300,000 OEF and OIF warriors
have PTSD or other psychological injuries.1
How can we reach them all?
“I didn’t want to have it on my military record that I was crazy... Infantry is supposed to be the toughest of the tough2.”
Warriors don’t want lectures on combat stress, and they don’t like to admit they’re struggling. For many, the warrior soul means switching off emotions and being tough—taking care of things by themselves, no matter what. Psychological injuries like PTSD drive our combat veterans into isolation just when they need community the most.
Former Army infantry soldier Calvin Harris:3 ”It was a long downhill road, a lot of drinking, a lot of arguing, a lot of walking out on my wife and kids, and just having no desire to live my life, to tell you the truth. But not acting like it. It’s very easy to portray yourself as being perfectly fine on the outside, but totally torn up on the inside.”
The good news: psychological injuries like PTSD are treatable. When warriors are empowered to help each other in a community, they can take positive control of their lives.
Calvin: “The first time somebody said, ‘You’ve got PTSD,’ and then told me, ‘It’s normal; I went through it when I was in Vietnam,’ It felt like a lot of relief, to realize that it was normal, to realize that other people are dealing with it.”
There are hurdles, though, to creating an empowering community for warriors and their families. Before they can work together, sharing their trials and offering support and wisdom, warriors and their families have to be sure that they are in a safe community of fellow warriors and family members. They have to be able to stay confidential, even anonymous, even as they reconnect with the world. Finally, they need the opportunity to get professional, directed guidance to heal from psychological injuries.
Not Alone is building a confidential online community for warriors and their families. This community shows them that they are not alone with podcasts of audio stories from other warriors and family members; connects them to each other with social networking tools; provides online assessments that guide the healing process; and offers facilitated group workshops that give users the opportunity to share their collective experience and wisdom in a guided and moderated setting.
We at Not Alone partner with organizations that wrestle with how to help individuals and groups with the hardships that accompany psychological injuries. We’re slated to launch in the Spring of 2009—with the goal of reaching 30,000 warriors and family members in the first three years.
Want to know more? Take a look at Our Philosophy.
1 RAND Corporation Report Invisible Wounds of War April 17, 2008
2 Travis Boyd, speaking to The New Yorker May 19, 2008.
3 Assumed name