Page 66 - Total War on PTSD Final
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their trauma, they learn to sit with these emotions, become tolerant to them, and eventually reintegrate them into their experience. The core to healing PTSD is to help the Veteran to reintegrate their emotions and learn to be comfortable with them. Over time, this helps breaks numbing, reduce dissociative symptoms, helps them feel more connected to their world and people, as well as reduces their anxiety and anger. Until combat Veterans reintegrate their emotions, they will convey that they feel like they are just “going through the motions” day-to-day and they do not actually enjoy their lives or feel connected to them.
It is human nature for a combat Veteran to harbor guilt over their peers being injured or killed, even if events were unpredictable or not within their control. Throughout their military career, the combat Veteran has been inculcated with the belief that if they follow their training, they can overcome any obstacle and defeat their enemy. Although this mentality and training certainly helps them persevere in aversive situations, no one can ever have complete control over events in a combat zone no matter how great of a warrior they may be. Inevitably, individuals will at times get hurt and be killed. This leaves the combat Veteran with the sense that in some way them must have failed or done something wrong. Consistently the combat Veteran will hold onto their belief they should have been able to change the situation to prevent the trauma from occurring. By carefully processing events as they actually occurred, the combat Veteran can gain clarity that choices were made in a reasonable manner with the information they had at the time of the incident. It is helpful to remind combat Veterans that they cannot control what they cannot predict.
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