Therapy was never an easy task for me. At first, it felt mundane, but over time, each session became easier and I figured out what works for me. After years of building and bottling up my trauma, I knew it was time to talk to someone. It wasn't until 2019 when I deployed to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan where I broke down to my First Sergeant about an experience I had at a forward operating base (FOB). It was one of those experiences that made me lose sleep and made me have reoccurring nightmares. Won't get into those details on what exactly happened, but know it was absolutely terrifying.
My First Sergeant recommended that I go to Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC) clinic at the hospital while I was still in country. He said something along the lines of, "I am saying this because I care about you and think it will help." I respected him as a leader and a person, so naturally, I followed his guidance and went. I talked to two clinical officers in the span of one week. One was a psychiatrist and the other was a psychologist. It's still a little foggy to me the difference, but that is what they told me they were. Either way, I knew they were professionals and their sole job is to help soldiers like me.
I wasn't optimistic that these initial meetings would change how I felt, but I was hoping for something. The first lady told me, "you are just feeling this way because you are in a combat zone... It's expected." Not the answer I wanted to hear when I spent the last hour crying about motors flying over head and having to jump into a Conex to avoid shrapnel. I know, I know, M2 you were a soldier, what did you expect going out to Afghanistan?! But I didn't think a physiatrist would just easily disregard how I was processing my experience. After that I asked to talk to someone else, so enter in Officer psychologist. I explained to him other experiences I dealt with and asked how I could process them. Good thing I didn't get my hopes up because he had a similar response to the first lady. He said, "when you leave here, you'll be better. You won't have to worry about taking cover or taking helicopter rides into dangerous lands." Again, not really a reassuring answer.
I left Afghanistan utterly disappointed in my first two ever therapy sessions. I was ready to go back to how I used to deal with trauma - hold it in until I can't anymore. But then, I was stationed in Camp Buehring, Kuwait. I lead a team there and noticed that my soldiers were all dealing with similar issues as I was. One of my soldiers was in Afghanistan with me and experienced worse stuff than me. My other soldier, just came back from Iraq and he was dealing with experiences worse than me too.
As a leader, it was hard to see my dearest friends battling their PTSD and everything that goes with it. So, I did what my former First Sergeant said to me. I recommended COSC and said that as a team, we could all block off time each week to go see the provider on our base. Of course, they had reservations but I said I would also go and we can determine if this is a waste of time or, if we want to commit to weekly sessions.
When I first met the Camp Buehring Clinical Psychologist, I immediately knew he was not like the first two officers I met in Afghanistan. He actually cared about my health and well-being. He didn't disregard my issues and continued to ask questions that really had me thinking about how I could process the trauma. Needless to say, we continued our weekly session for the remainder of our deployment. I'd like to say that this Psychologist really changed my perspective on therapy. During my time with him, we conducted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which is a type of talk therapy. He had me track my sleeping patterns and write down feelings and thoughts on my own time. It helped me understand how to not just be mad about the things I am dealing with, but to try to overcome them in a healthy manner.
I probably would have came home from deployment a lot more messed up in the head if I did not do CBT therapy for those months I was in Kuwait. I know this blog has been mostly discussing when I started therapy and my experience with it during deployment. But now I want to shift gears to civilian therapy for non-military people.
Yes - I continued to see therapists when I got home for deployment for military related experiences, but I also reached out to other therapists for personal traumas I never fully dealt with. At one point, I had three therapists that I talked to about different things because each therapist specialized in different fields. Finally, in 2021, I only saw one therapist.
We had reoccurring meetings every week for one hour for over six months. I know, how did I do it? I made the time. This therapy was specifically related to sexual assault and abuse I experienced over the years. The method we used was Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. It basically makes you shift your eye movement focus from one point to another while trying to file fractured memories, aka trauma. I know, it sounds intense. However, after the first few sessions it actually started to help me. I noticed, I was not crying as much when thinking about a certain memory.
I was able to think about particular people who hurt me without breaking down or having an anxiety attack. I slowly started to accept that I cannot punish myself for something that happened to me in the past that was outside of my control. Some people are just horrible and that is who they are. Some people don't deserve my forgiveness, but that doesn't mean I should let the memory of them ruin me.
Fast forward months later, my therapist and I had a falling out. Since then, I haven't really found a new one. But that is OK because I tried therapy for 3 years and all those sessions taught me something. I'd like to think, therapy can be found all around us in so many forms. For example, it's therapeutic for me to talk to my best friend about life and just bounce off ideas on how to deal with different scenarios we are in. It's also very therapeutic to go swimming in the ocean, snowboarding, writing my thoughts down, traveling to new places, going to raves and getting lost in music.
The possibilities are endless! So, I realized the best form of therapy is just being open-minded and talking to people who are willing and able to support you in life. You don't always need a professional to walk you through how to process things. Sometimes, you just need a hug or a listening ear from the right person.
