Duane France 

I hear it all the time, both when I work with veterans individually and when I talk to veterans in the community. You’re not going to get ME in a therapist’s office. All they want to do is to bring up old stuff from the past. They’re just going to give me a bunch of pills.

There seems to be a gulf, a divide, between veterans and those around them. I think the reasons for this divide are numerous, and many are unnecessary. In many cases, a veteran creates this divide themselves, by isolation. Seclusion. Withdrawing. By assuming that there is no way that anyone other than those with shared experience would be able to understand.

Here is the veteran story paradox: Veterans sincerely and adamantly want those that they care about, those they interact with, to know their story, to understand their experiences, without having to tell them a thing.

The thing that amazes me about veterans is their ability to put up with some of the most challenging situations that any individual can face. You can put them in any environmental condition, expose them to extreme levels of psychological stress, and yet they’ll still keep moving forward.

As a counselor, if you want to help veterans heal, you need to watch Acronym: The Cross-Generational Battle with PTSD (Tubbs, 2015).