Tour of Duty

Traumatized people are stuck in their overwhelming experiences. Instead of telling them the world is not as dangerous as they fear, it is important to address the underlying vulnerability and isolation they feel. Only through a connection with another person, feeling understood, can a traumatized person return to a life in the present again.

People with PTSD often cannot leave the time and place of their trauma. They cannot connect with us in the present. In this blog entry, I present a possible perspective from someone with PTSD who pretends to feel connections with others. I portray the tremendous shame and isolation such people feel as they hide their problems from those who care about them.

Desperateness comes during combat when it is clear that you will die. You aredisconnected from everyone except those around you. But then you survive and return home to a world that does not understand. Then the real desperateness begins.

A veteran's desire to return to combat may not always make sense to friends or loved ones. It might be patriotism, but it can also be a loss of connection to others, a feeling of no longer fitting into a peaceful place, or guilt. I explore these and other possible reasons here, so that family and friends might better understand.

Trauma

Separateness

Russell Carr M.D. on November 19, 2012

There is not much discussion about how the world now seems to traumatized people. What does the world look like to them? People who have survived horrific trauma experience the world differently from others, and differently than they did before the shattering experience of trauma. From my perspective, they experience an intense sense of separateness.

There is not much discussion about how the world now seems to traumatized people. What does the world look like to them? People who have survived horrific trauma experience the world differently from others, and differently than they did before the shattering experience of trauma. From my perspective, they experience an intense sense of separateness.

From my perspective, a fundamental part of healing from trauma is feeling understood by another human being.

I could feel his never-ending accounts of killing after killing shattering what was left of my sense of a just, sane world. I couldn’t bear hearing anything in those moments. I could not understand such madness. I froze and became numb.

We all want to help veterans bear the unspeakable experience of combat. But how do we open ourselves up to that? How do we help them bear experiences that few of us have to endure? I examine how combat veterans and their supporters can find ways to bear the darkness of combat trauma together.