Too many of us have been told that we always have a choice between good and bad, and, if we’re lucky, between good and better. This is not always the case.
Sometimes, our only available choices are bad and worse.
The least bad choice is still bad, even when it is necessary. (Not making a choice is still making a choice.) Sometimes we have to do something bad to keep worse things from happening. Trying to convince ourselves that doing something bad is actually good is a lie and we will have to face it sometime (usually in the middle of the night, while we are trying to sleep).
I believe that many of us were never prepared for how deal with this before being sent into these situations, and, we were never trained how to deal with the memories on the way home.
I do remember a VA psychiatrist once saying, “When someone says, ‘Doc, I think that I’ve got PTSD’, I say, I’d worry if you didn’t.”
I think that many veterans are afraid to tell people they care about what is troubling them because they are afraid that the ones they turn to will turn away from them in disgust for what they’ve done.
If you want to help someone with PTSD, love them and support them and try not to judge them. Your judgement cannot be nearly as harsh as their own.
RAGs over 5 years ago
To expand on what I’ve posted before:
Too many of us have been told that we always have a choice between good and bad, and, if we’re lucky, between good and better. This is not always the case.
Sometimes, our only available choices are bad and worse.
The least bad choice is still bad, even when it is necessary. (Not making a choice is still making a choice.) Sometimes we have to do something bad to keep worse things from happening. Trying to convince ourselves that doing something bad is actually good is a lie and we will have to face it sometime (usually in the middle of the night, while we are trying to sleep).
I believe that many of us were never prepared for how deal with this before being sent into these situations, and, we were never trained how to deal with the memories on the way home.
I do remember a VA psychiatrist once saying, “When someone says, ‘Doc, I think that I’ve got PTSD’, I say, I’d worry if you didn’t.”
I think that many veterans are afraid to tell people they care about what is troubling them because they are afraid that the ones they turn to will turn away from them in disgust for what they’ve done.
If you want to help someone with PTSD, love them and support them and try not to judge them. Your judgement cannot be nearly as harsh as their own.
CherylTobin over 5 years ago
Maybe not signing up to kill innocent people in useless, perpetual wars would help.