Page 668 - Total War on PTSD Final

the ride in a different car and even help familiarize them with the track. In doing so we were also able to identify other Veterans who are doing these events as well, as individual participants. So all of a sudden it seems like we are back in uniform, we are talking smack to each other, and it’s a really fun time. I had a married couple at the last event that I did, and the wife actually had a better time than her husband.
Basically, there’s a clinical term called prolonged exposure, which is basically being exposed to something that brings anxiety (with PTSD, at the end of the day, at the root of it is anxiety) and part of the therapeutic treatment for that is to expose you to someone that brings you that anxiety. So, a crowd, loud noises, an unknown location; all these things can be very triggering. So in preparation for the first event I actually coordinated with the PTSD Clinical Team at the VA and I received ‘clinical’ advice from them. That said, it is the Prolonged Exposure part that seems to be the most helpful to the Veteran participants...that and the camaraderie. From there you are going through the experience with everybody else and, by doing that, you kind of block out the things that cause you anxiety. The triggers to your anxiety just kind of fall by the wayside. What happens afterwards, that’s where I’d love to do follow-ups. At the last event there was a Veteran who did the first event along with me and he was talking about how he was a little bit more daring about going out and trying different things after the first event. That’s really the value of the organization, to really try to break the Veterans out of isolating, or drinking excessively...whatever their isolating behavior might be. It’s breaking them out and showing them that this is an alternative way to have fun. It’s an alternative way to get adrenaline. When we were in combat many of us were heavily caffeinated with energy drinks and coffee. Many of us smoked and had nicotine in our systems. All these
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