Overcoming Military PTS(D), Moral Injury, and MST

This site was created by Veterans to help other Veterans end their inner wars. Everything here is free.

If you’re dealing with invisible wounds, or worried you might be, you’re in the right place. 

Your military stories matter.

Ready to understand why some still haunt you?

We Came Home to Disorder

Coming home from the military is not easy.

As Soldiers, we wake up knowing exactly where we need to be, what we need to do, and who's coming with us. There's a closeness with one another—and with the moment. We're constantly alert because our lives depend on it. This level of shared mission, aliveness, and mutual support is almost impossible to find in the Civilian world.

The unresolved intensity we carry makes it hard to move forward. I left the service with an iceberg of buried rage, grief, and other emotions. I never learned how to handle loss and wasted years pretending my nervous system wasn't tormented.

My biggest mistake was thinking I had to handle everything alone. I discovered there's a part of me that knows I'm only as strong and secure as the strength my community. It took finding the right community—of other Veterans—for me to fully come home.

My main challenge wasn't "trauma"; it was carrying too much alone.

When we went to boot camp, we were initiated into a life of Purpose and Belonging. We shifted from being protected by the community to protecting it. But that initiation was never completed, and the modern "Civilian" world doesn't know how to complete it.

When we come home as Veterans we can get caught between two worlds: the Civilian world we’ve returned to and the Soldiers world we left behind.

Being stuck in this gap can lead to challenges that often get labeled as post-traumatic stress or PTS(D). For me, the "(D)" stays in parentheses because these aren't "disorders". They’re healthy adaptations to an unhealthy environment. 

Adaptations like being hyper-vigilant and emotional numbness kept us alive. They helped us stay us alert, get the job done, and keep showing up—even when our bodies were screaming in fear.

In many ways, it’s the society we’ve returned to that is disordered.

Only a disordered society would:

• Continue sacrificing the lives and sanity of its bravest youth in a 23-year—and counting—“War on Terror.”

• Continue to ignore the widespread sexual misconduct suffered by service members—our brothers and sisters in uniform.

• Abandon the Afghan and Iraqi translators who worked and fought beside us, joining a brotherhood the system refuses to recognize. We vowed to protect them. Now they are being hunted down and slaughtered.

• Continue to take Veterans struggling with circumstances like these and treat them as “disordered” and numb them with medication—when in many cases what is most needed is real listening and empathy.

Only a disordered society could continue these actions, for decades.

It’s also important to recognize that the VA defines post-traumatic stress as a “disorder”, because working with systems like the VA is critical for many Veterans.

Disorder: an illness or condition that disrupts normal physical or mental functions.

That’s how the medical profession uses the term, and sometimes using their words helps us get the support we need.

We're straddling two worlds here.

This Series is about Overcoming Military PTS(D), Moral Injury, and MST—and building bridges between these two worlds. 

What to expect in this Series

I served as an infantryman and deployed to Iraq during the OIF invasion in 2003-2004. My world got rocked. In the 20 years since then I’ve experimented with every post-traumatic stress treatment I could get my hands on.

I’ll share the resources that helped me and other Veterans reclaim lives worth showing up for.

While I often use examples from my deployment, what I share will be helpful for many different kinds of military-related trauma.

We're gonna cover ways to put our intense experiences into words.

We’ll also go over ways to deal with PTS(D) symptoms, such as:

• Intrusive thoughts from unprocessed experiences: It's time our toughest stories are heard and felt. Fully and vulnerably. We’ve carried too much in silence in order to keep protecting the ones we love.

• Chronic agitation, and pain: Our restless nervous system can relearn it's safe to breathe deeply and slowly, right here, in this moment.

• Buried Rage/Grief/Shame: Every emotion we've swallowed down deserves to be listened to with respect.

• Isolation: True Belonging is restored through healthy connection to the Veteran community, and reclaiming our natural place in the world.

The transformation that started in boot camp can finally be completed.

A mature warrior's journey that roots us in something deeper than culture and re-integrates us into the fractured families and communities that need us to become whole again.

As they always have.

And will.

Am I moving too fast?

There isn't enough quality time left to keep hesitating on this.

Let's get to it. 

 Click below where it says Chapter 1: The War Before the War