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. <strong>This</strong> 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. <strong>This</strong> 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. <strong>This</strong> 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 38 <strong>US</strong>CONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n JULY 2008
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