为退伍士兵和退伍军人提供治疗

“我浪费了我的青春和健康，为贪婪的精神病患者的帝国野心而战、
一直以为自己在保护我深爱的国家。” (quote from an ex soldier)

战争创伤和与退伍军人打交道并不是我的专长。然而，不时有退伍军人找到我，请求帮助。这种治疗非常紧张，对我的技能和知识提出了挑战。很少有教练、心理咨询师或治疗师拥有 亲历战争 我们很难完全理解战争创伤所带来的心理状态。退伍军人都知道这一点，这往往也是他们逃避寻求帮助的一个原因。

处理童年创伤相对容易. We can re-frame such events from a perspective of our adult experience. We can recognize that, as young children, we created detrimental beliefs because we misunderstood the behavior and emotional states of people around us, because we wrongly perceived ourselves as sources of problems and because we saw everything in “black and white” terms. It’s usually not difficult to change our childish perspectives, except that it can take some time and effort to connect to younger, more instinctive and emotional parts of our brains.

War trauma is different. Soldiers are fully adults, with specific beliefs, ideas and sense of identity. Adults know much more about the world and people’s behavior. Adults have certain defense mechanisms firmly in place. 当战争剥夺了我们的一切时，就很难找到可以替代它的东西。 

In the words of a client: “战争很简单。要么开枪，要么中弹。你进入了一种生存模式，在这种模式下，事情非黑即白。其他人要么是你的同伙，要么是你的敌人。你杀死的第一个人对你很重要。你会思考他是什么样的人，他的生活，他的家庭。其他人则变得模糊不清。你会震惊地发现自己能做什么，能变成什么。.”

When you feel that you could die at any moment, your brain reverts into a very instinctive, primitive way of functioning. The “生存模式” my client mentioned means that your rational brain switches off and animal instincts take over. Frightened babies might spend time in this state. When our rational filters disappear, trauma is more likely to influence the parts of the brain that are unlikely to or very difficult to change. Children, at least, eventually receive some comfort and support in all but the most toxic families. 对士兵来说，可能没有这样的安慰 – worse, coming back to your normal state of mind might mean becoming horribly aware of what happened in the meantime.

决定参战的背后往往有一些故事. A war veteran client grew up without his parents and with insufficient grandparents’ guidance and support. The army gave him 结构和指导 he was longing for – firm hierarchy, clear tasks and clear responsibilities, as well as power and sense of security in the form of firearms. It was shocking for him to become aware of how his childhood needs influenced his decisions. Some people join cults for similar reasons – if they hope that in such a cult they could receive or earn whatever was missing in their families.

当战争创伤与先前存在的童年创伤融合在一起时在这种情况下，将它们分开可能会变得非常困难。有时 军队训练的目的是造成创伤 for new recruits, so that they would create strong group bonds and enter survival mode in which they can be taught to perceive certain groups of people as “targets”.

曾经有一位客户建议我写一篇关于 "失去童真 "及其意义的文章。我很犹豫要不要写，因为失去纯真的感觉可能是非常个性化的，很难定义。不过，我认为 战争是失去纯真的终极体验 – loss of ideals and hopes, loss of faith in humanity, in ultimate purpose of life, in your own self. All of the previous beliefs, ideals and faith might pale compared to horrible realities of war. No reasoning might be enough to bring them back. Trauma is often a result of relationship disappointments – 战争创伤打破了你与世界和生命本身的关系. 

Some ex-soldiers might start fearing their own selves. Others might give up themselves and any hope that they might be truly loved for who they are. Children feel this way sometimes, but a child’s intense feelings are usually a result of overreaction and inexperience. This is not the case with soldiers. They might feel they can only be fully understood and accepted by those who experienced the same, while avoiding or 忽视其他关系.这样，他们就会让自己的情感停留在过去。

You can never become your old self again. Superficial advice such as “Think positively”, “Forgive yourself”, or “Have faith” is not only ignorant, but downright arrogant. 内疚 is always somewhere in the background. You cannot escape the fact that, for whatever reason, you killed people; people like you, who wanted to live, who most likely believed they were fighting for a just cause… and 也许他们是对的. Perhaps you killed innocent people or children. While in survival mode, you can push guilt out of your mind. Once war is over, there’s not much left to distract you from it. You might seek 分心 – alcohol, drugs and other addictions. 内疚往往是一个禁忌话题你的政府可能会因为你杀了人而给你颁发奖章，对你大加赞赏。无法言说的负罪感会成为更大的负担。

I don’t have complete answers. Some ex-soldiers might need recovering parts of themselves that might be stuck in traumatic experiences. The question is, what do you do next? When you have your sense of self back, what do you do with it? 你能相信什么?

Action in the external world might be more helpful than trying to convince yourself to think and feel differently. Find out what makes you feel that you are helping the world to become a better place. The war veteran I mentioned earlier volunteers in a certain rescue service, for example. This won’t bring back lost lives – but 改善或拯救其他生命 可以帮助你找到一些平衡，也许是赎罪。也许你可以开始把自己看作一个全新的、与众不同的人，并由此感受到全人类都可以学习和进化。

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