Trauma, Coping and Parenting

In which Justin starts talking about PTSD and ends up talking about parenting… yeah, you’ve been warned.

The other day I read an interesting blog post by mil-fantasy author and Coast Guard veteran Myke Cole regarding PTSD. In the post, Coyle challenges the classical violent nightmares/flashbacks/delusions perception of PTSD. He posits that PTSD isn’t as much a somehow curable disorder, but rather a world view that results from experiencing elevated danger for extended periods of time, or abuse, or excessive hardship, etc. For those of you interested you can find it on his blog here: http://mykecole.com/category/blog

I’ve been wrestling with the notion of PTSD since it started garnering significant public attention early in the war. Like most veterans, I know many fine soldiers, courageous, switched on, bad ass motherfuckers, who have needed help dealing with the stresses of not just combat but multiple 12-15 month tours away from their families. Unfortunately, I know many more irresponsible and spoiled overgrown children who end up in trouble due to their own weakness of character. Yet these individuals are often the first to claim they have been traumatized by the Army, even without having experienced combat, or having had only one relatively tame deployment. Keep in mind that just because one deploys does not mean one experiences combat trauma, mentally or physically. I can actually count the times I felt I was in immediate danger without exhausting my fingers; the number of experiences I would consider actual combat are even fewer. There are soldiers out there who spent months in the shit, but a lot more who spent months on the FOB punctuated by a couple hairy days, and still more who ain’t ever seen the elephant at all.

Naturally, one type of patient garners my sympathy more readily than the other. I’m told by a psychologist friend that I shouldn’t judge, that stresses affect different individuals differently and I can’t know what goes on in someone else’s head. Logical, but speaking as an officer, we can’t have soldiers who crumble at the first major stress. And, as a soldier, I have a hard time respecting someone who succumbs to pressure too easily- what constitutes too easily? Well, as a Supreme Court justice once said famously, I know it when I see it.

As an aside, I’m addressing the form of trauma with which I’m most familiar. I know there are countless legitimate tragedies that could cause a person PTSD that have nothing to do with combat. I’m not seeking to discount any of these and, in fact, I’m trying to be respectful by staying on a topic I know something about rather than offering dime store psychoanalysis for traumas I’ve never suffered.

There are many comrades who have had a rougher go of it than I have. Some were maimed, some suffered impairing brain injury, some witnessed legitimate horrors and some never came home at all. Whenever this topic comes up I always feel the need to establish up front that I got off light. I’m still converting oxygen to carbon dioxide, I still have all appendages where they are supposed to be and I’m still making babies with Michele, all of which constitutes a not so minor miracle. I do not feel sorry for myself in the least.

But I did suffer significant trauma; bad enough that I was in the hospital for a month and in physical therapy for a year. By societal expectation, I should be a ticking time bomb, ready to snap on friend or foe alike. I should at least be on a steady cocktail of mood enhancers or anti-depressants or whatever. Yet, I’ve never felt the need. It’s not that I don’t get angry and sad over everything that’s happened in the war, I do. And I feel irrationally guilty as hell every day of my life that two good men are dead and I, after all the dust settled, came through the same blast with relatively minor wounds. On a philosophical level, you could say I stay angry about the war.

But that’s how you’re supposed to feel. I don’t want the pain and sorrow and anger or even the guilt dulled. Those emotions are appropriate reactions to horrible events. They give me focus and remind me why what I do is important, even when it feels like I’m just a cubicle monkey in a uniform. Why would I try to escape that?

I understand for some folks, it gets overwhelming. They do abuse alcohol or drugs. They do take out their pain on the wrong people. I would never begrudge someone who has been through something like what I’ve been through or worse psychological help. It’s far better to get treatment than to lay hands on your spouse or take it out on your kids, or off yourself.

I can’t help but wonder, though, why some of us need the help and some don’t. Why some folks do their duty in an exemplary manner but then fall apart, why some fall apart before the battle even starts.

In the here and now, I credit most of my stability to Michele. I have a fantastic internal support mechanism in the form of my family. I know how lucky I am in that. But I know guys who had loving wives and seemingly happy marriages and families who still ended up breaking down.

Not that it’s a terribly original idea, but I think it boils down to early role models, and especially parenting. Talking to guys who are on the Zoloft diet or some of the shrinking violets who break down before they ever hear a shot fired in anger, I see a common thread of issues in their childhood. Not necessarily abuse, either. While a lot of guys who just can’t cut it as soldiers are the result of abusive or neglectful parenting, another large percentage seem to have parents who convinced them they were special, beautiful snowflakes who deserved consideration over and above what the other children get because they are just so darn special.

Sigh.

Fellow parents and parents to be (which potentially encompasses all of you with fully functional reproductive systems) - we all love our children. We all want to give them the affirmation they need, develop the self-confidence that will allow them to stand up for themselves, and hopefully stand up for what is right. Here’s the thing, though; if the kid grows up with a steady diet of how awesome they are with no discipline, no expectations of performance, no adversity, they turn into one of two things; a sociopath or a god-damned sissy.

It’s a fine line. I get it. I’m not advocating the Great Santini style of parenting. I wasn’t denied paternal affection if I didn’t measure up (and believe me, I disappointed my parents plenty). My dad hugged me and told me he loved me and was okay if I broke down and cried given an adequate reason according to my age. But he expected me to make progress towards being a man who could love and provide for a family and, if necessary, successfully defend them, not a self-serving douche or a coward.

When I was older, he shared some of his war time experiences as well as those of my grandfather. He exposed me not to gratuitously violent movies (I found those on my own), but to the real and often horribly dark history of the human race. He didn’t try to hide evil and suffering from me, he tried to prepare me for it. He encouraged me towards role models, real and fictional, for appropriate behavior when the fecal matter hits the rotary air impeller. He was such a role model. And that has made all the difference. I’m not even remotely a hero by any reasonable definition of the word, but I can live with the guy I see in the mirror every morning.

I’m speaking in broad generalities here. Obviously there are people who come from great homes and still turn into serial killers. There are folks whose parents treat them like shit and who turn into heroes. Despite these exceptions, we as a society need to reemphasize parenting, and not helicopter parenting. Not one-upsmanship parenting, and not “baseball” parenting. We need good old fashioned measured discipline and affection from parents. We need kids to know they’re loved while simultaneously learning that the entire universe doesn’t revolve around them. That the world outside the house may not even give a rat’s ass about their well being and it’s up to them to take care of themselves and stay true to their principles, regardless of what feels good at the moment or what their peers think.

And we need them to be tougher. I think the situation in this country, and around the world, is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Being the children of the baby boomers, we lack grit on a grand scale. The next generation needs to be tougher, especially mentally. Physical toughness comes in mere weeks if necessary, but mental discipline and resilience take a life time to build. Children can’t build those virtues if they never have to take responsibility for a bad grade, or stand up to a bully or take orders from a parent, even when they don’t agree.

It’s not your job to make your kids like you all the time. It’s not your job to be the cool parent. It’s your job to provide them with the basic tools to be a moral, effective human being. If you can’t handle that, for God’s sake, don’t have kids.