Societal implications of PTSD

So often society has dictated edicts based on fear, ignorance, and misinformation, and common mental illnesses like anxiety, depression, and PTSD are no different "societal illnesses" than were racism, sexism, and class-ism. While looking for venues to speak at in Seattle about my journey with PTSD, I came across this article that made my blood boil. I've responded in part to the author, and if I do get a response in return, I'll post it as well.

Here's the original article (from Seattle PI):

My brother's battle with PTSD
By CAROLYN HAX, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Published 04:04 p.m., Sunday, October 16, 2011
E-mail Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com.

Dear Carolyn:

My brother has undiagnosed PTSD and is moving through his pain by abusing alcohol. Having already lost one career due to a DUI, he is in full denial and on a crash course for losing his wife and his life.

We have recently learned that our mother is terminally ill. My brother plans to come for a visit in November.

The only gift I can give my mother now is a sense that her children will be OK. If my brother comes to town in his current state, it will rip her to pieces. How do I start?

-- M.

You start by accepting that you can't make a gift of something that isn't yours to give.
Your brother's life is his to save. You can urge him to get help; you can try to coordinate your efforts with his wife to improve your chances of nudging him into seeking a diagnosis and appropriate care; you can attend Al-Anon meetings; you can call the NAMI help line at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or find a support group at www.nami.org; you can try (repeat: try) to orchestrate his visit with an eye to minimizing the stress on your mother, say by scheduling visits for when she is most alert or comfortable.

You can also contact your local hospice provider to see what support resources they offer, both for you and for your mom. You'll find that self-destructive tendencies in the families of the terminally ill are not unexplored terrain.

What you cannot do is scrub your brother of distress and present him to your mom as a worry to cross off her list. All you will likely accomplish is to add a worry to your list, which will radiate to your mother as a reason to fret about you.

Please focus your energy on providing the comfort devoted children are ideally suited to provide. Some of that will be logistical, like acting as intermediary with doctors and other professionals, and as link to loved ones beyond her physical reach. The rest will be emotional, and you can bring her peace just by caring about her needs and especially about her stories, assuring her that she matters.

If your mother is looking for assurance that her son will be OK, then she'll be able to find some of that in your strength. She will see that her family still has a center, a place for her troubled son to go when he's ready. That's a gift you can give.

This was my response:

Carolyn,
I just read your column on the Seattle PI website while looking for a place to speak about PTSD. It was called "my brothers battle with PTSD" and I was shocked that I couldn't leave a comment. I felt compelled to leave a comment, albeit short, as the general populace has a devastating misconception of PTSD and what to do about it. It's NOT supportive to expect that person to change, to suddenly be ok, or to address their issues that stem from PTSD as traditional addictions, or to see your family member as the problem. They are trying to survive, and often alcohol is the only way not to harm oneself. Perhaps if there was a better support system in our families, our neighborhoods, churches, communities, etc, these people could find the strength to deal with their traumatic events in a holistic, healthy, and supportive environment rather than being cast by society into an internal prison where nothing ever changes, where they're thrown farther from love, from support, from kindness, where they want to die. We all could do a better job of understanding, empathizing, and supporting.

My response to --M. is as follows...

Perhaps you should try to SUPPORT your brother instead of STRESSING HIM OUT... PTSD happens due to a TRAUMATIC event. If you can't understand what that might do to a human being, then don't try to- just offer your unconditional love and support knowing that he's been through something you'll never understand- let alone want to go through yourself. And if your mother cares about her son she will understand this. It won't stress her out because she will understand in all her wisdom that life goes through cycles, and although winter may be long and seems unending, spring eventually follows. Your brother will probably never be the same- he may always have issues with this, and it may be your brothers life that ends first if you don't support him. At least PTSD isn't necessarily a terminal illness. Take it from me.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/advice/article/My-brother-s-battle-with-PTSD-2213751.php#ixzz1ecCobyBe
AND COMMENT OR EMAIL THE COLUMNIST IF YOU FEEL COMPELLED TO!

Generally speaking, in the media-
I'm appalled by the accusatory tone and hostility directed toward those with PTSD and other illnesses like depression and anxiety. I'm completely shocked that someone in an advice column would continue to propagate society's phobic responses toward loss and grieving. If someone survives a traumatic event, chances are that even with your unyielding support, they will never be the same, and very likely will still have a very hard time trying to cope for a long time afterward, possibly forever. Trauma isn't something you just fix or ignore and telling someone to "get over it" is cold and inhuman. Even if you can ignore it for a while, you can't ignore it forever and it will be much worse as time progresses, often manifesting the pain and suffering as withdrawal, neglect, substance abuse, and chronic issues with anger, anxiety, etc. Only soul-less people would see someone in misery, someone suffering, someone in pain, recognize that grieving, and turn a blind eye and direct a hurtful tongue. Society is wrong and the sooner we see that, the sooner we can address it. The sooner we address it, we recognize that people suffer, often because of other people or society's deranged values and beliefs, and if we stand by these grieving people as an unyielding community, no matter how much it hurts to watch or is uncomfortable or inconvenient for us to do, we realize that when it's our turn to suffer, we won't be alone, scared, and lost. The next step is to teach this unconditional love and support to our children as their birthright, as a given in our modern society, as a way for people to come together and support one another. It's our premium for our societal "insurance policy", and even if we never partake of the receiving end ourselves, at least we know we've bettered the world for this generation and the ones to follow.

Live with empathy to extinguish apathy

A Tribe Called Stress

Essentially our society doesn't understand grief associated with loss, although apparently our western ideology allows society plenty of leeway to give us grief over our loss. Loss equates to weakness in our society. It's something to be avoided for "survival", and society would even have us believe that loss is totally preventable, especially for the right price. It's taboo to allow a loss to interfere with any aspect of life, especially those parts of life that are desired or attempted to be controlled by others (which is most- who doesn't want a piece of something or somebody these days!). It would seem to be better off not even mentioning the topic as discussion of loss leaves you wide open for attack, control, and manipulation from friends and family to employers, institutions, and corporations (to name a few). Although many may be temporarily supportive, and certain entities may even baby you for a little capitol in return, when your grieving process doesn't match their idea of what it should be, there will inevitably be confrontations, problems and stress, and at the very least some incredibly awkward moments. But is this the way it was meant to be? Is there a holistic, gentle way to connect with those around you in a truly supportive experience to help you rise out of your pain and help others understand and grieve with you? And if so can it even be worth the effort, the stress of breaking through the fear?

The first thing to realize is that we are all a big pack of liars. We all suffer loss, and as a whole, we all go through basic similar things with regard to loss (anger, fear, depression, relief, confusion, etc). Although our losses are all different and spark different issues, thoughts and emotions, as a general rule we are taught that admitting these losses equates to admitting those emotions (anger, fear, depression, etc) which equates to a state of vulnerability as anyone can take advantage of your specific state of being and manipulate it to their own advantage. Unfortunately when we don't acknowledge loss, our mind and subconscious manipulate this ignored opportunity to embrace vulnerability in a controlled atmosphere to their perceived advantage. These emotions associated with your loss will eat away at your conscious and subconscious mind until you are forced to let them out, allowing yourself to be incredibly vulnerable and weakened in the process as you have given control over to your instinctual mind. This also allows your mind to believe that you have no self control as it seems that you would actually allow yourself to be manipulated by another human being by entering into instinctual mode, letting it all out. This perceived lack of self control causes loss of self trust, and a spiral into a victim's mindset where it is hard to facilitate control over anything in life. Perhaps that not only is a defeating way of coping with loss, but is also a control and survival mechanism ingrained in your brain to facilitate fear and thus action in weakened states. Looking at it from a different perspective, it is far better to acknowledge that everyone at some point has grieving associated with loss- you are not alone in this regard. It is perhaps terrifying, but a refreshing exercise in the goodness of humanity as a whole and the concept of trust to acknowledge your feelings, thoughts and emotions (at the very least to yourself), and allow the freedom of movement in your life. The flip side is to keep pushing them back down and ignoring them, eventually producing an eruption of epic proportions that threatens to destroy everything in your life. The first thing to realize is that it's ok to feel.

The second thing to realize is that we're all stupid scared. Of everything. Particularly of the unknown, which as far as we know is EVERYTHING. Change, whether desired or not, is often a catylist of fear. Big questions arise with change, and even the agents of change can produce anxiety, the calling card of fear. Most often this is the fear of loss, the dread that something of value will be gone, replaced with something of lesser value to you personally. As everyone's desires are so very different across a large spectrum, almost anything can produce fear, and in some people who are currently grieving, everything produces fear. The second thing you must realize is that's natural. It's normal to be afraid, anxious, frozen when faced with scary change. It's ok to acknowledge this emotion, to realize it, accept it, and don't fight it. It's important to listen and allow it to be. As you listen, look for motives, desires, and your life force. Perhaps you are pressuring yourself to do the wrong thing, but perhaps it's the right thing for you in your specific situation. Only by close listening can you discern the difference. Realize what you want and understand why. Whenever fear comes up, listen to it and evaluate it. Remember your reasoning for choosing to do what you wanted, your why, for each thing you're anxious about. Reevaluate it. Does it still resonate with your soul? Is this still what you want? If so, your resolution and desire will minimize your fear- you will realize that the grand goal is worth the risk. If you realize that these things no longer serve you, then feel free to ditch them and find something new. If you take a wrong step, be gentle, realize that you are capable, and try again, understanding that you're closer to discovering your true self because of it. In this way you allow your fear to help motivate or guide you rather than control you, and live a more truthful life that resonates with your very being.

The third is that as long as you've unquestioningly bought into modern society's dogma, you've sold your soul for comfort- namely for someone else to tell you what to do (what to believe, what is acceptable, what is taboo, what you should do, etc). Luckily for you this contract is negotiable. A friend of mine recently came up with a beautiful mantra- "our way of living should spring from our own deepest impulses". What do you think when your mind is quiet? Do you really think at all? If you've sold your soul and haven't tried to regain control over it, it's hard to hear the deep impulses coming from your being, from your existence and the reason you were thought into being. The only impulses you'll recognize are those programmed into you by society and their devices, namely the media, the media, the government, corporations and their marketing, the media, church dogma, the education system, the media, consumeristic marketing, and did I mention the media? The goal here is to learn your own dogma, find your own deepest impulses (not the illegal kind ;), and live true to your essence, your being. There's a raison d'être planted within everyone. It's manifested by patterns and desires in your existence, the times in life when you are truly living or truly happy, and only by linking these together and finding the common reason in all of them can you find your own personal dogma, your raison d'être, and live true to your soul.

We're all lost without a clue, without a compass or a map. We don't really know how to get through loss any better than the next guy. Sure we all have some insight gained through personal discovery, and many will get up on their soapbox and preach a one size fits all mentality, but if people watching has done me any service whatsoever, I know this mentality to be an utter falsehood. As with clothes, some can barely fit an arm into dogma designed for the wrong person, situation, gravity of ordeal, or place in time. Just as your inner voice is a unique compass guiding you to a higher and more true version of self, so the right fitting and specifically appropriate mental wardrobe will keep you sheltered from the elements of your suffering and guide you through your pain and grief. Only you truly know the right path to take- if only you listen to your inner voice.

We are all deaf. We can't hear our own voice let alone the voices of others. We won't tolerate our own pain, won't allow ourselves healing (come on, we're made of steel, like machines!), let alone to truly listen and connect with the pain of others. To acknowledge anything in another is to recognize the same in the self, and machines certainly don't feel pain! But machines also aren't. They have no awareness. No understanding. They don't exist on a cognizant plane, they just function as they are programmed to do. They drink Pennzoil for breakfast, perform mindless repetitive tasks, and sit for periods of time in a numb, cold, comatose silence, until they are either needed again as society's tools, are callously discarded as obsolete, or fail to perform their function and are torn down into scrap metal. Unlike machines we have choice. We can choose to plug our ears and hearts and mindlessly, callously program ourselves to dully putter through our life dictated by others until we are discarded onto society's scrap heap, or we can choose to embrace this birthright that is OUR lives (yes, you do actually own something) and fully, creatively, uniquely live out the colorful life that is our own- including the pain, suffering, and fear (sepia is a color too you know). We can choose to listen and embrace the pain, suffering, anxiety of others so we can in turn further embrace our own pain, suffering and anxiety. This simple act allows us to release the cork on the bottle and empty all the pressure of keeping the sepia toned thoughts and moments of life pushed away, because whatever you are trying to hide has your attention, and whatever has your attention has your energy. By trying to lock away the sepia, mysteriously all you can see is a sepia toned image of life. Life cannot be technicolor again until you acknowledge that sepia is also a color.

Our paths through loss, although perhaps similar in certain facets (like certain emotional or physical responses), are very unique and personal with the paths they take, the duration and extent of pain, and the personal experiences and discoveries made along the way. And perhaps that's the point. We share so many similarities with each other that we stubbornly refuse to admit mirror ourselves because we are all a bunch of scared stupid, lost, deaf liars disconnected from our souls. If we could all just man up, admit our pain, our fear, our vulnerability, our commonality, not only could we set ourselves free, we could also learn a lot about ourselves through others, how strong we truly are, and what life is about while providing much needed connection, support and brotherhood for mankind. Eventually we will be forced to recognize these facets of life, either on our own or in our own tribes, alone, scared and confused, or supported, loved, and adjusted. Life's going to happen anyway, why not face it together?