Skip to content

You're learning how to get at those feelings that had been stuffed down.

Elizabeth M. Hardy (US Army, 1983 - 2004) talks about what PTSD treatment was like.

Transcript

When you get into treatment, they don't expect you

to just talk about all of your issues all at once.

Your first month or so, you're learning new tools,

new ways of thinking that you have never dealt with before.

So what you're doing is practicing those skills.

So once you learn those skills, it's a lot more comfortable

and a lot more easy when you have those tools to deal

with your issues because with those tools, you're learning how

to communicate in a better way and you're learning how to get

at those feelings that had been stuffed down for so long

that you haven't dealt with.

And, I tell you, once you get to those feelings

and you let them loose, it's like, oh, it's a load off.

It's a load off and you realize that when you're done

through treatment and thinking how long you lived with that

on your back, that monkey on your back kind of a thing.

You've been dealing with a lot of issues

and that's what trauma is.

Most of the time it's stuff you haven't dealt with

or stuff you're too numb to deal with.

The treatment is learning how to, learning the tools to deal

with that stuff that you haven't talked about,

that you just put it aside or put it deep down inside

and just forgot about, but you really haven't forgot

about it 'cause every day you live your life

with that on your back.

Published At