VA Health Care System, Palo Alto. Services provided to participants include free psychiatric and physiological evaluation. Financial compensation also provided. To participate in the study you must be between ages 18-65

For general information about participant rights, contact 1-866-680-2906

For further information, please contact (650) 493-5000 ext 69995 or BaRTstudy@gmail.com.

Eddie's Place on Facebook Chronicles the Story of an American Hero with PTSD

If you've been following our "An American Veteran" series the past year on this site about Eddie Livingston -- the World War II veteran and POW who wrote powerfully and simply about the trials of being a veteran with untreated PTSD -- we've set up a "page" for him on Facebook where you can learn more about him and read some of his writings. The page is called "Eddie's Place," and you can click here for that link.

A little bit more about who Eddie is:

A sharecropper's son from Alabama, Eddie enlisted in Army at 15 years old. He joined the 82nd Airborne and volunteered to be part of the "Pathfinders," a small group who parachuted into Normandy ahead of the Allied invasion. He was later captured, and spent a year as a prisoner of war (POW). Eddie fought in five campaigns in Salerno, Sicily, Cassino, Anzio and Normandy, and was a POW at the infamous Belsen-Buchenwald. He received seven purple hearts, three bronze stars with combat "V" for valor, two presidential unit citations, and was awarded, but never received, the distinguished service cross for his valor at Normandy.

There's a movie about the Pathfinders, in which Michael Connor Humphries, himself an Army vet, who played the young Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name, plays the part of Eddie. The movie, "In the Company of Strangers," has just been released overseas. You can watch it via download on the Web, here, or learn more about its production in links on "Eddie's Place" on Facebook.

Despite Eddie's valiant service, he spent most of the last three decades of his life living in abject squalor in Alabama, in a broken-down home without running water or electricity. The letters that he typed to everyone who would listen -- Life magazine, U.S. presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Ann Landers, newspaper editors and of course the VA -- are a powerful testament by a simple, humble man about the pains and perils of being a veteran with untreated PTSD, and so much more. A few sample quotes from Eddie:

"People tell me to forget the war, telling me it is over. Their advice is sound and well-intentioned but impossible to follow. Simply because my mind is not a faucet that I can turn on and off and at will. I am working on it."

and

"Although the war is long over, the experiences of war especially that P.O.W. (experience) still bother me very much at times. I have periods of nervousness and fear in which I am frightened and suspicious of almost everyone."

and

"After four years, seven wounds, a year as a P.O.W., World War II ended for me. I did the best I could, and no man should feel ashamed of his best. I have always known that war is our ultimate failure. But war is an addictive thing. I became addicted, and now I am addicted to agitation. I have no way of knowing how crazy I am. I doubt if the psychiatrist would (even) know. I made the fatal mistake of staying in combat too long. I had no choice; I had to stay. What we know does hurt us. It is what I know that has made me the way I am."

For more about this unsung American hero, read the "An American Veteran" series here, and follow him on the "Eddie's Place" page on Facebook, linked here.

Quotable Quotes -- Chief Dan George on the Necessity of Love

It's not always easy to love a combat veteran with PTSD. Heck, it's not even easy to BE a combat veteran with PTSD and manage to love yourself, or those around you the way that you want to.

But part of healing is getting back in touch with how important love is, and even respecting its own form of therapeutic, healing power. Listen to these words from a very wise sage about just how important love is, in the natural order of things:

"Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world." -- Chief Dan George, Canadian First Nations chief, poet, author and Academy Award-winning actor.

Martin Luther King Jr Had a Dream for Combat Veterans, Too

Martin Luther King Jr., from a speech delivered exactly one year before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.:

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love." -- Martin Luther King Jr, speech at Riverside Church in New York City, April 4, 1967. 

Editor's note: A link to the online text and audio of his full speech is here.

Quotable Quotes -- Vulnerability, Trust and the Breakthrough

“We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy." -- Walter Anderson

Quotable Quotes -- Helen Keller on Suffering Refining Character

It's not easy to find any true benefit to suffering, but occasionally, a wise person offers some. Here's what Helen Keller -- someone who surely endured much of what the rest of us would consider suffering -- had to say:

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -- Helen Keller.

Marine Recon Rudy Reyes in "The Way of the Warrior" Documentary from "In Their Boots"

The documentary series "In Their Boots" does a great job at showcasing important aspects of the servicemember, veteran, and family member experience in short films on subjects as varied as the participants themselves. Every single one of the episodes is worth watching and taken together, they represent an entire educational arc about the OIF/OEF veteran experience. Periodically we highlight one of the documentary series' new episodes here.

Rudy Reyes, former Marine recon sniper, star of "Generation Kill," and author of "Hero Living" is the star of the recent "In Their Boots" episode entitled: "The Way of the Warrior." The charismatic and exceptionally authentic Reyes carries the entire show himself, making crystal clear the conflicts within and without that the warrior faces. Reyes, not unlike many other veterans, has been fighting serious battles on and off his entire life. The way of the warrior has always appealed to him; and he speaks with powerful candor about the costs, as well as the camaraderie, this life has brought him.

Confucius wrote, "He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior." Rudy Reyes is on that path. His level of honesty is not typical, is not ordinary, and does not come without a very high price; but you honor it with your attention. So many other warriors cannot be this clear or this forthright about articulating their inner struggles. While we give warriors points for subduing others in combat, those who watch this territory know the hardest battles are fought and won within. Rudy Reyes continually finds, and challenges, this personal edge. In this way, he truly embodies "the way of the warrior."

Editor's note: The link to the film is below. The photo pictured below is not Rudy Reyes.

Quotable Quotes -- Smedley Butler, Maverick Marine, on the True Costs of War to Veterans and Their Families

USMC Major General Smedley Butler wrote a remarkable and well-known piece of work called "War is a Racket," originally delivered as a stinging speech. In it, he takes the war profiteers of World War I and beyond to task for forgetting who it is who fights the battle, and who bears the ultimate price of war. His words are, of course, as relevant today as they ever were. In fact, it's intriguing to read his words and quiz ourselves how alike -- or different -- are conditions today.

So many people want to say, "Oh, we're just finding out about PTSD, that's why the system lags behind in treating vets." But in fact, this is not the case at all. The phenomenon of combat-wounded bodies, minds and spirits has been around as long as there's been war, irrespective of what name we've used to describe the malady. "Shell shock"? "Soldier's Heart"? "Post-Traumatic Stress"? Ultimately, it's all the same thing. And documentaries from "Hidden Wounds" and "The Soldier's Heart" back in 2006, which I wrote about here almost five years ago now, to HBO's recent "Wartorn" all make this point quite eloquently.

But back to Smedley Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor winner who served more than 33 years on active duty in the Marine Corps. Here's a sampling of his direct comments on what happens to the wounded and their families, and we quote it at length because there's just so much material here to really chew over and decide how "new" the struggles we're facing really are, re-integrating veterans after combat. His words:

"But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement -- the young boys couldn't stand it.

That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead -- they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded -- they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too -- they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam -- on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain -- with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.

But don't forget -- the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.

Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share -- at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.

Napoleon once said,

"All men are enamored of decorations . . . they positively hunger for them."

So by developing the Napoleonic system -- the medal business -- the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.

In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.

So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it is His will that the Germans be killed.

And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies . . . to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.

Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."

Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.

All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill . . . and be killed.

But wait!

Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance -- something the employer pays for in an enlightened state -- and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.

Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.

We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work -- at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!

Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly -- his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.

When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too -- as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.

And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying."

-- Smedley Butler, "War is a Racket." (1935).

Editor's note: You can read "War is a Racket" in full at several places on the Web. It's well worth reading. And, if you'd rather hear key parts of it delivered as a speech, which was its original form, check out this link from YouTube.

Quotable Quotes -- Epictetus on Living in the Present Moment

"Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now." -- Epictetus, Stoic philosopher.

Quotable Quotes -- Ralph Waldo Emerson on a Positive Daily Mindset

Good advice for today and following: "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson on Life, Death, Loss -- and the Compensations of Calamity

For everyone who's lost anyone -- and for veterans, that means their brothers and sisters in combat; for family members, their veteran -- there's obviously nothing good to be said about the tragic loss. But reading American luminary Ralph Waldo Emerson over the New Year's weekend, from an essay called "Compensation," we see him point to some positive things that loss brings forth. Not anything that lessens the original loss; but growth of a new kind, made possible because of that very loss.

Because it's almost impossible to find something good to say about something otherwise completely bad -- and because loss (and blame) tend to hang around for years, even decades longer than they "should" -- it seemed important to reprint Emerson's words here, in case they comfort any.

"We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolators of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, “Up and onward forevermore!” We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the New; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters, who look backwards.

And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from an essay called "Compensation," published in 1841.

Quotable Quotes -- Ralph Waldo Emerson on the Patience of Nature

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

'Tis the Season to Donate to the Cause

Please consider making a year-end donation to Healing Combat Trauma to help us continue to provide therapeutic resources to combat veterans with PTSD. You can donate using this link, here, or you can send us a check. We are a nonprofit with a 501(c)3 pending. If you need your contribution to be tax-deductible, please contact us and we will direct you to our fiscal sponsor, a 501(c)3 who can receive the check on our behalf. Thank you.

We want to be able to bring more veterans on a journey into healing like this one, here. Thank you for your support!

Helping the Brave Fight Their Final Battle: A New Book on Death and Dying

"Rage, rage, against the dying of the light," wrote Irish poet Dylan Thomas about not going peacefully into that good night, death.

Yesterday's LA Times had a story about veterans making that final passage. The article, entitled "Helping the Brave Fight Their Final Battle," is linked here.

The article talks about a book by a nurse practitioner who is the director of the hospice program at the Bay Pines, Fla. VA. The book is called Peace at Last: Stories of Hope and Healing for Veterans and Their Families, by Deborah Grassman.

About the author: Deborah Grassman is a Nurse Practitioner at Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. She has been with the VA for 25 years and has been the Director of the Hospice Program at the VA for the last 14 years. She has been a featured speaker at Hospice conferences throughout the United States and has published articles on providing Hospice care to veterans in numerous professional journals. She pioneered identifying the effects of past trauma on the quality of a person s dying process, as well as ways to effectively respond to issues that surface at the end of life. She has a B.S. in Nursing and an M.S. in Psych-Mental Health Nursing from the University of South Florida.

Editor's note: In future articles, we will talk more about hospice care and veterans.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0918339723?tag=fivelementcom-20&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=0918339723&creative=373489&camp=211189New

Finding -- and Keeping -- Your All-Important Balance

With the holiday season fully underway, here is a message that's foundationally true not just now but also every single day of the year.

It's vitally important to find -- and then maintain -- your personal balance, whatever that may be. We've spoken before about creating what's known as a "personal practice" -- be that meditation, qi gong, T'ai chi, yoga -- something that you can do daily that resets your own internal rythym and reminds you that you have substantial ability to affect your own mood, energy level, and emotional health.

Here's one thing we'd highly recommend be part of that, an attitude that is sadly missing from many people's lives, and also lacking expression in many others. It's a simple word that holds a universe of emotional health within it, and that simple word is GRATITUDE.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." -- Melody Beattie.

Quotable Quotes -- Edwin Shneidman on Walking Someone Out of Hell

Edwin Shneidman, who we've written about frequently on this site, was a mentor to Mark Goulston, M.D., the author of "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for Dummies," linked here. Goulston credits Shneidman with teaching him how to really listen to others, particularly patients, in a story he relays, here:

"Mark, if you listen for hurt, fear and pain, it is always there. And when the other person feels you listening and feeling them, they will lower their guard, open their minds and hearts to you, allow you to enter and comfort them and if you’re fortunate, will let you walk them out of hell." -- Edwin Shneidman to Mark Goulston, M.D.

Once again, we see the benefit of listening with the heart and from the heart, echoing yet again the great quote of Paul Tillich, that "the first duty of love is to listen."

Quotable Quotes -- Joseph Marshall III on the Warrior as "the Shadow Man"

After a discussion with his grandfather about the words their native Lakota Sioux tribe use to discuss war and their warriors, story teller Joseph Marshall III writes:

"One day, still somewhat confused by the seemingly convoluted labels, I asked my grandfather for some kind of clarification. Consequently, he brought up an entirely different phrase and its concept: nagi wica, or "shadow man." He expounded at some length on the issues of war and warriors. His explanation was a foundation for insights I am still developing over this most chaotic of human institutions, and of understanding those who are thrust into war or go by choice.

In my grandfather's opinion, war is really a fight between the good and the bad sides of humans, and both emerge during the hostilities.  It is within each of us to bring out the best or the worst part of ourselves. In all endeavors, he said, we must strive for balance, even within the context of war." -- Joseph M. Marshall III, "Walking with Grandfather: The Wisdom of the Lakota Elders."

In saying this, Marshall's grandfather, and Marshall himself, are espousing some of the central concepts of the Warrior in the Tao, that of integrating the yin and the yang, the darkness and the light, within the same being, and that in that route lies greater emotional and spiritual health.

Quotable Quotes -- the Buddha on Your Very Own Worthiness

"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." -- the Buddha.

These words are quite reminiscent, in their own way, of ones from Max Ehrmann's 1952 masterpiece, "Desiderata": "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here."

During this holiday season, which can be so stressful for so many, please do what you can to take care of your self, first.

Quotable Quotes -- William Gladstone on the Nation's Care for Its Dead

"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high deeds." -- William E. Gladstone, former British prime minister.

Quotable Quotes -- Tobias Wolff on the Darkness of the Heart

"The human heart is a dark forest." -- Tobias Wolff, novelist.

Choosing to Protect -- or Free up -- What's in the Box

I learned about this concept first from a veteran who had been the victim of a military sexual assault. But the details, in a sense, aren't important, because they also could be true for a veteran who experienced post-traumatic stress disorder from combat. Either way, the concept -- for the purposes of education here -- is the same.

In moments of extreme stress, the body/mind has a way of memorializing an experience, almost "freezing" it in time, so that while only some aspects of an experience may be remembered consciously, the unconscious mind is keeping track of the rest of the details. Many (all?) of the sights, sounds, smells, etc. in the periphery are being memorized by the body/mind, while the painful, disruptive experience is taking place.

Later on, some of these other components can become unrealized "triggers," which provoke an agitated emotional state. There's a connection to the traumatic event, but it's not necessarily one that the conscious mind remembers. It is, however, still a very potent trigger.

Let's say while a violent attack was taking place, the mind's eye happened to notice a can of soda sitting on a table, or lying on the ground. Later on, far removed from the traumatic incident, the veteran notices a similar soda can, and feels triggered. There's no overt connection with the previous incident, but yet, there is an uneasy trigger. As one veteran described it, he/she had put "all these memories" surrounding the traumatic event in a box; and the box was put away for safe keeping. As we all know, though, the box is never really gone, so long as it's being kept, even out of sight. It's a great illustration, and one that helps us understand how a mesh of traumatic memories and related, essentially un-traumatic memories get painted together, with the same brush, because they happen at the same time and in the same place, to the survivor.

But now let's entertain a question. During the time that the survivor keeps these (painful, traumatic) memories in the box, and keeps the box away in a "safe place," is the survivor really free from these memories? Or do the memories control the survivor, even at a distance? My guess is they exercise too much control, still, over the survivor. Here's one way how: The box is never forgotten. Allowances are made for the box (the memories). The box (container) contains the experiences and is somehow sacred, because of the function it performs. The unspoken rule is, the box cannot be opened, because the memories are too painful to broach.

While this posture towards the box is very understandable and real, and there is real wisdom at a certain point, maybe when the experience is most raw, to put it away for consideration at a future date, it also risks creating a scenario in which the painful or traumatic memories are more "powerful" than the survivor. Imagine keeping around a physical box, that held only the worst experiences of your life. At a certain point, to be free and healthy, undoubtedly you'd want to jettison the box. Can the box become a ball and chain, otherwise? Perhaps -- or more than perhaps. Pretty much certainly. What is the prescription then? For optimal mental health, at a certain point, and in the company of wise and reliable health care practitioners who you can trust, find a way to open the box. What you ultimately want, or so it would seem, is to have victory over what's inside the box. 

Quotable Quotes -- Viktor Frankl on the Primacy of Experience

A sentiment that combat veterans everywhere might agree with, from the inimitable, invincible Viktor Frankl, World War II concentration camp survivor, in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning," translated from the German:

"What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you."

Quotable Quotes -- Joseph Pilates on the Body and the Mind

"The mind itself builds the body." -- Allegedly the favorite expression of Joseph Pilates, developer of the Pilates method.

 

Quotable Quotes -- Ida Rolf on the Pre-eminence of the Body

"You can't get beyond the body unless you free the body itself." -- Ida Rolf, Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia University, developer of the bodywork field of Structural Integration.

Advancing the Dialogue: Can Veterans and Civilians Really See Eye-to-Eye?

We've all heard the horror stories about what ignorant, impertinent questions strangers and even family members ask of veterans sometimes. "Didja kill anyone?" "How many people did you kill," etc.

It doesn't take much sophistication or awareness about the topic of veterans and PTSD before you realize, those questions aren't appropriate at all, ever; and in general, when it comes to questions about combat experience and what veterans suffered, very clearly let them lead in terms of the disclosure. Don't press. But if they want to talk, be able and willing to listen, if you're so inclined.

Apparently the word hasn't gotten out as far as it should have, though. The other night, I went to a screening of some films by a veteran about his experience, and certain questions by audience members afterwards just made me and many of the veterans in the audience squirm.

I share them because I think it shows how far we all have to go if we actually desire authentic dialogue between the two groups.

(An appropriate disclaimer would be, I'm a civilian too, but I've spent the last five years learning from veterans about what they experience in combat, and about how post-traumatic stress disorder affects them and their loved ones.)

The setting was a small community college auditorium, where members of the public gathered to watch a series of short films produced by an Iraq veteran about his experience reintegrating. The film showing was followed by a panel discussion with a handful of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, both men and women, and a few who'd served earlier. The films were good, and portrayed the experience well, and afterwards, the panel took questions from the audience. Several of the (undoubtedly well-meaning) questioners make me wonder if it's possible for civilians to breach the gap with military on something so raw, personal and volatile as their war experience.

Certainly, when the Vietnam veterans returned, they were met with open hostility and outright neglect, both of which were a problem, and where those after-effects are felt even to this day. Many who were alive during those days, both veterans and civilians, regret those times. It's certainly true that veterans today are getting a different reception -- but is that reception necessarily better, particularly if it includes questions like these? 

One audience member, an older woman, said -- though she had a son who had gone to war and was on the panel -- that she herself was a pacificist. "So I'd like to know," she asked (I'm paraphrasing), "just why you would have joined the military?"

The filmmaker who was hosting the panel responded that the answers to that question would be as different as individuals, and that there was no one way to answer to it. To which a young audience member, referring to the woman's question, replied privately, "Just because you don't personally agree with someone else, isn't any reason to question their motivation for doing what they did."

"Spill your guts"

"Take this opportunity right now, you have it, we're listening," another older woman suggested to the panel of veterans, "and tell us, right now, what you would like us to know, about the worst of what you experienced in war."

The panel was, as a whole, taken aback, incredulous; it was the equivalent, of her saying, "here, right now, spill your guts -- on the most difficult memories you  have -- what's stopping you? We're listening." In an auditorium full of literal strangers, the question was absurd.

One young Marine, who was on a tour in Iraq where many of his brothers-in-arms died, and has since gone on to study social work, demurred that even when his mother asks him, there are questions about what he experienced that he just doesn't feel comfortable answering.

One teenage audience member, at 18 a few years younger than the youngest veteran on the panel, had a question he wanted to ask, which might have gone over much better than some of the more insensitive ones. What he wanted to know is when veterans self-identify as such, whether they feel that the "label" of veteran helps them to integrate better into the community, or whether they feel it sets them apart?

A question like this, which didn't get heard, would have been one of the more pivotal ones to address. Because while it's great that being a veteran has "come out of the woodwork" so to speak -- and the veteran experience is now one that seems to elicit some interest, versus during the Vietnam era -- that also cuts both ways. For veterans who want to be accepted again for who they are, not necessarily thought of primarily in terms of their war experience, however much it's changed them -- it's hard to say whether identifying publicly as a veteran helps this or hurts it.

And while 'm glad to see civilians embracing to some extent the veterans in their community -- and giving them the recognition and to some degree, attention that they didn't give their Vietnam veteran counterparts -- the reality is, it still needs to be done with compassion, understanding and empathy. And NOT the desire to put veterans on the spot and make them squirm under the spotlight of fairly ignorant questioning, no matter how "well-meaning" their interest.

Someday I hope we'll all find the right balance on this: respecting veterans for their service and their sacrifice, and letting the veterans lead the conversation about how much they really want to say about it. In the meantime, the appropriate posture for the rest of us -- both individually and as communities, is to wait, not press, and certainly not pressure -- veterans to talk about what they've gone through.

© 2010 by Lily Casura / Healing Combat Trauma. All rights reserved. Use with attribution. 

Quotable Quotes -- Milton Erickson on the Indisputable Need for Joy

When it comes to worry and anxiety, the New Testament talks in Matthew 6:34 about a good reason for prayer being that "each day has enough trouble of its own" (all too true).

If you've watched the movie, "The Bucket List," with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, you've heard the conclusion that the two big questions that everyone needs to ask themselves before they die are these: "Have you found joy?" and "Has your life brought joy to others?" Provocative and essential; a "both/and" not an "either/or."

Then if you combine those two sentiments above, trouble and joy, you have the following quote from psychiatrist Milton Erickson, M.D., which goes to the heart of the matter:

“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” -- Milton Erickson

 We don't have to look very far to see the applications in the life of a veteran with combat-based PTSD or his or her loved ones. The pain is real; but the joy is completely necessary; and no one can create it but us. This holiday season, start "Joy to the world" much closer to home. Find and do the things that bring you -- even if only you -- some much-needed JOY. The pain doesn't need any more attention than it already draws to itself. Go find, and make, some joy to carry you through.

Quotable Quotes -- Rumi on the Healing Power of Wounds

We've quoted Rumi before on this site -- the famous 13th century Persian mystic -- in a quote linked here about changing your view. But here's another spectacular one, that goes to the heart of healing:

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

Editor's note: For a collection of thought-provoking quotes on the Tao of Healing, click here.

Quotable Quotes -- Using the Heart to See Clearly

Two quotes that essentially say the same thing: "The heart sees better than the eye." -- Jewish proverb. This echoes a line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in "The Little Prince," where he writes: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

These both fit right in with one of our core beliefs around here, as expressed by Paul Tillich: "The first duty of love is to listen." 

When it comes to "listening" to combat veterans with PTSD in our lives, let's hope we do it with love, compassion, and empathy -- even if they can't, or won't, express what's really on their minds. Communication is based on trust, and comes in time. Patience and keeping the right intention are both important. Social support is known to be a preventative for PTSD (how cool is that?!) and even after diagnosis, trust and communication go quite a way towards helping the veteran bridge the perceived gap between their life before, and their life after, PTSD.

Editor's note: For more articles, including ones written by veterans, about communication skills, click here.

Conflict as Combat: When Words Become Bullets

A great comment in a panel discussion by veterans on re-integration, where one veteran was discussing how being asked the wrong questions can put him on the defensive and elicit an undesired response, thanks in part to military training and the normal reaction to being backed into a corner. "When rifles are no longer involved, words can become your bullets," he said.

For anyone who's ever been on either the "giving" or the "receiving" side of a difficult, heated conversation where it felt like life or identity was at stake, it's easy to understand exactly what he meant. It's also, obviously, not a prescription for harmonious communication that resolves issues effectively. For that, very different communication styles and skills are necessary. We try to cover that here from time to time, when we find someone with a worthwhile and constructive point of view -- and experience in the trenches, either as a veteran or a spouse of a veteran with PTSD.

Editor's note: To access that series of articles on communication skills, including those written by veterans and/or their spouses, click here. We're continuing to add more material to this section, including an upcoming article about "fair fighting." 

Quotable Quotes -- Rose Kennedy on the Permanence of Wounds

Unlike what we usually express on this site, but one that is worth mentioning as well -- that wounds never completely go away -- from someone who knew the pain of loss intimately and with far too much frequency over her lifetime:

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But they are never gone." -- Rose Kennedy. 

Quotable Quotes -- Harry Chapin on Making a Difference

"To know is to care, to care is to act, to act is to make a difference." -- Harry Chapin, American songwriter and altruist.

Quotable Quotes -- Anais Nin on Opening to Self-Expression and Growth

"A classic quote about growth and self-expression:

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin.

Quotable Quotes -- Ralph Waldo Emerson on Not Being the Slave of Your Past

"Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotable Quotes -- Michael Meade on Healing and Community after War

"When a culture simply shrugs about what happens to people in war, it breaks the fragile sequence, the bond between all people." -- Michael Meade.

Meade is the author of "The World behind the World," and is also the founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. He is featured in the upcoming documentary, "The Welcome Home Project."

Editor's note: the figure pictured is a Native American medicine man, responsible for bringing healing to his people. For more information on anthropological rituals for veterans and healing, click here.

Quotable Quotes -- The Dalai Lama on Love and Concern for Others

"Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others." -- Dalai Lama

Too Tough to Heal: Is That Your Identity?

There's an old-ish Don Henley song where he asks, "How Bad Do You Want it?" And though he was singing about sex, the topic could just as easily be healing, when that question is on the table. (Even Jesus was known to ask, "Do you really want to get well?" Probably because that question turns out to be a crucial one, requiring as it does "buy-in" from the listener.) Though this conversation could apply equally well to others, for the sake of our purposes here, the conversation addresses veterans with PTSD and their practitioners.

I "dare" you to heal me, some veterans with PTSD almost taunt. "I'm too tough a case," seems to be the underlying unspoken belief. With a little bit of a swagger, from years of no improvement or setbacks, and an unconscious provocation that there really is no relief to be had, at least for you. Is there a bravado of broken-ness that leaves you "too tough to heal?" And if so, Is that really who you want to be?  

The reasons why can be as unique as each individual: from having assumed "PTSD" as the new identity to not wanting to step off the Goodie Train of those who are showering you with opportunities for healing (in case you are so lucky as to have that; most do not).

The bottom line: At some point in the healing process, you have to examine your identity and decide who it is you want to be, Healed or Unhealed. As the old quote goes, whether you believe that you can or you believe that you can’t, you’re gonna be right both times.

Now, this conversation isn’t for people who have just started the healing process, it’s for people who have an almost professional-level involvement with their own healing. In other words, they’ve sampled quite a bit of the wares that are out there, both with the VA and with private practitioners, and somehow, they’ve managed to prove themselves, well, “too tough to be healed.” The question becomes, is this really what you want your identity to be? And if so, WHY – because if this is the chosen behavior, it must have some intrinsic payoff.

Are you actually “proud” of your own ability to “untouchable” on the healing front?

Years ago, a social worker tipped me off to there being a subset of clients that colleagues referred to, and I’m paraphrasing, as “help-resistant, non-compliant complainers.” In other words, those to whom no help offered was ever, quite literally, enough. And who weren’t willing to try the satisfactory options open to them. Their case was unique, tougher, and frankly, they weren’t about to move off the complaint perch, which had become too comfortable. I’ve seen a few of these in my time.

As practitioners, we probably ought to be following the old Maya Angelou line, that the first time someone tells you who they are, believe them.

As patients, we ought to challenge our own belief that we can’t be healed, and really give some thought as to why we have to camp out on that particular belief; and why it has to become our identity – and whether there is something better that might be waiting for us, just around the corner, that we’ll miss if our attitude is too negative to accept it.

And there may even be a challenge to be embraced below that level of examination as well. Is it possible that if we march behind the banner of “too tough to heal,” we’ll also manage to stay at the head of the parade of sympathetic civilians giving us stuff? Like the man who prides himself on being “too hard to love” or “not the marrying kind,” in the sometimes not even conscious hope that droves of prospects will still shipwreck themselves on his rock foolishly attempting to try, it’s one way to stay as the center of attention. And negative statements (“I can’t,” which really should be more read more accurately as “I won’t) works just as well as positive, when it comes to eliciting others’ concern.

Are you professionally (no rank amateur here!) UNABLE to be healed, because you are also UNWILLING? Would you have to give up too much – of your identity, for instance – if you did? Would the Goodie Train stop making stops at your door? (Here are some things the goodie train might be filled with, that you would like: love and attention, personal concern, practitioners and programs giving you their services free of charge, etc.) If you weren’t working the “I’m-too-damaged-to-be-healed” thing, would you have to give up some of your stature in your own community, of the also-unhealed?

We’ve all known people who when they give up (fill in the blank with a generally undesirable behavior) find that some of their friends desert them, either because they’re “no fun to be around anymore” or because truly, they realize that much of what they had in common was actually the behavior they now consider destructive. What if your identity is wrapped up in complaining with your peer group that you feel terrible, can’t get well, nothing anyone does works? If that’s your identity, and you suddenly get better – what do you have to talk about and who does your social circle become? Has this become too great a cost to heal? Let’s hope not.

Strangely enough, being un-well can become an identity. The healthy psyche may reject that as a role; but the unhealthy psyche may very well embrace it. Change is possible; but before there’s even change to be had, maybe it’s time to consider: Do you gain more from staying sick than you might from getting well? Are there tangible payoffs to resisting healing that only you benefit from – but which make it too high a bar to cross in order to get well? If so, the first work of healing is actually examining what’s holding you back; and why you’re embracing something that suppresses the best of who you could be. Food for thought.

Editor's note: The point here is not to create a litany of the "things you've done" that should have created healing by now(!), but to simply look inside and wonder if in fact you've created your own barrier(s) to getting better/getting well. Health is no different from economics or personal growth in this regard: Sometimes we're the reason things don't move forward, and if that's the case, best to figure out how to get out of our own way, no matter how entrenched that particular groove has become by now.

Quotable Quotes: Ernest Junger on Combat's Coloration of the Mind

"In the great vicinity of death, of blood, and of soil, the mind takes on harder features and darker colors." -- Ernest Junger, Der Arbeiter, 1932.

Quotable Quotes -- Ralph Waldo Emerson on Tomorrow a Fresh Start

It's not quite "New Year's Resolution" time -- but it's also true that the dawn of every new day provides a new opportunity to change what didn't work about the old one.

Hampering that often is our own unbelief / disbelief in our ability to improve. As Maxwell Maltz once wrote, "Your most important sale in life is to sell yourself to yourself." Why? Because you can be your harshest critic, and one area where that really shows itself is doubting your ability to change -- or being able to forgive yourself for falling short. 

With the caveat that it's not always possible to take the following advice, because we do wobble and fall regularly as human beings, it's nevertheless quite great advice -- from a well-known American sage:

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin in serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Whether it's New Year's Eve tomorrow -- or just another day -- this remains good advice to heed, particularly as we try to put into place changes that will be for our and our loved ones' good.

Quotable Quotes -- Pema Chodron on Going into the Pain

"Bodhisattvas practice 'in the middle of the fire.' This means they enter into the suffering of the world; it also means they stay steady with the fire of their own painful emotions. They neither act them out nor repress them. They are willing to 'stay on the dot' and explore an emotion's ungraspable qualities and fluid energies -- and to let that experience link them to the pain and courage of others." -- Pema Chödrön, American Buddhist nun (Tibetan Buddhist tradition) and author.

Editor's note: The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanshiyin, also known as Quan Yin or Kuan Yin) is pictured. Chinese, 11th or 12th century.

Also, for more on meditation, click here.