Skip to content

Am I wounded?

James Jones, Social Worker, answers common questions about PTSD.

Transcript

We simply are not prepared for

the horrific things that happen in war.

There is no way we could be prepared,

so when they happen, we essentially check out

in order to keep going.

And we're taught that in the military, to move forward,

to keep going, keep going, keep going,

don't stop and think about it.

At some point, you're going to stop and think about it,

and it's at that point that you're going to realize

that something is not right.

And it doesn't mean that you're broken or that you need

to be hospitalized, it just means that you've been traumatized

and that you need help.

And I look at it very much like a wound.

If you saw a soldier or someone that came back from the war

and they only had one arm and they had a patch over an eye,

you'd say that that person really got messed up in the war.

Well you're wounded, too, only your wound is inside,

and we can't see it.

You can feel it, but we can't see it, and it might show

in the way that you behave,

but you can't help that because you've kind of

lost the way to control that.

So we come in and we work together and we drain that wound

for you, help you drain the wound so it can heal appropriately,

just like we would a physical wound.

Published At