FRANK'S STORY / A P.T.S.D. VICTIM RISES FROM THE ASHES OF UNWORTHINESS

Tag(s): Antiwar; Antiwar Movement; Awareness; Consciousness - Enlightenment; Inspirational; Inspirational; Love; Personal; Veterans; Veterans Neglected; Veterans Post Tramatic Stress; Veterans Vietnam
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May 27, 2007 at 16:53:40

FRANK'S STORY / A P.T.S.D. VICTIM RISES FROM THE ASHES OF UNWORTHINESS

by Allen L Roland Page 1 of 4 page(s)

http://www.robkall.com

I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, And they brought back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead: Edmund Vance Cooke

This Memorial Day let us pay homage not just to the soldiers who have died for their country ~ but also to the walking dead ~ the victims of Post Traumatic Stress Dysfunction ( P.T.S.D) ~ whose emotionally damaged psyches still carry the heavy burden of killing for their country where quite often those killed were innocent women and children.

There eyes are indeed cold and dead ~ for their maimed souls have sunk into the quicksand of unworthiness. They cannot accept love for they feel they do not deserve love and they continually sabotage their joy for the same reason ~ their hearts have closed and they live in the Gray Zone where no light can penetrate and no one dare enter.

Frank was such a person. He was a Vietnam Vet in his mid 50's and most of his post Vietnam life had been spent running away from love.

It was beginning to effect his health and his daughter Nina pleaded with him to see me. Nina is a former client and graduate of my short term seven session transformation self-healing therapy. ( see Radical Therapy )

Frank consented for part of him longed for another choice versus his loveless Gray Zone.

The following is a brief synopsis of those sessions and Frank's ultimate emergence from his cocoon of unworthiness ~ by fully opening his heart.

Session One - Finding the Child Within Yourself

I explain my role as your 'coach', and demonstrate how you can use childhood pictures to locate the child within yourself who closed their heart and emotionally stopped growing. The intent of this session is to touch the trapped child within yourself and begin the self-healing process. I accomplish this by sharing my own quest to find my trapped inner child and by utilizing the Cycle of Life to graphically illustrate how and why we separate from who we truly are.

Frank had emotionally separated from himself in Vietnam whereas his deep psychic pain and guilt had overridden his innate innocence and joy and he could not get beyond this well of grief and shame . He found a picture of himself as a young and joyful child and I told him if he did his homework he would reunite with him.

Session Two - understanding Your Life as a Quest with a Lifechart

This session demonstrates how to use the homework from the first session (creating a Lifechart) to retrace the major events and relationships of your life in terms of feelings of joy versus feelings of pain and despair. Special emphasis is put on those relationships that profoundly touched your heart. You quickly begin to see your life as a Quest, rather than a struggle, when it becomes obvious that you have recreated your original childhood predicament with parental figures in your primary relationships in a subconscious attempt to reunite with the emotionally trapped child within.

Frank's lifechart clearly showed that the great love of his post Vietnam life was his daughter Nina and that without her ~ he probably would have committed suicide.

His homework was to share his revealing lifechart with Nina and also his sister ~ who had always been there for him.

I am sure I was the first person who really had the chance to truly see Frank's life quest but by immediately sharing his chart with his daughter and sister he was beginning to let others in.

Session Three - Taking Accountability for Your Life

The preparation work is now over: You have seen your life as a quest to find and embrace yourself through the Lifechart and you are now able to understand the significance of key relationships. This session introduces the crucial victim/accountability exercise. During this exercise, you will feel the heaviness and powerlessness of being a victim, versus the lightness and power of being accountable for the decisions you made that either created or avoided pain with the people you loved.

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www.allenroland.com

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net

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8 comments

Katrin R.

The steps

You certainly have all the important steps covered, and I find your organization impressive.

I just wonder, how the patient gets to process all these phases in a set amount of time, and which is really rather short. But it is more the timeframe I am wondering about, and how you can control this for the client.

Intellectually, yes. But emotionally? How is it possible to integrate the child, and be ready to really be ready to do all this work. Like, i may understand the need to give and receive love, and I can go do the homework. But can I force the feelings to come, and if they do, to remain?

I am mainly asking, because I have worked through all these steps myself, and I know the difference. on the other hand, I had to be ready . It took me years before I really acknowledged my inner child, and then when I finally did, I was more than ready to embrace her. Yet, I had a very difficult time knowing what to do with her, because we had been separated for so long.

It took another crisis before I was really able to be my best friend, and this was actually something I had always wished for. To have a friend just like myself. It kind of happened by accident, but I would never switch back.

It happened when my life went from everyone caring,and liking me, and believing i was a great daughter, friend, etc to the exact opposite, pretty much over night. I was accused of the crime that was committed to me.

At first I thought I would never survive this. i could just not believe how people who had known and trusted me all my life could just switch on me like that; that they did not know, or trust me better.

But when I realized I was still alive one day, I discovered the wonderful freedom that came with people no longer liking me. I had always been a people pleaser, and I would have done anything pretty much to keep a relationship good, perhaps more for the sake of the other than for myself.

Now this pressure was gone, and people no longer expected me to be their caretaker And, i got myself as my best friend.

all this has smoothed out, of course, and not everyone still hates or avoids me at all. Still, the feeling of freedom remains, and never, ever will I throw myself away for another. I will be there with,and for another, but not at the expense of throwing myself away. (not edited)

by Katrin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 20 comments) on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 9:43:13 PM

Teilhard

THE STEPS

You certainly have all the important steps covered, and I find your organization impressive.

The answer is that I am not afraid of whatever the client is afraid of ~ so I go in where no one has gone and they are not alone. It happens rapidly because they are not alone and they are healing themselves .

It's like a butterfly coming out of the cocoon ~ have you ever seen a butterfly carrying its cocoon with it or perhaps the better analogy is the horse to the barn !Once you deeply sense another choice ~ it is difficult to say no to yourself anymore.

The client sets the pace but I have many people who are done in six or seven days.

Allen L Roland

by teilhard (459 articles, 0 quicklinks, 84 comments) on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 11:31:57 PM

Katrin R.

I can better relate to the butterfly

When the butterfly comes out of it's cocoon, it does not carry the latter with it, because this is the natural development for the butterfly.

But the butterfly is not injured, and it is not suffering from PTSD, or at least we don't know what it would do to cope with a word where it is no longer safe, and where it no longer belongs, and where even if it gets treatment, this is more likely to re-injure it, and make things worse, than it is helpful.

it is wonderful that this client is able to trust you, but it does not work that way in the real world, and he does not have the defenses of a normal person any longer to cope with regular stressful situations, and especially because they trigger profound physical and psychological pain, and bad memories, and as much as the daughter loves him, she was not there in Iraq with him, and her brain was not altered as a result of the severe stress, and in the Iraq case, this involves much further, and worse betrayal, and the killings were much less meaningless than in other wars, and the soldiers were (are) not only up against an unequal enemy, but no enemy at all. (which makes the experience very different from that of WW2 soldiers, and who feel they belong, and made a difference in the name of 'good') and they were not treated horribly when they came back, and they were not sent back three times over a period of four years.

I am only thinking, that no matter how good of a therapist you are, and no matter how motivated the client, that in the case like the one you are describing, this client is dealing with much psychological and physical material that is involuntary, and not under his control, even if he develops a loving attitude.

I am not questioning you; I am only trying to better understand how the client is sustained, or otherwise has the freedom to change so completely.

by Katrin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 20 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 12:22:30 AM

Teilhard

ANSWER

I am not questioning you; I am only trying to better understand how the client is sustained, or otherwise has the freedom to change so completely.

Because deepest within ourselves is love, joy, intention and purpose and the client senses this truth and I live it. They pull on that during their sessions and quickly begin to realize it is true.

Most people are not afraid of their deep pain ~ they are more afraid of their deeper joy . If I own it the piano will fall on my head ;-)

There is no such thing as an ugly soul but their are many maimed ones.

Allen L Roland

by teilhard (459 articles, 0 quicklinks, 84 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 12:34:13 AM

Katrin R.

after you are gone

What happens though, after the relationship is over. I am sure that your energy, and their relationship with, and trust in you, has the potential to do wonders. But what happens when it is over?

They cannot internalize you .....? I would think they need you, and depend on you. They would still be very fragile, especially when it comes to dealing with the much more difficult,and unfamiliar material, and arena, and what has been so familiar...the pain, and closing off.

by Katrin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 20 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 12:59:21 AM

Teilhard

ANSWER

My job, as their therapist, is to empower them. The real coach is themselves and by taking action and going through their fears ~ they claim their own power. I then become their friend who they can call at any time ~ the last session is my favorite session because it's time for them to fly and they are ready by that time . The path to the soul is through doors of fear and the biggest fear is ~ That being myself is not enough .

The biggest gift I give them is myself and, as such, show that it is possible to truly be themselves.

Allen L Roland

by teilhard (459 articles, 0 quicklinks, 84 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 1:34:01 AM

Katrin R.

Thank you!

Thank you, Allen, for taking the time to explain, and respond. I think the 'empowering' is the clue. Many therapists do the exact opposite.

by Katrin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 20 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 5:38:33 PM

Teilhard

YOUR WELCOME, KATRIN

Your welcome, Katrin ~ Most long term therapy is thinly disguised Co-dependency. I am completely convinced and have proven that clients can heal themselves if therapists can get beyond their own fears, their need to control and empower their clients to another choice of behavior.

Allen L Roland

by teilhard (459 articles, 0 quicklinks, 84 comments) on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 8:43:05 PM

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