I'm one of those people you defended, kept free and safe. Unknowing of your sacrifice, I seemingly went about my random business, accumulating masters degrees while waiting for the next path Stone to be revealed. I learned in September 2001 why I had signed up for a Master of Divinity degree, and that October I learned why I needed it - so I could be there when people were asking the unanswerable questions: Why me? or Why him/her and not me? Where the %$#@ are You?! Now what? I had no answers then, and don't really now. But I do know that this wasteland between pretend-knowing and truth is where I want to live. It feels honest, real, full of hope, now that the half-answers have been revealed as fairy tale.
While I can't talk about the context, I hope it is enough to say that I have had the unspeakably privileged gift of being trusted by combat veterans. I'd searched the Internet for a source of what felt truthful about combat PTSD - not the glossy "We've got the answers" pages or the pathologizing "disorder" talk, but instead the raw WTF?! language that acknowledges there's no going back to "Kansas," that life will always be different, that any compass once acquired is now resetting but still spinning aimlessly. I found it here (PASP). Thank you, Scott - both for providing a home for men and women trying to make sense of this chaos, but also a place for me to write.
Scott knows the extent to which my life has been directly impacted by combat PTSD. While I won't be talking about that, I will be offering a forum to share the stories of the horrors living in the tornado's grip, and perhaps hope together towards the revealing of a new horizon that will feel like "back home". There's a nation of us out here - civilians who can never understand, but who desperately need to. How else will we be cured of our lack of values, superficiality, misplaced priorities, childishness, and unknowing/ignorant choices? We need the veteran's voice in its rightful place - among us, guiding us, leading us. I fear the epidemic of moral anemia that will result if that voice remains isolated. I know: "If you [civilians] only knew . . ." But what you did - the things you regret most - you did on my behalf. It is now my turn - our turn - to share the burden of your choices, withhold judgment - we weren't there - and offer silent, listening presence. My dream is that, together, we will discover a new, collective "us," a higher purpose, a worthy calling. Together we will create an America deserving of your sacrifice. It all starts with healing your voice.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PtsdASoldiersPerspective/~3/vo8IgozATjk/soul-whisperer-enters-conversation.html
Posted
Jul 27 2010, 05:17 PM
by
PASP - Combat PTSD HQ