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the defender can feel misunderstood.
I have not seen this more clearly demonstrated
than in the homecoming of
American servicemen and women from
the Viet Nam War. Rarely were these vets
asked about the meaning of combat and
killing to them. Instead, many civilians
simply ran their agenda on the vulnerable
young military returnees, which vets
continue to tell me was the hardest part
of their adjustment. If a soldier was trying
to come to grips with his taking human
life, it was often no more helpful to
cheer his killing of the “godless gooks,”
than it was to call him a “baby killer.”
Either of these extreme responses offers
the Mark of Cain to the warrior, and his
most likely internal response is to feel
that he no longer fits in the country he
recently defended.
Sometimes the Mark of Cain is selfassigned
as the person comes to understand
his responsibility in a lethal encounter.
In real life, things are rarely as
neat as tactical scenarios where an IPSC
target with a gun on it pops up and says,
“I’m going to kill you.” It is natural and
even healthy (to a point) to question
what was done. This is a way we learn
and integrate our personal experiences
into a meaningful story of who we are
and how we’ve been in the world. The
problem can come when we get stuck
in negative emotional judgments about
what we have done, in spite of all the
evidence and opinion to the contrary.
Whether or not a person encounters
PST or PTSD in the aftermath of their
experience, it is important to recognize
that the defender’s brain has gone on a
strange ride and may take some time
coming back to its usual mode of operating.
This is too short an article to elaborate
on the changes that take place
and distortions of perception. The important
point here is to understand that
the person may have stored information
about the event in a fragmented and
highly-charged way in the emotional
centers of the brain. This becomes possible
as the brain switches to the fight
or flight system to process what is happening.
Under some circumstances,
the brain can become overwhelmed
and stay in that state for an indefinite
period. When this occurs, the memory
of the event cannot be accessed without
bringing up the disturbing emotion
that was stored with it. The result is
that the person knows one truth about
the event logically, but the logical mind
gets overwhelmed by the emotionallycharged
memory. That accounts for
folks with PTSD and PST reliving the
event through flashbacks, nightmares
and all-too-realistic recall of the events.
The same person is likely to avoid any
person, place or thing that would serve
as a reminder of the event. They live in a
state of unending hypervigilance, which
is not a fun place to be and they would
do anything to get out. But stuffing the
memory of the event is not successful
Some of the folks that
I have seen have the
worst time with PVET
were people that
acquaintances would
describe as strongminded.
They are often
the last to come to
counseling due to their
expectations that they
should pull themselves
up by their own
bootstraps.
and when they try to bring the event
up in their mind, emotion overwhelms
logic.
The human brain is designed to process
traumatic events and will do so
over the days and weeks following the
incident if it can. But if the wrong combination
is present and the brain stays
overwhelmed by the traumatic memories,
what might have been an unpleasant
short-term case of PST/PVET can
harden into the longer-term PTSD.
It is easy to get frustrated with a person
who is undergoing this experience,
especially if we don’t understand that
their efforts to look at things rationally
are getting overwhelmed by the emotional
memories. Some of the folks that
I have seen have the worst time with
PVET were people that acquaintances
would describe as strong-minded. They
are often the last to come to counseling
due to their expectations that they
should pull themselves up by their own
bootstraps. When they haven’t been
able to control the emotional flooding
that occurs, they believe themselves to
be failures and they tend to become depressed.
The advice of well-intentioned
friends to suck it up and move on further
deepens their sense of failure and
depression, because they can’t get on
with it.
The point of all this is to encourage
persons in the shooting community to
understand that adequate, confident,
competent, intelligent folks can and do
fall prey to PST/PVET or PTSD. Again,
not everyone who goes through a bad
experience will go through these symptoms.
But some will.
Once a defender can accept that they
have PST/PVET or PTSD, they can then
take charge of the healing processes
involved. Police officers have the resources
of fellow officers who have gone
through similar events, peer counselors,
and privileged communications with
a police chaplain. Armed citizens can
form their own ad hoc support group
from understanding friends. A great
new resource for understanding with
some clout is the Armed Citizens Legal
Defense Network (www.armedcitizensnetwork.org).
For those whose symptoms are persistent
and troubling, therapy through the
use of Eye Movement Desensitization
and Reprocessing (EMDR) has been a
helpful process in the resolution of trauma
for law enforcement, civilians and
military personnel. Information about
the therapy and practitioners can be
found through the EMDR International
Association website (www.EMDRIA.
ORG). n
[ Art Mize is a Licensed Mental Health
Counselor in private practice in
Olympia, Washington. He also serves as
a volunteer police chaplain and a defensive
handgun instructor. ]
More Resources
“Post-Violent Event Trauma” (video)
Massad Ayoob
Deadly Force Encounters by Alexis
Artwohl and Loren Christensen
Into the Kill Zone by David Klinger
CopShock by Allen R. Kates
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USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n JULY 2008