I’ve seen several programs on television recently that have included a character that was suffering with PTSD. In one episode, the main character said it should not be called PTSD because it is not a disorder, instead, it is an injury. PTSD occurs because you have witnessed an atrocity. It is caused by an injury…an injury to the psyche. It is also a disorder because the injury causes actual physical damage in the brain, resulting in how chemical signals are processed. It is a wound in the psyche and therefore requires healing to take place in the psyche, not just the physical body.
I may not be saying this well, but I believe it is why PTSD is so difficult to heal. How do we heal a psychological wound that has physical manifestations? I believe the answer is that we must resort to healing modalities that result in psychological healing. Prayer, meditation, and talk therapies are perhaps the most powerful methods, those that put us in touch with our psychological side. Perhaps that is also why the things that are esthetically appealing also seem to help us heal. Things like walking in the woods, or stopping to appreciate how beautiful the flowers are in springtime, or sitting by the river watching the water. All of it touches a place inside us that has suffered a significant wound.
Does it matter whether PTSD is a disorder or an injury? No, what matters is that we seek until we find those things that put back into our spirits what has been damaged and torn away. Only then will we begin to heal.
Veteran Speak 