PTSD as a spiritual identity disorder

I spent most of the last weekend attending a course that addresses the issue of PTSD, particularly focuses on veterans who have been having trouble transitioning to normal life. Many stories shared during the weekend retreat were very moving. Although it is very hard to understand, the soldiers of the modern days are going through a very difficult transition from the combat zone to civilian life without proper holdings from the society.

The combat zone is a place where life and death happen in split seconds,

and in the everyday civilian lives we take our lives for granted.

It is thus not impossible to understand that soldiers coming back from the combat zone are having trouble making sense of their warrior identity in the world of civilians.

Their lives were transformed and their world has become a different world, and there is no going back.

Therapeutically, finding a way to honor, to acknowledge, and to affirm the real, life and death, fight and flight combat experiences seems to be a properer way to address people suffering from PTSD.

Nevertheless, the manualized treatments that are operating in most of the VAs nowadays can in no way achieve this goal. very sad news for those soldiers who have sacrificed themselves for a larger cause. :(

Families and friends of soldiers also suffer from the residual effects that the soldiers brought back with them. They were rarely acknowledged and addressed.

I have my heart for all the warriors who have fought and are fighting,

with all the peaceful wish,

I would also honor their lives in those split second encounters with death.

I recommend a useful book on this issue, War and the Soul by Ed Tick.