While examining and healing my trauma and PTSD, I was guided, in session, to notice the difference in how I act in everyday life, and how I act in "combat." One of the symptoms of PTSD is freezing in normal life situations. Failing to follow up job opportunities with phone calls to authority figures, not writing resumes, not calling connections that could help. The freezing is total. The action doesn't happen. Distraction to a pleasant pastime, to getting a snack, cleaning house, taking a shower, transports the sufferer away from the freezing moment of trial, into an acceptable activity (for me, it's watching a DVD, or making a sandwich.) But this freezing doesn't happen when I step into a situation that most people would find terrifying.
While driving my taxi years ago, I drove past a crowd of people coming out of a private event--men in dark suits, women in classic prom-style dresses, about 1:00am. While checking for possible passengers among the fifteen or twenty couples of 30 & 40-somethings, my eye was drawn to a punch being thrown. I slowed to a stop just beyond the chaos of ten double and triple-parked cars, and saw a brawny man surrounded by four trimmer men, each punching him in the face. The "victim" was beginning to stagger. I tried to contact my dispatcher to call the police, but was unable to pierce the digital-dispatch curtain that hampered my company's drivers. I got out of my cab and drew my two canisters of mace/pepper spray, and hurried over to the beating. I sprayed the four assailants and stopped the attack.
The four men stood, blinded by the spray, while the brawny victim's head cleared and he threw a straight right hand to the face of one of the helpless foursome. My goal was not to change the balance of power, but to end the attack, so I maced the victim, and the five became pre-occupied with their eye-irritations. Another taxi pulled up, the driver asked if I'd like the cops called. I asked him to please call. He was from a radio dispatched company who was able to call his dispatcher and get immediate results. Several men took exception to my intervention and began shouting at me. One or two rushed at me, I maced them and stopped their attacks as well. I noticed two of the male party-goers attempting to restrain one of their friends from going into the trunk of his car.
The angry man was trying to get under his spare tire, swearing in an unfamiliar language. His friends were holding him, trying to talk sense to him in that same language. My senses told me that the man was going for a resource that meant serious trouble for me, perhaps a gun. I stepped up to the wrestling match at the rear of the car, reached under the open trunk lid and shot a jet of mace into the eyes of the crazed weapon-seeker. His two friends let go of him, saw that I meant them no harm, and stepped back a couple of strides. I substantially soaked their friend to stall him further from finding his deadly tool. I motioned gratefully to his restrainers for preventing the introduction of unnecessary force into the mix. I moved back toward my taxi as the police arrived.
Multiple officers talked to the upset partiers, ascertained that I had not punched anyone, hadn't maced any innocent non-combatants and sent me on my way.
With the theme of this post, "Are Warriors Hooked on Combat," I remember discussions with heroin addicts when I worked in the county jail. They said that heroin made them feel "normal." I notice that I was thinking clearly the entire time, I was watching for anyone thinking of neutralizing me from any angle, I was dedicated to ending the combat situation, and I realized that some partiers were appreciative, some were incensed, and I was at risk. I was not afraid, I was functioning well, I was stopping trouble, preventing injury, looking for surprise elements that need to be dealt with. I was contributing to society. One therapist friend suggested I was in my "comfort zone." Maybe I was feeling "normal."
I experienced no trauma from this situation, because I was functioning well, I was not overwhelmed either by circumstances, by risk or by force. But why did I stop and get out of the car? Because driving away would have violated my personal standard for bystanding. An action was in progress that I had both the commitment and the training to intervene. However fulfilling it may be afterwards, dealing and coping and strategizing and surviving is like a DRUG. I'm good at it. Like a mountain-climber who KNOWS he's as prepared as he can be, and seeks the test after test of successive crises in a climb. Despite the incredible risk, the climber knows he's not a fool. On the mountain-face, he is most alive.
The returning combat veteran (I have never served in military combat) will experience these somatic truths: his training has prepared him to face this incredible moment called combat. That he neutralized adversaries, avoided his own death, saved the lives of buddies or civilians, fulfilled his duties, kept his composure under fire allows him to report to providence and anyone else, "I am a WARRIOR!" This is more than a mindset. This is a physical reality that combat training and experience makes neurologically true.
When the warrior is transplanted, without readjustment intervention, from the world of full-out adrenalized functioning and hypervigilance, back into our society, he may be adrift. No one knows how respected he was in the Middle East; how he and his unit had each others' backs. He has a problem adapting to a location where sudden death is not a minute-by-minute factor.
Where a non-traumatized person might forge ahead despite trepidation, fear, or discomfort, PTSD stops our forward progress, notifies our body that death or serious injury is lying in wait--DON'T GO THERE! When the terrorizing trial is a job interview or an examination, this life-saving frame of reference doesn't serve us. The body is equipped and eager to smooth over this timed-out life adaptation, but it often needs some help, like somatic therapy, EFT or EMDR. My freezing responses are steadily disappearing, as I relax and am guided to let the natural process iron out the overwhelm.
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