Page 63 - Total War on PTSD

They often convey feeling “weak” when they are emotional and tend to be highly uncomfortable with their internal experience of their feelings. Because they have consciously and unconsciously suppressed their feelings to function in the combat zone, as the mission must always come first, many of them return home numb, unable to access their emotions even at times when they would like to do so. When emotions do arise, they will often cause the Veteran to feel anxious and uncomfortable. These feelings can be channeled into irritability and anger to escape more vulnerable feelings. Combat Veterans are often resistant to seeking treatment, as they believe this indicates they are “weak” or “broken.” There is a stigma in the military surrounding being diagnosed with PTSD or a mental health diagnosis, as well as Veterans fearing that it will jeopardize their careers if it is discovered they are struggling with symptoms. Combat Veterans will almost always have a preference to see a counselor who has a history of being in the military themselves, as they believe civilians will not understand or relate to what they have been through. Because there are limited mental health counselors who have a military background, it will often take considerable time for civilian clinicians to gain rapport with combat Veterans who do seek treatment.
Despite these barriers and multitude of symptoms combat Veterans experience, in general they tend to be a very resilient and motivated group of individuals when they do seek treatment. There are several evidence-based treatment protocols for PTSD, including therapies such as Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE), Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), just to name a few. If you read even a basic book on the treatment of PTSD, you will readily learn that the avoidance of feeling anxious or of distressing memories only perpetuates PTSD and leaves the combat Veteran stuck in their symptoms. Many
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