Of lepers and caves
By Jim Gourley
I'm going to say quite a
few things that I can't immediately qualify, because the views build on each
other. I wish I could give you a clear line of reasoning, but if I could then
PTSD wouldn't be a problem. So I'm going to do this the only way I know how -- create the ball of twine and then unravel it. Bear with me.
I am an expert on PTSD.
So is every other Soldier/Sailor/Marine/Airman (avoiding diatribes against the
all-inclusive "warrior" here) who has felt and/or suffered (because
feeling and suffering are distinct from each other) from PTSD. I know we are
all experts because no one else does, or can, understand the condition without
having gone through it. Army psychologists and counselors who have not felt it
or suffered from it only scratch the surface of the problem.
PTSD is very difficult
to deal with for two reasons. One reason is the misconception that it is a
psychological condition. It's not. It's a spiritual condition. Yes, I know that
you cannot anatomically identify the human spirit or sedate it with valium and
that, for all its complexities and mysteries, we find the brain much easier to
"treat", but I'm telling you right now that trying to understand PTSD
under a psychological paradigm is like trying to conduct an ACL surgery at an
auto-body shop. I've met David Grossman, and even he speaks about it in
metaphysical terms on a frequent basis. If you don't believe me, I'll go dig up
the quotes from all the shrinks-in-chief that declare the cause for spikes in
suicides in 2008 and 2009 and 2010 was "due to the weather." I give
all due respect to the shrinks and counselors. They're doing their best. But
with all due respect, their best is nothing but best guesses. Because this
isn't scientific. It's spiritual.
The second reason it's
difficult is that, even when we acknowledge the spiritual nature of this
condition, we are woefully inept at dealing with it. Blake Hall hits on all the
things we do wrong -- ridicule, ostracize, and ignore those with the disease.
Treat the guy like a leper.
You want to know why we
do that? Because deep down underneath all that type-A, testosterone-driven,
state-of-the-badass-art Spartan warrior bravado that we exude, we are scared to
f---ing death that we'll catch it. PTSD in the Army is like cooties in a
third-grade classroom.
If we want to treat
PTSD, we've got to do exactly what Blake did. We've got to learn how to hug
lepers. We've got to get past the condition and see the man or woman we've
always known. We've got to embrace them and hold them tight, tell them that
we're here and we're not leaving them. And we've got to mean it. We have to be
there. At the office, on the steps of their house, on a swollen riverbank out
back of a Chili's on a Saturday night, on the floor of a living room where
there used to be furniture at 2 o'clock in the morning. These people don't need
us 24/7, but when they do, we've got to answer the call. And we've got to be
the kind of leaders and peers that instill enough confidence in them that
they'll pick up the phone and call us.
Hotlines and VA
administrations can't help. They weren't there in the s--t with you when it was
all going down. They don't know. They didn't see. And they don't really care.
Yes, I know that many of these people really DO care, but I only know that now.
When you have PTSD, you DON'T know that. You certainly won't believe it. Let me
back up.
Here's what PTSD is
like, and why people kill themselves over it. Think of life like a cave. If I
send you into a cave with a lantern and tell you there are no bears in the
cave, you feel safe. You will walk around the cave and enjoy yourself. Now what
if I give you a lantern and a gun and tell you that there is a bear in there?
You can still go down, but you'll be careful to look for the bear and ready to
run or shoot if you see it. Now, what if I send you down there with a gun but
no lantern and simply say "bear" to you? Pretty soon, you're in
there, you can't see the way out, and every rock you bump into feels like a
bear. After a long enough time being down in the cave, you realize you don't
have enough ammo to shoot everything that might be a bear. It has nothing to do
with running out of food or water or feeling like you're fighting some
unwinnable battle with the bear. You just get sick and tired of the
uncertainty. Are you going to live through the night? Are you going to wake up
to a bear gnawing your intestines? You get to the point where you just wish the
bear would come along and end it. And when he doesn't come, you decide to do it
yourself.
Suicide isn't a
surrender, it's a reassertion of power. These guys' lives have spun out of
control, and the decision over whether they live or die is the last thing they
have the power to determine. Think about it. You ever met a Soldier that wasn't
a "take charge kind of guy?" That's my warning bell. I've seen lots
of "cries for help" where a guy said "life is meaningless."
I don't put much stock in those. But when he says "life is scary"?
That's the guy that's going to do it.
So, back to the moment
of choice. You've got that gun on your bed or your car keys in your hand and a
good cliff in mind. What's going to get you out of that? Some slick-sleeve doc
you've never seen before asking you how many times you've been deployed, or a
buddy putting his hand on your shoulder and saying "you alright, bro? you
look like you're hearing bears."
I'm out with a buddy a
while back. We're talking about brands of beer. He hears a car backfire, and
suddenly he's scanning ridgelines. He's not here anymore. He's all the way in
Afghanistan, and he takes me halfway back to Iraq with him. I think about
saying something, telling him that he's here, not there. That I'm with him.
That everything is okay. But that would be the wrong thing to say. A couple of
minutes pass as we walk. He keeps scanning, I just stay by him. After that, we
go back to talking about beer. We don't mention anything about the event.
A couple of days later
we're walking along and he says "you know, I really freaked out the other
day." I tell him that I know, and I was right there with him. That's all
that needs to be said. He knows my story. We don't need any elaborate cathartic
rituals or long discussions about it. It's no different than strapping on armor
and walking outside the wire. I trusted him to be able to take care of himself,
and he trusted me to catch him the moment he couldn't. We're Ranger buddies,
not baby-sitters. Giving him dignity and letting him fight the battle on his
own is just as important as helping him get up when he gets knocked down.
Our best therapists are
our brothers and sisters. The medicine is the very spritual bond of the
profession of arms. But you've got to give that medicine in a heavy, constant
dose. I'm talking about full-on morphine drip here. When you're in the cave
with that bear, you're aware that something is wrong with you. You can't help
but feel that. Because of that, you become acutely suspicious of EVERYONE
around you. You begin to hate yourself. You have very good, rational reasons
for hating yourself. You don't understand why everyone else can't see these
reasons and why they don't hate you. Or maybe they do. Maybe they're secretly
drafting personnel action memos to move you somewhere else. Maybe they're
talking behind your back. It seems like the only people who don't hate you are
your wife or kids or parents. Well, it's obvious why. They weren't out there
with you. They didn't see. They're all idiots. You start to hate them for not
understanding you and not hating you. They keep telling you it's going to be
okay and to calm down, and if they say that one more time you're going to
scream and wring their necks because it's just not true because so
help-me-god-i'm-down-inthiscavewiththisbearandit'sgoingtogetmeAAAARGH!!!
"Jim, where's your
furniture? Where's your wife? What's going on?"
"I've ruined my
life, Sir."
A Lieutenant Colonel
sits down on the tile floor of an empty house beside a sobbing Captain. He's a
Brigade XO who's had a long week and only has about a month before he takes
Battalion Command and goes to Iraq. His wife is waiting outside in the car and
his kids are waiting for him at home. But he takes time for this guy, because
he's been down in the cave. He knows this guy is terrified of bears right now,
and the Captain might not make it through the night if he doesn't show him
there's no bear. He doesn't just refrain from ridicule. He starts telling
stories. Stories he'd rather not remember. Stories told in confidence that
probably won't be told many more times in his life, but will never be
forgotten. That Lieutenant Colonel says lots of things, but it all adds up to
one important message.
"There is nothing
wrong with you."
He doesn't mean that in
a "you ain't hurt, drive on", Patton way. He means it in a very
genuine, spiritual way. There is nothing wrong with that Captain because
EVERYONE feels that way. We are either all lepers or we're all fine. Either
way, there is no reason for that Captain to feel like he's untouchable,
outcast, damaged goods. The Lieutenant Colonel chooses to believe we're all
okay. On this night, he's successful in convincing the Captain that this is
true.
"Is there a gun in
the house?"
It's the right question
to ask. There isn't one. But the Captain is holding his car keys in his hand
and has a bridge in mind. That the Lieutenant Colonel cares enough to ask is
all it takes to remove the notion.
"I'll see you at
work tomorrow. We'll figure this out-- together."
And that's how my long,
slow crawl out of the cave began.
That Lieutenant Colonel
said all the right things in all the right ways. You can't train a doc to do
that, or write it down in a field manual. You can't teach it to Cadets at West
Point or illustrate it on a power point slide. How do you get more leaders to
be like that Lieutenant Colonel? The answer, sadly, is that we've got to save
as many people going through it as possible, and keep them in the fight.
They're the ones who are innoculated against it. They can recognize it,
acknowledge it, and help others to fight it. They possess a compassion and
empathy no one else can. How do we save the ones currently dealing with it when
we have so few who are innoculated? I don't know, but I wish to God someone
figures it out. In the meantime I keep watch over my buddy while he watches
ridgelines. So much for the extent of my PTSD expertise.
I know how people here
feel about Sassaman's memoir, but there was one passage in it that is worth
reading the whole book to see.
"A part of me will
always be a broken-hearted 40-year-old Battalion Commander."
He says that in
reference to the death of Captain Eric Paliwoda, an event that shook him to the
core. I suppose it resonates with me because part of me will always be a
broken-hearted 26-year-old Captain. I've learned how to keep that part of me
from causing the great suffering that nearly destroyed my life, but I still
feel it. I feel it every time I see a friend scan ridgelines, or listen to
someone talk about watching another human being bled out and die in some
godforsaken wheat field that no one will ever remember or care about. I feel
it, and by feeling it I'm able to relate. And while we relate to each other and
share the heartbreak, that person is able to breathe easy in the cave, because
there's one thing in there that they can be sure isn't a bear. It's another
leper holding onto them. Life isn't scary, and it's worth living another day.
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