Be careful with the word "Hero"

“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small piece of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. ”
— Tim O'Brien, The Things they Carried

Be careful with the word hero. I know it’s Veteran’s Day. I know the instinct and intention to use the word is good. I know you are trying to show respect and gratitude. But the problem with the word hero is that most people who live through war, most people who live through any long and repeated trauma, and most people who witness war and repeated trauma do not always feel heroic.  Most trauma involves experiences of helplessness and terror. These experiences usually result in shame, not courage; in fear, not bravery; in despair, not resilience.

There is a tacit agreement between a population and its soldiers: you go to war, we call you a hero, and we never have to know what really goes on during a war. If we call you a hero, we never have to hear the real war stories, because we have made it so that you can’t tell them. We call you a hero to make ourselves feel better, and it keeps you quiet.

In old Native American culture, warriors returned home from battle and shared their stories with the community in a big ceremony. The community as a whole had to hold these stories –not the individual warriors. We don’t do that and we ask our warriors to hold the stories themselves.

The injuries to soldiers are vast—with TBI on the increase. And the public is now widely aware of PTSD. But there are other injuries that are difficult to measure, discuss and treat. Yes, a soldier can suffer the traumas of flashbacks and anxiety of the war. But PTSD doesn’t cover the complete loss of self: the loss of who I was before the war, the loss of my sense of dignity. How do I hold the me I thought I was with the me who knows what I did during war?

Surviving war doesn’t feel heroic. Surviving any trauma doesn’t feel heroic. When you use the word hero you need to know that the people hearing that word can feel miles away from your intentions. You say hero and they remember shooting a screaming old woman or a dog. You say hero and they remember feeling frozen and not being able to do what they wanted to do. You say hero and they remember themselves at their most helpless.

Psychiatrist Jonathon Shay calls this injury to your sense of self a moral injury. The invisible wounds of war that keep soldiers injured long after the symptoms of PTSD clear. PTSD is what Shay calls a primary injury--it's symptoms are visible like the break of a bone. But a moral injury is like internal bleeding. It is a silent killer. Soldiers often report feeling like a piece of them died during the war and others have referred to it as ‘soul murder.’ Soldiers fear telling their stories because they think people will hate them for what they have done. We ask them to go to war and then we ask them to hold their stories by themselves. This is likely too big a burden. The suicide rate among Veterans is staggering: 22 Veterans die from suicide a day.

As citizens we can and should be grateful for their service, but we shouldn’t be naïve about their sacrifice. We need to have a more complex view of the impact of war and trauma and expand the conversation of healing all the injuries of war—not just the medical symptoms we can see and treat more easily. We need to support the soldiers in their healing by not telling them who they are and what their story is, but instead creating the possibility that they could tell their story—tell their whole war story. We need to change the conversation about trauma to include the long term impact and the symptoms that we can't see. On this Veteran’s Day, let’s thank them for their service and ask to hear their story with the reassurance that we will hold their story with them.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022 . Edited and reworked original post from 2014.

One True Thing

“If its interest in truth is linked only to amnesty and compensation, then it will have chosen not truth, but justice. If it sees truth as the widest possible compilation of people’s perceptions, stories, myths, and experiences, it will have chosen to restore memory and foster a new humanity, and perhaps that is justice in its deepest sense.”
— Antje Krog, Country of My Skull

Not long ago I was teaching a group about complex trauma and I felt stuck. I was aware that what I was teaching was hard. Trauma is complicated—especially in systems. There’s individual trauma. There’s family trauma. Organizational Trauma. And the traumas of systemic racism and oppression. There’s all that trauma. There’s all the healing that was needed. And there’s the work that the group was tasked to do. I felt the weight of it all—the heaviness of the trauma and expectation. I was aware that what the group was experiencing was hard. And I was aware that there was something more that was needed at that moment. I began to feel frustrated in my ability to make myself clear, disappointed in myself that I couldn’t integrate what was happening fast enough—which combined into shame that I wasn’t going to give this group what it needed.

This place I had found myself with the group wasn’t entirely new territory. Somewhere in the middle phase of my healing journey I was in this place a lot. It is a place that I used to call ‘lost.’ It’s a place where I feel spun around, where I can’t find my bearings. I feel like my mind is blank and my body is full of feelings and I can’t seem to find a story that I can talk about. It feels like I am standing in a big empty forest that goes on forever. No matter where I look I can’t see a pathway, and in that feeling of lost I can feel lonely or isolated—even if someone is there listening to me. It’s hard to remember in that moment of lost that you aren’t actually lost at all.

In my work with the group—I was aware of all my feelings and my thoughts, but instead of being able to lean on my awareness—which actually held good and useful data, my survival skills from trauma kicked in. The emotions I was feeling triggered my old responses to danger—GET IT RIGHT (I can’t!) HIDE! (your feelings and thoughts) PRETEND IT’S OK. It’s what I often refer to as an emotional flashback. When I experience an emotional flashback, despite lots of practice, my first instinct is not to say what is true.  My very first thought is “I wish this wasn’t happening. Please make it stop.” My first feelings aren’t the feelings themselves, but my feelings about them. I feel embarrassed that I am ‘here’ in my trauma brain again. Embarrassed by what I am feeling. Aware that the feelings are huge and there’s no easy way back. Instead of feeling angry, or hurt, or sad, I feel shame for having the feelings and rage at having to reveal my shameful feelings to someone else.  The problem with emotional flashbacks is that they reveal what we want to keep hidden—they make visible the emotional wounds that we can usually hide. Saying how you really feel at that moment forces you to show others, but more importantly yourself, how hurt you are and how hurt you have been. No my first instinct isn’t to saying what it true, my first instinct, because of the shame this experience triggers, is to hide.  

When you are lost in the woods, what you are supposed to do is slow down-- stop and look around. Get your bearings. Pick out landmarks. Find a tree to sit next to. And somewhere in the middle of my work in therapy I found that the best way out of feeling lost, or stuck, or frozen or ashamed was this: simply say one true thing.

Say something that is true for you—anything that is true for you—no matter how small. Even if that something is ‘I don’t know what to say’ or “I feel numb” or “I feel lost.” Saying one true thing connects you to how you are feeling in this moment—and allows you to connect to whomever you are talking to. Your ability to say one true thing creates the opportunity to move from the experience of lost to the experience of found. By saying one true thing you locate yourself in space—you find something to stand on—to grab ahold of. By saying one true thing—you connect yourself to your feelings—and connect yourself to the present moment.

One true thing isn’t about an opinion. And it’s not about anyone else. It’s one true statement that is about your experience in the moment. Or it’s your experience in your story or your history. It’s the most manageable increment that you can hold and work with. Sometimes it’s something you say to yourself. And sometimes it’s something you may share out loud. One true thing isn’t your whole truth, or your whole story. It isn’t the answer to the problem or even the task you are trying to tackle. It’s just a way of finding your way back to the present and yourself. It’s a way of finding a way back to the present and the person or the group you are working with. It’s a way to connect—and we all need more of that—with ourselves and each other.

© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD


O very young: Some thoughts about suicide and healing from trauma

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life is that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. ”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

You’re only dancing on this earth, for a short while.  This past February I learned that Stephanie Selby, who became famous for being the main protagonist in Jill Krementz’ book A Very Young Dancer died from complications of a suicide attempt. I felt sorrow—and maybe even complicity—I had idolized her for years and never once wondered what her life was actually like. I am her age cohort, another 1965 kid, and I was obsessed with her book. Holding the obituary in the NY Times, I stared at the picture of the front cover of that book as I had once stared at it for years. When you are a kid, there are lots of successful grown-ups to look up to, but to learn about a successful kid was a whole other level.

She was this image of perfection and success. I thought if I could learn how to be that successful, I could fast track adulthood which would give me a way out of a difficult childhood. I read and re-read that book. I scoured the book for clues—for success—for how to be thin. My mother had been a model and was obsessed with weight putting me on diets from the age of seven—she wanted me to have a ‘dancer’s body.’ As one of the tallest kids in my grade, and a solid kid, this was never a possibility. But I read the book over and over—hoping for some sort of osmosis: hoping that you could become someone by studying them. Reading about her suicide was a wake-up call: a reminder that you really never know what people are carrying. You never really know the weight of people’s burdens.

I was reminded of her again today when an old teammate posted a story about a friend who died from suicide—a friend who had so many gifts and so much to offer. A friend who was going to be desperately missed. I thought about the gap—the grand canyon wide gap—between the pain and sorrow that someone can be holding—and the love and admiration that others have for them.

I don’t have any massive wisdom about suicide-- only questions. Only an earnest desire and wish to bring more peace and calm to those who struggle. I am no stranger to suicide. I grew up in its specter—and know the fear and power that threats and attempts bring. I know that it can seem like a powerful immediate answer to what looks like an interminable problem. Except it is the exact opposite. Suicide is actually a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And it a lousy solution. There are so many more ways to hold pain. There are so many ways that we as a community need to hold trauma and grief—so that people don’t feel so alone with theirs.

From the veterans who commit suicide (there are roughly 22 a day) to the young folks who do—there is a theme of not being able to live with oneself. Whether from the moral injury of war—or the pain of living with trauma, sorrow or shame. Suicide is a singular death that that behaves like a shrapnel wound—injuring at least three generations of families—and tearing through communities.

It’s important to remember that the strength of people on the outside may not match their insides—that you may not know how much they are struggling. How much, like a swan, they are paddling below the surface, even when it seems they are gliding, quietly.

It's important that we don’t look away. That we hold that this level of sorrow exists even if we can’t see it. And it’s important to normalize the very human, and perhaps necessary, feelings of despair. The feelings that come with wondering who to be, how to be, and what to do—especially with regards to trauma and grief. I believe if we did a better job honoring the healing process—and normalizing how long it can take to heal and how hard it is to heal—we wouldn’t leave people feeling so alone holding their burden.

And maybe this is a small thing, but it seems like we need a shift from ‘who I am or what I do’—to ‘what I can contribute.’ . There’s too much pressure on being something or someone in particular—and the feelings of falling short of whatever that ideal is—of living with some profound disappointment that you failed at something—even though that something—or that standard of being—wasn’t actually real. This was always difficult but social media has made it worse.

But the ability to contribute? That’s something that is always available. The ability to contribute a conversation—contribute your effort (whatever it may be)—contribute your smile, your laughter, your tears. Contribute your silence, your listening and your comfort of others. Contribution is a stance that strengthens patience. When you contribute you plant a seed of some kind. And you don’t know when that seed will germinate. You don’t know when it will sprout. Contribution prepares the ground to hold the despair. And sometimes that’s the best we can do, while we wait for a better day ahead.

© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

 If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide call 988 or reach out here.

If you are seeking a therapist—this is a helpful website

What we need is here.

“…clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.”
— Wendell Berry, Wild Geese

What we need is here. This is one of those sentences that, when I am having a hard day, always makes me think, “Bullshit.”  What I need isn’t HERE. When what I need is more money, or snow tires or someone in particular, then it doesn’t feel like it is here --it feels like it is there. And there can feel so far away, so far out of reach. I can be inconsolable, frustrated, impatient. When you feel like what you need is there, then you completely forget to look where you are: you forget to be here.

Clear in the ancient faith. That’s the part of this poem I love. He’s describing the geese overhead flying overhead and knowing their way. You have all seen it, geese flying high, in formation. They know where they are going. They have each other. They have all they need to get where they are going. Those beautiful lines in the sky, those harbingers of change in both fall and spring.

What we need is here. Maybe I needed this refrain this week because sometimes the world’s problems seem too big, too ongoing, and my despair can creep back. Despair is always a sign that you have lost your ancient faith, that you have forgotten that you have all you need. It is a sign you are looking outside of yourself, and everything you are looking for is inside.

This may be one of the biggest disciplines of healing. You aren’t going to keep yourself from losing it, from getting frustrated, from feeling despair, from wishing that someone or something could fix it for you—all of that, my friend, is a guarantee of this work. But the discipline is coming back to yourself, to be clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. To catch yourself in the act of looking everywhere but within and to sit yourself down. Breathe. Pray. As the poet says, be quiet in heart. This act of slowing down, of catching yourself is so powerful. It is a necessary skill or capacity for healing, for being able to tolerate the grief and loss and frustration that comes with healing trauma, or really, getting through any tough stretch of life.

It’s not about putting a better face on it, or wishing it away or pretending it’s not bad. It’s about knowing, having faith in, trusting that despite how you feel, you have all you need to make it through the journey. It might not be pretty. You might not be happy. You might feel like you are barely hanging on. I am pretty sure that those geese who fly all the way from Canada to Virginia have moments of wondering whether they are going to make it, or at the very least “Are we there yet?!”

When you say to yourself, “what we need is here,” you are the friend who comes over for tea on a bad day and says “we can figure this out.” Healing requires that we befriend ourselves, not abandon ourselves. That in our worst moments we remind ourselves, what we need is here. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2022

Original Publication January 2015