Warrior Life Coach
We've all heard this analogy when describing a flawed approach..."trying to put a square peg into a round hole", right? It couldn't be more true when we refer to our current mental health approach with combat veterans. As recent as yesterday, we read that combat troop ailments are creating a medical backlog in the already strained system. To make matters worse, I will suggest today that what we are doing is totally inadequate and that the fundamental approach of treatment is flawed!
In a previous post, we dove into the timing and release of bodily chemicals that bring about the feelings and sensations related to “adrenaline poisoning” or PTSD. You could assign them names like; terror, anxiety, and hypervigilance. However you name them, these are the signature presentations in many of our combat-exposed warriors. At the core of this chemical cascade, is the hormone and neurotransmitter called epinephrine (more commonly referred to as adrenaline). We know that adrenaline produces major changes in the physiology of our bodies; namely:
- Increased heart rate
- Constriction of blood vessels
- Boosts in energy
- Heighted senses, particularly smell and hearing.
An Ever-Widening Gap
I believe it’s important to keep the neuroscience of combat stress top of mind. Important, as it reminds us that the behaviors we see in many of our returning warriors are reactions and not premeditated responses to stressful situations. I like to keep this fact top of mind also because 99% of the population does not understand what it’s like to serve in the military. Even more difficult to understand, is how it feels to be in a combat zone. But above all else, I like to emphasize a unique change to our body, that comes from overexposure to adrenaline, and that is the changes that occurs in the regions of our brain called the amygdala. These changes actually increase the size and sensitivity of this part of our brain. It makes us more alert and causes us to react faster. While these reactions helped to keep our fighting forces alive when they were “down range”, they clearly stand out in peacetime situations as behaviors that “don't fit in.”
These behaviors are also what grab the bulk of the headlines we read in the news. Most reports focus on the
behaviors associated with violence, anger, and rage. The current politically correct speak is “it makes it difficult to integrate into society.” This type of reporting may help drive ratings or sell newspapers, but it only adds to the ever widening gap between society and the “true 1 percenters” – combat vets! This “gap” exists for many reasons, but we compound it with an unsatisfactory level of mental health care for our combat-stressed service members. Sometimes, it seems like there is no hope.
But that’s why I write this blog—to educate, to inform, and to offer a different perspective. So today I would like to share with you further evidence that points to the amygdala as the chief culprit of why our warriors “act the way they do;” especially when they are triggered. I would also like to suggest a change to the current treatment paragdim used on our wounded warriors. Who knows…maybe I’ll get the attention of a medical or mental health care professional to at least consider my point of view?
The Devil Inside
In his book, The Emotional Brain, Dr Joseph LeDoux informs us that the amygdala is the place where our “emotional memories” are stored. Remember this is the same place that sends signals to create the changes in our heart and circulation to prepare us to fight or flee. With these facts in mind, it’s easier to understand the behaviors exhibited by a warrior that gets “triggered” by a reminder of something they sensed in combat. The forces at work on them are now reminding them (in chemical and electrical messages) of the need to take action. Additionally, the words and pictures of the emotional memories associated with specific combat trauma amplify the effects of adrenaline. In this state, our warriors are on full alert and reacting in a manner that kept them alive on the battlefield. Notice we don’t say deciding here, as a decision is a choice in multiple courses of action. This is a reaction and there is no other choice but to counterattack!
When we step back and think about these facts, it begins to become very clear that our emotional states create our behaviors. Ask any psychology major and they will tell you that as a species, we move toward pleasure and away from pain. Emotions are housed in a part of the brain referred to as the “limbic system” where emotion, behavior, and long-term memories are housed. So if our emotions are very strong, they cause us to take specific actions. Remember the last time someone cut you off in traffic? Or do you remember the the last time you watched a very sad movie? If you’re emotions are triggered, there is usually a responding behavior the comes next. To put it this way, when we look at PTSD as an equation, we would express it this way:
Emotional State = Your Behavior
So from a common sense approach, it would appear the solution to change the behavior in our wounded warriors, we should address the emotional states caused by combat, right?
Well, we don’t!
In the second part of this blog series, I will dive deeper into our current treatment choices and point out where I believe we need to focus our efforts. I will also shed light on some very positive results I am personally generating in my coaching practice.
Take Away
It's not too late to make a change and create a difference in our effectiveness when dealing with the stresses of combat. However, common sense is seldom common in practice. I'd like to encourage as much comment and discussion around this topic, so I hope I’ve sparked your interest in this opener…
till my next installment…
Warrior, out!
As many of you know, from reading this blog, we do our best here at Warrior Life Coach to remind our healing warriors to use the military skills they already possess to overcome the grips of “adrenaline poisoning.” Now, if you’re a first time reader here at The Warrior Nation: SITREP, we call post-traumatic stress disorder what it really is…poisoning from your own adrenaline due to your combat exposure. This poisoning actually reshapes your brain and establishes new and very strong neural pathways in your central nervous system. The intrusive thoughts that accompany nightmares/daytime flashbacks come from these brain connections, along with your heightened state of arousal (hypervigilance). It is also what sets the stage for avoidance by “burning us out” and presenting a fearful unknown around every corner.
Having spent over 15 years in the pharmaceutical/biotech arena, I will be the first to say I do NOT think drugs are the only way to deal with this beast. We are big believers here at Warrior Life Coach in using alternative methods to compliment what physicians prescribe. I would even suggest that many of our warriors are over-medicated and/or are taking prescriptions for medicines that have NO established evidence for how they are being prescribed. We believe that Exercise is Medicine and that proper nutrition, good sleep hygiene and yoga/meditation can be extremely helpful to our healing warriors and we know that there is a mountain of research to support using these methods. But to be fair to physicians, there’s the catch…do we medicate a warrior so they quickly become more docile and compliant or do we take a non-traditional approach that will take longer to see results…but do it with an angry, irritable, and volatile patient? Well danger is no stranger to this Airborne Ranger and that is why I choose to do what I do. So whenever I observe a behavior that pulls many of our warriors off track, I like to use this blog as a means of disseminating information to anyone that might be dealing directly with adrenaline poisoning or even their caregivers that face these challenges every day. That’s what prompted today’s post:
Falling out of the run
In my work with several groups of combat vets I’ve begun to notice something I wanted to share with my readers today. During
the healing process, warriors encounter many emotions that tend to throw them off track. It’s important to note, that when groups get together, there is a natural bond that quickly begins to form. It is that familiar and comfortable air of camaraderie. When warriors begin working together in groups on their healing, the tempo and focus of their healing begins to intensify. It actually begins to “pick up speed.” Much like a car rolling down a hill, the movement becomes faster and requires caution. When warriors get distracted and lose focus, much like a car rolling down hill, any deviation from the path will cause a crash. So in warrior fashion, let’s break this situation down to first understand the “emotional distraction” and second, let’s draw on our military skills to deal with this.
If you’ve never served in the military, you may never fully embrace the power of group dynamics. Peer pressure is used to keep units cohesive and to push individuals past their own self-defined limitations. One example is seen in physical training, where military units run in a formation. Ask any warrior the consequences of falling out of a run and he or she will tell you that your supervisors will berate you and your peers will ostracize you. I use this analogy, because this is the phenomenon I have witnessed in groups healing together. One member of the group will contribute less, or will be in a higher state of avoidance, or just may not WANT to heal. It is this behavior that draws the attention of the group members and before you know it, all have lost their focus on their healing and have become fixated on the lack of effort by the one. So what’s really going on here. Why has this person “fallen out of the run?” More importantly, why has the rest of the formation stopped?
Break it down
First off, what we are seeing here is a true sign of “adrenaline poisoning” and that is avoidance. All warriors heal at different speeds and their reluctance to “keep up” can be a mix of several factors. They could be fearful of trying too hard, because they have previously begun a healing journey, but have eventually relapsed. It happens…keep moving! They could be reaching the edge of their comfort zone and have never been this far forward in their healing. It happens…keep moving! They may even have a caregiver that pays them more attention when they “want to quit” and they have become dependant on that attention they get when they exhibit this behavior. Psychologists refer to this as enabling and it is not encouraged for healing warriors.
Secondly, we are seeing a natural emotional reaction from the other warriors in formation…anger. The anger comes from many sources, but mostly it comes from “losing another combat buddy” to the beast. The other source of anger comes from thoughts of wishing the “quitter” was not in the healing arena and that they wish one of their former combat pals had the opportunity they are getting. Either way, the anger is truly the emotion that pulls the warriors off track and in many cases will derail their healing…or to use our car rolling down the hill vision…they crash.
Finally, let’s realize that in a warrior sense, healing in a group setting is not like running in formation. It’s more like moving in a wedge formation in an attack. (Warriors take a knee and I’ll get the civilians caught up quickly. )
When military units move forward in an attack they move in a wedge formation, or an inverted V. Each member of the fire
team (5 man unit) has a sector of fire that they are responsible for. It is important to focus on your assigned sector, as this prevents firing over, at , or behind your combat buddies. In a previous post, we dove into the need to stay on the Offensive as we heal from our combat experience, because we are developing new neural pathways in our brains, we are overcoming our fears through continuous expose to new and unknown places, and most importantly, we are accomplishing the things that are within our control to move us forward.
Take Away
Healing from adrenaline poisoning is an individual offensive operation that requires continuous forward movement to your Objective. When working in a group setting, I offer this: Watch your lane! You are responsible for your assigned sector of fire. Don’t worry about the man on your left and right, they have their own sector of fire to deal with. It may seem selfish, but I would submit, this: your focus serves as an example for others to emulate…and that leadership is something every warrior understands!
Warrior, out!
Namaste is a friendly greeting in written communication, or generally between people when they meet. Some would say it literally means, "I see the good in you." I use it in my final blog of the year because I'd like to thank all members of The Warrior Nation for their support, their encouragement and their participation in helping grow Warrior Life Coach. As my way of showing thanks, I'd like to offer a potential course of action that many of you might want to investigate as we head into the new year. When we traditionally think of the New Year, we can't help but think about New Year's resolutions. What I'd like to shed light on today is the "trap" that we set for ourselves when we resolve to "not do something."
At the heart of my practice, I use an evidence-based discipline called Subconscious Restructuring®. Don't let the name scare you, as I know those of you reading these words for the first time can create all kinds to images and thoughts about what this might be. Simply put, it's nothing more than this: your subconscious mind drives every thought, every word, every action, and all behaviors you exude. If you are thinking about a resolution for 2012, you have obviously identified a behavior that does not work for you. That behavior comes from information stored in your subconscious. In order to change your behavior, you must "restructure" your internal self-talk to achieve change. Put another way, you cannot drop a behavior by "not wanting to do it." Your brain stays permanantly fixed on your old behavior and your subconscious mind will do everything it can to keep you in that behavior. So how do we truly change, you might ask?
Every warrior (and if you haven't figured out by now, we are ALL warriors) worth their salt know that an Objective is something we orient on to achieve. If you are going to set a New Years Resolution, might I suggest you chose to do something new in place of your unwanted behavior. Using a simple analogy, which way do you drive a car more effectively...looking in the rear view mirror, or looking straight ahead? For those of you (especially my wounded brothers and sisters in arms) looking for something beneficial to add into your life, that could replace a behavior that doesn't work for you, might I suggest you consider yoga?
To save you the trouble of researching this topic, I offer you the following link from Health Yoga. Although this is a
mainstream yoga site, I found this list of benefits very "warrior-esque:
Here are the top ten benefits of yoga.
1. Stress Relief
Yoga can help reduce the effects of stress on your body. One of the benefits of yoga is that it encourages relaxation and can lower the amount of cortisol in your body.
2. Pain Relief
Daily exercises of yoga can help ease the aches and pains of the body. Many people with very serious diseases have reported less pain after these daily exercises, such as asanas or meditation.
3. Better Breathing
You will learn to take deeper, slower breaths with daily exercises of yoga. It will help to increase your lung function and set off the body's relaxation response. This can be one of the most powerful benefits of yoga.
4. Flexibility
You will notice your level of flexibility will increase, which will help with your range of motion. Sometimes in the yoga daily exercises, people cannot even touch their toes. The benefits of yoga will include lengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your body to help you become more flexible.
5. Increased Strength
Yoga poses use all the muscles in your body and help you increase your strength level from head to toe. The benefits of yoga and daily exercises will help you strengthen your muscles close to the bones, which increase the support of your skeletal system as well.
6. Weight Management
You will see the benefits of yoga begin to affect your scale. Daily exercises are always recommended, but yoga helps reduce the level of cortisol in your body. This aids in weight loss and fat burning.
7. Improved Circulation
Yoga will help improve your body's circulation. In turn, with daily exercises, you will see the benefits of yoga with lowered blood pressure and pulse rates.
8. Cardiovascular Conditioning
Even the most gentle style of yoga will help to lower your resting heart reate and increase your overall endurance. This is one of the important benefits of yoga to help improve the amount of oxygen taken in during the daily exercises.
9. Focus on the Present
You can have greater coordination, memory skills, reaction times, and improved concentration skills by utilizing yoga for daily exercises. These benefits of yoga will extend far out of the yoga center.
10. Inner Peace
What more could you want. This is one of the primary reasons that people do daily exercises of yoga. This is one of the most
important benefits of yoga and is also one of the more easy ones to attain.
Take Away
I know from my work with this amazing population that there is at least one of these benefits that can help you. If we are being honest here, there are probably 5 or 6 that you could really benefit from. Either way, it's just a course of action (COA) I offer you. Hopefully, you have at least another COA you can compare it to prior to making a decision. Making good decisions it what allows us to "see the good in you."
Warrior, out!
In a previous blog from my website, we focused on the importance of setting an Objective. An Objective, as you may recall is a Principle of War that states we should “direct every military operation toward a clearly definable, attainable, and decisive objective." Setting an Objective in our civilian lives allows us to focus on the end-state, it creates personal ownership of what we seek to accomplish, and even allows us to begin to understand how we might break a large project down into smaller, more manageable tasks. From a logistical standpoint, it guides us in task organization and the collection of essential supplies we will need to accomplish the mission. This holds true for all of us, not just our uniformed warriors. An Objective gives us a positive direction, it redirects us when we get off track, and it gives us a source of inspiration to draw on when we become fatigued or begin to doubt ourselves.
My experience in working with warriors diagnosed with "adrenaline-poisoning" has taught me many times there exists an unhealthy level of retribution or revenge that motivates us as we fight this post-combat demon. It is this anger focus that I would like to zero in on in this blog segment, specifically to point out how detrimental it can be in our journey to heal ourselves. So let me get this out up front; when seeking to heal PTSD you must do a proper mission analysis for 2 reasons: First, to ensure you have a clearly defined Objective, but second, to ensure that your chosen logistics are conducive for mission accomplishment. Here’s a little more detail from a warrior’s perspective.
Your Mission, should you decide to accept it…
As a Small Group Instructor at the U.S. Army’s Infantry Officer’s Advanced Course, I was charged with instructing senior lieutenants and newly-promoted captains with instruction on the Commander’s Estimate of The Situation. The Estimate was the heart and soul of successfully planning, preparing, and conducting all combat operations. It is an eclectic mix of time management, resource allocation, and intelligence preparation of the battlefield (which takes into account the weather, terrain, and disposition of enemy forces) you would face during training exercises and combat. All of these were important elements of that would ultimately be issued through operations orders to the forces that would be involved in the battle. As stated earlier, they were all important; but none of the elements of the entire process were as important as the first step; a detailed mission analysis.
We all probably recognize the 5 W’s as being part of a mission statement, namely who, what, where, when, and why. More
importantly, the Estimate taught leaders that this mission statement must have 2 clearly understandable components: a Task and a Purpose. The TASK is essentially the “what you should do” during the mission and the PURPOSE is the “why it must be accomplished.” By ensuring these 2 elements were deeply studied, upon the issuance of these orders, subordinate commanders were given the flexibility to adapt to the changes that would come (and we know that the enemy never fights us like we plan) on the battlefield to modify the task, but to still achieve the purpose. If you got the Mission Analysis right from the start, you greatly enhanced your ability to plan, prepare, and execute your battle plan with a higher degree of success. When it comes to PTSD, you have got to get your Mission Analysis correct, or you will reduce or even sabotage your efforts to defeat it. Not only will your Objective be flawed, but the logistics you gather will prevent you from succeeding.
Beans, Bullets, and Fuel
An essential function in all warrior's planning is the gathering of logistics. The mission will determine, the type of ammunition, the amount and type of fuel that will be required, and of course, how much food will be carried to sustain our combat elements. Making the proper selection of these life-sustaining elements will ensure mission accomplishment and enhance the safety and protection of our forces. It is essential then, in our missions to heal post-traumatic stress disorder, that we create the optimum task and purpose so our logistics don’t poison us. In other words, if there is a hope or intention of revenge, retribution, or self-satisfaction at someone else’s expense, then you are dooming your chances of truly healing yourself. Simply put, if your Objective includes an element of revenge or payback, you will have to continuously draw on the source of trauma to fuel you toward an Objective that you will never reach.
Michele Rosenthal at Heal My PTSD said it best in a past blog post, when she defined forgiveness this way, “Forgiveness does not even come close to condoning or accepting horrific acts that have been done. Instead, it is forgiving the perpetrators of our traumas for their own faulty wiring. It is recognizing that the people who have so wronged us have something so wrong with them, and because of this they have acted monstrously. This is all forgiveness requires: recognizing that in some way our abusers are broken and forgiving them for being in that state.” By having a large supply of forgiveness in our logistical supply system, we can draw on its amazing power to create the environment for love to grow in our lives, which in my opinion is the true purpose to ridding our lives of PTSD.
So when conducting a detailed Mission Analysis before doing battle with PTSD, focus on your Task, Purpose, and the logistics that will assist you in this undertaking. There are many Tasks that you can undertake in your daily battle with PTSD. I coach with an evidence-based methodology called Subconscious Restructuring® that is backed by 25 years of proof that this process works when dealing with emotional states that affect our behavior. You may currently be using another methodology, so I am not here to argue “WHAT” you are doing to overcome your trauma. What I am
proposing is to re-examine the PURPOSE of your mission. My take on this stands simply that your purpose should be to create more LOVE in your life. Love cannot grow in the presence of anger, fear, and guilt. Love helps to connect us to those around us that support us. Love will also allow you to share your experiences and successes with others affected by this crippling disorder. Finally, when launching an operation to rid yourself of re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoidance and emotional numbing, and symptoms of increased arousal, your basic load of emotional supplies absolutely must include a large measure of forgiveness. Not only will it continue moving you toward your Objective, but Love will flourish in its presence.
Take Away
Do you need an example of how Love and Forgiveness are intertwined, then take comfort in the words of one of the world’sgreatest warriors that said it best; even in the hands of his tormentors when he said, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
Warrior, out!
When working with wounded combat vets, I sometimes encounter “the question” from caregivers and spouses that I find difficult to answer or explain. So in this week’s post, I wanted to share a bit of insight I have recently gained in the hope it will be beneficial for some of my readers.
To caregivers and spouses, I want to first state that I have the highest level of respect, compassion, and understanding for what you do. Two of my favorites out there are Uncle Sam’s Mistress and the ladies of Family of a Vet. Please follow the links to their sites to learn more about their organizations, as they are the real inspiration behind today’s post. Additionally, I’d like to state that if you have never served in the military, but are caring for a wounded service member, my praise for what you do is even higher. Juggling your loved ones ever-changing moods and emotional states can be perplexing and exhausting (I hear you Mistress…I’m sugar coatin’ it!). To make it worse, trained medical professionals do not completely understand how to get this beast under control. You live your life with little guidance or feedback, never knowing what is coming next.
From all this, I have learned that there is a question that begins to take shape in the back of a caregiver’s mind. Knowing that you are the one charged with managing this monstrous task, you would like to “understand” what either caused this condition or maybe you are thinking if you could get a glimpse of what caused this, you could deal with it better…the problem is your warrior doesn’t want/like to talk about what they did or saw.
“The question” is “what is he feeling?“
Sound familiar?
I realize “the question” is ultimately going to come up when I interact with caregivers and I do my best to describe what science is revealing to us. We talk about the changes that take place within our bodies when we are constantly bombarded by adrenaline. We also discuss the emotional impact placed on us when we experience things that don’t seem natural or are terrifying. However, you can only talk so much. Ultimately, the connection is incomplete. Telling someone to “be terrified” is not the same as being terrified. It would be hard for me to pass on to you everything you experience when you step over your first “dead guy.” This is something you have to experience first hand. You have to be in combat! That’s just the way it is…or so I thought.
It’s only recently that I have come across something that allows caregivers a glimpse of “adrenaline poisoning.” Here’s what I discovered completely by accident.
I work several times a year with a Wounded Warrior Family Retreat, sponsored by the Scott Rigsby Foundation. Over a weekend, I am part of an amazing staff that
creates a trusting environment with a full schedule where warrior parents get some quality time to themselves and with each other, while their children and teens are engaged in games, activities, and counseling groups. We have family talent shows, we have family relays, and we do cycling, nature walks, and yoga. We also have a zip line.
For my readers that have never experienced a zip line, here’s a quick backgrounder. A metal cable is suspended above the ground and anchored by trees/poles. The distance between the start and end can vary, but is at least 100 feet long to make the experience last for at least 10-15 seconds. A participant puts on a safety harness and attaches the harness to the suspended cable using a pulley. This pulley allows you to slide down the length of the cable from the start to the end. Sounds fun, right?
At this particular zip line we work with, the participant has to climb up a 30-foot pole to reach the start of the zip line. Safety is incorporated into every phase of the zip line, so our campers are always protected. Still, they must climb up a pole, gain their balance on a small landing at the top, attach themselves to the cable, and as a final move of confidence they must jump off the small landing to “zip” down the line. At the end of the line, a safety person helps them disconnect from the cable and gets the participant back onto the ground.
At our last camp, I served as the ground safety during a session when our spouses got to experience the zip line. If you are a military spouse, just imagine having to climb a 30 foot high pole, perch yourself on a landing, attach yourself to a cable and then jump off the landing to slide down the line…all in the presence of the other spouses. Sounds terrifying, right?
After all of the spouses had tried the zip line, our next activity was arts and crafts. As the spouses gained their composure and they got focused on painting pottery, an eerie silence fell over the room. So I started asking questions…
“It sure is quiet in here, any reason why?”
No answers…just heads down painting.
So I continued,
“Can I get a show of hands of everyone that was breathing heavy when they completed the zip line?” I already knew the answer, because I was the safety helping them disconnect from the cable.
All that rode raised their hands.
“How many of you had a hard time squeezing the snap link to unhook yourself at the end?
All that rode again raised their hands.
How many of you felt a little sick at your stomach a few minutes after the ride?
Again, all hands went up, along with the last rider who added, “I’m still not quite right!” This got a bit of a laugh from the rest of the spouses.
“And how many of you wish I would just shut up so you can focus on your pottery?”
I even got a few hands for that one, along with a big chuckle from the group.
I continued with this, “adrenaline changes your body. Although you only climbed 30 feet, your heart and lungs were working like you had run a mile, your arms were weak because adrenaline forces the blood to your legs which makes you ready to run, and that sickness you feel is cortisol being released in your bloodstream kicking up your glucose levels and in big doses that can make you feel sick. Some of you faced a huge fear and that has you rattled.
After an experience like that, you all seem to be enjoying the silence and keeping to yourselves.”
They were all listening…and that’s when it came to me, so I asked “the question.”
“Do any of ever wonder what your warriors felt like when they were in combat?”
I looked all of them in the eyes and I could see it…the rush, the fear, the anger.
“Well if you can imagine a zip line that lasts for 11 months, then…
"Now you know.”
Take Away
Many times our warriors are reluctant to talk about what they experienced “down range” because it is against their code of honor. You see, they take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Bringing these images back with them is in a way, to them, violating that order. These intruding thoughts and mood swings are replacements for the enemy they faced overseas. Exposing you to the thing they swore to protect you from is not within their nature. Knowing that the beast is inside them, I believe our warriors fight to try to “hold it all inside.” They thing that we fail to realize is the beast gets stronger, the more we fight it!
I can only say from experience, there is a better way to deal with this beast and I offer this help to you.
If this sounds familiar, let me hear from you.
All the best,
Warrior, Over!
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