Outskirts Press, INC.

Soldiers suffer Post-Traumatic Stress

Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the mental health of soldiers sent back to the front again and again under duress. Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, all symptoms of PTSD. Other soldiers poorly adjust when they get home. This self-help manual provides urgent relief to the soldiers of long and multiple deployments in Iraq or just returning home. Chapters are first-aid kits of fast, practical and effective strategies to defuse stress and feel emotionally alive again.

Empirically-based methods supply rapid changes in (1) painful thoughts and actions, (2) fighting fear, stress, and failure with courage, (3) restoring post-war routines, and (4) controlling anger. The book is portable and ideal for distribution in camps, installations, and VA hospital where soldiers require post-trauma recovery and inspiration for starting over again with friends and families.

Life traumas are tragic enough. But enduring the difficulty of war adds unbelievable stress to proud people serving the country. Not just soldiers, but for their families back home. Leaving home is only half the battle. Abroad the soldier faces new surroundings, new routines, and must adjust rapidly under pressure of fear and enemy attacks. All of that takes courage. Sometimes that courage is lost during battles, sometimes after battles. Victory feels good, but the shock of combat, and of coming home, can hurt. It hurts big. Courage tested sometimes weakens when you come home.

But there is a way to prevent this weakness. Prevent weakness by learning, memorizing, and applying the steps of personal power that revive courage. It keeps your mind alert, your confidence high, and your spirit soaring. This recovery guide does that. It tells you the exact steps to take to prevent moments of weakness. These are steps that stay with you long after your tour of duty ends. Read over this recovery guide anytime you need a dose of pride. Let these steps be your emergency kit to restoring faith in yourself and your country.

The Road to Recovery

Ending stress is the greatest feeling in the world. Your stressors probably involved captivity or constant threat of attack. Whether your captivity was friendly or torturous, liberating from captivity stopped that paralyzing feeling of doom. Hostage negotiators acutely know, for example, that hostages were prone to overreact if they feel helpless. They may be rebellious. Or, they may be submissive. Rebellious ones risk endangering their lives and lives of other hostages. Submissive ones suffer demoralizing emotional pain and may be manipulated at the whim of crazed gunmen.

But what happens when a hostage is freed? What happens when some war-trauma experience is over. Do you feel anything? Are you numb? Do sensations peak of fear, anger, and need for revenge? Do feel a consuming need to learn everything about you abductors?

Perhaps so. This chapter will tell you why you feel this way and the rest book will tell you what you can do about it.

Anger, Fear, Loss and Trauma

Anger usually is behind this hunger for knowledge. You aggressively seek information on your abductors as an expression of outrage. The more intensively you immerse yourself deep into the stacks of literature, the more control you feel over anger. Defused anger allows to return to your duty, jobs, and eventually family and life routines.

But while anger has an outlet, fear may not. The most severe impact of being a prisoner or suffering horrible trauma is toxic fear. Toxic fear is when your mind and body undergo a "shock to the system" causing complete breakdown of your senses and feeling immobilized. You can't think, you can't act, you can't do anything. Trauma is profoundly overwhelming. You feel disoriented, stunned, in a daze of disbelief, and cannot even mentally remember events that just took place. Over the next few days and months you can't sleep; can't eat; can't see friends; can't think straight; and feel waves of chills rushing through your body. Noises, light rays, even darkness instantly trigger rapid heart-beating and sweaty palms. Muscles tighten, your breathing gets tougher, and you honestly believe you're going to faint.

You are not crazy; you are suffering effects of Post-Traumatic Syndrome (PTSD). These also include recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, sudden irritability, and odd changes in your personality. Instead of being an extrovert, you become an introvert. Instead of a passive-submissive caretaker, you become a belligerently aggressive cynic. Opposite shifts in personality occur without you realizing it and may look odd to people around you. But don't despair; they still love you dearly and are confident you can pull out of it.