I once thought that when someone had a mental illness it meant that they were crazy and dangerous. They were the kind of people you needed to stay away from. It was so much easier to have sympathy for someone with a physical illness. There were just too many stories on the news about people with mental illness committing terrible crimes. Truth is that there are many different kinds of mental illness and as with all illness there are different degrees of them. You cannot tell by looking at them. You cannot tell from their status in life. Depression, clinical depression, is about as common as having your appendix removed. Yet it is responsible for suicides in all age groups from teenagers to senior citizens. How many times have you heard about someone on drugs or addicted to alcohol? Happy, well adjusted people don't commit suicide and don't use alcohol as an escape. You come into contact with people suffering from mental illness every day of your life. They are just like everyone else on the surface. We see advertisements for drugs to treat different kinds of mental illness, the most common being depression and impedance. We see celebrities checking themselves into the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment of addictions. Again all parts of mental illness.
This is about one of the mental illnesses that can strike anyone, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. It has been linked to veterans of wars however anyone who has had a traumatic experience can "catch" it. All it takes is an event or series of events that place your life in jeopardy. In war it is common to face death. In our day-to-day lives living in a peaceful society, one would tend to shrug at the thought of facing death. September 11th was a wake up call to the country and the world. Now we have vast numbers of average citizens with PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an illness that knows no boundaries of nation. It strikes all humans. Take a kid living in a heavy crime area with drive by shootings and you end up with a least one child with PTSD. Take what is happening in Israel with the suicide murderers and you will find many with PTSD. A wife who was beaten by her husband can have PTSD as well as a woman who was raped. Some manage to kick the illness in the teeth and walk away with nothing more than bad memories, remembering what happened and the fact they were able to survive it. It is the ones who cannot get past the horror that see their lives forever changed. It consumes every aspect of their emotions. Nightmares and flashbacks invade without warning. Emotions begin to be frozen in an attempt to protect against further assault. They become disconnected and isolate themselves from those they were close to.
This is a story of a Vietnam veteran who has PTSD and our family. It is because of war that his illness took control of his life, yet although the cause may be different, it could be about anyone who has faced the unimaginable horror of such evil acts committed by humanity I believe that the veterans who could not get on with their lives, as they were told for many years to do, were those who were simply too kind to walk away from what they went through. Their gentle souls could not deal with what happened. They paid a high price for their kindness.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth it brings, that then I scorn to change my state with kings!
William Shakespeare
It seems so strange to have those words mean so much to me now. There were so many times that I would have traded my life with just about anyone. Now I wouldn't change a thing about my life. I would just change the way veterans are treated in this country. This is our story. Maybe you will change your mind about those who served this country. Maybe it will change your attitude toward mental illness that strikes so many, yet there seems to be little tolerance for those afflicted, just as there was little tolerance for the Vietnam veterans returning after their service.
Many of them suffering from the illness of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have paved the way for treatment of this illness. There were a lot of doctors experienced with treating these veterans rushed to aid those affected in New York and Washington following the September 11th attacks. You didn't hear about them on the nightly news and saw very few interviews of people following the attacks. Yet the results were staggering. The veterans of wars have changed the way the medical community treats mental/emotional illnesses. It took years of studying them, treating them with medications, trials and errors, and while they dealt with them reluctantly at first, they learned from them. Over the years the medical community has made great steps toward treating mental illness, yet they have much more to do before society catches up and realizes that mental illness is an illness and they change the way they look at those who suffer. My husband changed the way I look at everything!
I never thought that my life would become a Vietnam War story, but at the age of 23, nearly ten years after the war ended, it did. All I had to do was look into Jack's eyes. I knew my life would never be the same. It was a time in my life when I wasn=t happy or sad. I was just going on day to day and feeling half complete. I was dating but nothing serious. I didn=t want to get involved after a bad divorce. It was as if we were supposed to be together. It is strange how being in a certain place at a certain time can change you life without you even suspecting where it will lead or the importance of that particular moment. You walk into a store and suddenly get the urge to buy a lottery ticket. You win a million dollars and your life changes. You take a job just because you need one and it turns out to be another changing point in your life. That is what happened to me. I took a job I really didn't want but I had to work. It was with a cable TV company in the customer service department. Everyone I knew told me the job was beneath me because of the training I had. I took it anyway as a temporary solution and planned on looking for a better job. It only took two months before I knew what taking that job would mean to the rest of my life. Jack had lived in the same city most of his life. I could have seen him a thousand times before and never noticed him. We could have been at the same club or movie or in the same store and I would have walked past him without giving him a second glance. With an age difference of almost eight years, we had different friends and interests. We had different lives. Without that job I don=t think we would have met. I was living with memories of a hard childhood and a bad marriage. Jack was living with the effects of one year of his life in Vietnam which led to a failed marriage and a string of jobs. It led to signs of mental illness brewing inside him. One year that he would never be able to get over. To me, Vietnam was in the past and I didn't really think much about it or war in general. I had a lot to learn.
We've all heard stories about Vietnam Veterans and what the war did to them, yet there is so much more to the story that goes far beyond 1975 and the withdrawal of U. S. Forces from Vietnam. The effects touch the lives of everyone involved with them. The parents, the spouses and the children are also paying the price of this undeclared war. It is estimated that 500,000 Vietnam veterans have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to varying degrees. That is 500,000 families and countless friends affected by an illness few understand. Vietnam was a different war. It was televised on the nightly news. Graphic images of war broadcast during dinner. Protestors marched against it and violence erupted. Others profited from it. The chemical company that created the defoliant called Agent Orange profited. Politicians from each side had their voices heard. Still our young went off to war, facing death as their fathers and their father=s fathers did. The Korean War had its share of opposition as well, yet not to the extent that the Vietnam War inspired.
They used to call the effects of war on a soldier, "shell shock" when their nerves were on end and their mental capacity had been diminished. The effects of this war were compounded by several factors. This time the government decided not to send our soldiers in as a group to fight for an unspecified length of time. They decided to send them in as individuals for the period of one year. It sounded like a good idea but it wasn't. It led to further destruction of the mind. There was also the factor of drugs. Many used pot, or more potent drugs to cope with the issues of war. Many drank to kill off the nerve endings and prevent the uncontrollable motions. To top it off, most of them were just kids too young to drink but not too young to fight. They were on the other side of the world and they were afraid. They left their cities and towns for the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. To understand how some veterans came home seemingly fine while others claim PTSD, (post traumatic stress disorder) you need to look no further than within your own circle. One person may be a success, another, a failure, one funny and outgoing, another shy and quite. Although what they all went through may be different one thing stands out. It depends what they were like when they went into the service as well as where fate placed them in the war torn country. Some were exposed to seeing death surrounding them while others were constantly being attacked by mortars blowing up.
To some, the memories of Vietnam are just memories. To others, it was unbearable. There were a tremendous amount of Vietnam veterans who could not go on and committed suicide. The numbers of homeless veterans has increased sharply. The National Coalition of Homeless Veterans estimates that there are now 299,321 on any given night homeless veterans in this country. More than half a million experience homelessness, men and women veterans too. There would be more women in the Veteran's homeless shelters but most cannot take in children. Yes, women homeless veterans with children. They suffered in war and after with memories as real as the second it happened, with all the emotions of the moment in full force. They became a different person back at home. They had flashbacks of moments of terror, brought on by seemingly insignificant events. They had nightmares that broke the sleep pattern. During waking hours they became paranoid of the actions of others and were constantly on guard. Some experienced repetitive motions, checking doors and windows excessively. They developed twitches in their eyes, faces and body. The emotional connections were broken. They were unable to trust anyone. Still the human spirit went on and they tried to live a normal life. They got jobs and got married. They tried hard to put the past behind them but it had a hold on them that wouldn't let go. The walls of self-preservation were being built. As the years went on, so did the symptoms and the destruction of lives. They knew something was seriously wrong with them. Although they may have heard about PTSD, as with most diagnosis of mental illness, it is extremely hard to face. Denial sets in. They wait to get back to normal and try everything available to achieve it, from sex, to drugs and alcohol, to moving away to remote parts of the country, to the final step of suicide. Some parents had to bury their sons and daughters. Others wondered if they would ever find closure with the return of an MIA. Some parents were lucky enough to have their child return to them physically, however, tragically changed. Some came home addicted to drugs and alcohol. The parents knew what changes occurred in the time of service, yet could not understand why.
Wives and husbands felt the distance, broken bonds and the effects of the self-imposed isolation. Children wondered what was wrong with their fathers who fought or their mothers who nursed the wounds. No one knew what was wrong. They blamed themselves. They all tried to fix the problem. They gave it everything they could and ended up resenting the residue of their efforts. Nothing worked. Soon it was not about fixing the problem, it became a matter of self-preservation. This is not just about another Vietnam veteran. This is about the effects on him and my family as we pick up the pieces and try to heal from such a tragic part of his life. We are only one of thousands of families in this country today yet our lives are lived pretty much same way. Truth is we are America's secret.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand the mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” St. Paul Corinthians 13:1-2
They serve when we need them. Where will you be when they need us?
