Living with Trauma

Living with Trauma by Noel Conrad Ross, 2023

To be honest, my whole life has been pretty traumatic. I’m not in a place to tell details or call anything out, emotionally or physically, but when I say “it’s been rough,” it might be an understatement. Then in early 2019 I saw what might possibly be the worst thing anyone can see. It doesn’t feel like my story to tell, so I don’t really talk about it. In some ways that adds on to how I’m feeling, but even on the rare occasion I do talk about it- It's still overwhelmingly… lonely.

There’s not a lot of people who can talk about this kind of thing, and the one’s who can for very good reason just, do not want to.

The month of March is the “event month” for me. ( Doesn’t anniversary just seem wrong? ) Anyone dealing with the many different levels of trauma processing will tell you about how even the season changing towards the time of a memory can elevate the awareness and sensitivity in your nervous system.

See, trauma is a physiological problem. The way your brain and nervous system respond to stimuli is something that can feel incredibly outside of your control— and even worse so when you don’t understand what’s happening. The internal messaging can turn into a really dark place, where “what’s wrong with me?” could be the nicest version of how you feel.

This is why it’s been my mission to not only talk about trauma and our nervous systems, but to push educating Senior Leadership in the military on how trauma works in humans. The military system is traumatizing. We can not change that. I know this, and not only acknowledge it, but understand why it’s the system that we have. War is traumatizing. We need to be able to function through that.

That being said, I and many psychology scholars are putting forward that properly administered psychoeducation works. Understanding your nervous system gives you the power to let go of guilt, and work on the symptoms you are experiencing.

“Military members, veterans, and their families will often not understand the true sources and etiology of the trauma symptoms that they are experiencing. They may blame themselves, others, and triggering settings, or see themselves as weak/flawed for the difficulties that they are experiencing. Conducting appropriately timed psychoeducation that explains the client’s responses as part of the ANS [autonomic nervous system] can greatly help these clients understand the connections between their traumatic experience(s) and these symptoms which can sometimes be quite transformative and healing (Machtinger, Cuca, Khanna, Rose, & Kimberg, 2015; Whitworth, 2016). When this psychoeducation is done in a military-culturally-sensitive, human-centered, and relationship-focused manner it has been found to help these clients building resiliency as they respond to their trauma experience(s) (Whitworth, 2016).” (Herzog, 2020)

Having leadership who simply understand what the body is going through would be a first and very effective step in stopping the AD member/spouse from believing they are dealing with this alone. The education would stop them from believing they are weak or wrong, and would empower them to seek out help that would treat the physiological ways they are feeling. Understanding you can use different tools to manage and eventually acknowledge these reactions is POWERFUL.

I am fully aware of how mindfulness works, helps treat symptoms, can trigger when applied wrong, and empowers when taught in a trauma-informed way because I live it. I also can see when these things won’t directly help, because I live that too. My training and education started before the event, and helped me after. Also- knowing when to refer out after using the first preemptive measures adds in a step of care the Navy does not currently have.

Instead of consistently using Naval Mental Health workers in a way that will overwhelms them into believing they are mainly there to stop the “scammers” or only available to those already experiencing suicidal ideations- how about we educate the culture? Not just sending out a handbook either- but actually sitting with leaders, and talking about how this works. We would enable them to handle a lot of the problems they are dealing with on the ships, in the commands, all throughout the military complex. We would enable to them to know when it’s out of their lane, and what tools are effective in resolving the matters at hand.

Living with trauma is not impossible, but it can feel that way when you don’t understand what is happening within you. We must stop asking people to shove it all down with no understanding of what is actually going on. The military culture is suffering, and this generation will not deal with the “suck it up” culture of before. They deserve better, and we can do better. The education is here. We must use it.

Herzog, J. R., Whitworth, J. D., & Scott, D. L. (2019). Trauma informed care with military populations. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 30(3), 265–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2019.1679693