Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
80% of veterans whom have problems are able to self recover with the right tools. They have problems that they can self manage and will eventually sort themselves - aka self recovery. 20% cant self recover and will need more help or end up in a real shit place. So don't expect a silver bullet from this alone if you are seriously fucked up.
What this does give is a very brief overview of the knowledge and tools which enables someone to determine how best to self recover.
When you are at the bottom of that deep dark hole and thinking of swinging on a rope, a self directed course may not be the best for you. We advise getting a high level psychological support if you are thinking of clocking out. Get stable then do the work - because doing the work here first may destabilise things even more.
If you have an addiction problem - be it drugs, violence, sex, gambling, fluffy bunnies - the self help course will not directly address that in any depth. There is a reason for that. The addiction is a symptom. When the disease is cured the symptoms usually sort themselves. We have had good success with stabilising mild to moderate alcohol and medication addictions - freezing them and then ignoring them whilst the root cause is sorted. You can use this same approach approach when you are self recovering - there is a caveat - if you are so addicted to street drugs you would mainline spit meth then book into a program - in NZ talk to the Salvation Army.
For everyone else dive in and try it out, do it yourself, do it with us, find someone else - whatever works for you. If you don't like it then no harm no foul, keep looking for what does work for you. Even in our face to face work, the commonest problem we find is avoidance - which gets wrapped up in a whole shit load of excuses and blame. No one likes to work hard and go through the pain - it takes effort and commitment. I don't care if your dog ate your homework, I do care if you have the fortitude to do what's needed.
So what will it sort;
1 it will allow you to work out what your problems are (mostly),
2 it will teach you mechanisms for dealing with the everyday shit of living outside of the military (without frightening the civvies) if you are honest with yourself,
3 it will help you build bridges with those around you (not just the crazy ones),
4 it will help you get to a head space that uses your strengths and controls your demons.
What it wont do;
1 As we said, if you are so drug addicted that spit meth seems like a great idea then there is no fucking way you are going to self recover, get real and get some serious help. Get clean - it wont work with that monkey on your back.
2 if you are in such a dark place that all you can think about is killing everything including yourself then you need face to face high level psychological support. Let us know and we will try to plug you into support wherever you are.
3 if you have rip roaring PTSD - the hide a knife under your pillow at night kind of PTSD - then this will not help. You need support to sort it completely. If you are in NZ let us know and we will tailor a program to you specifically.
Self recovery
Self recovering when you have hit that slippery slope is something you have a handle on already. Every military person and veteran the world over is trained for this and just doesnt realise it. That happens because we have domain dependant behaviour - that means we do army shit in the army and civvy shit when you are not in the army (sorry Navy and Air but you get the idea).
Why not use some of that expensive training to get you out of the shit now?
My wife gets pissed off when I see things in military terms now that I have officially retired. But I spent more of my life in uniform than out of it so its ingrained in me, its like breathing and bleeding - that shit just happens.
The military has actions on for everything (except the shit that happens in real life). When things are on the slippery slope and its all about to get really messy the best thing to do is revert to your training and find the actions on that fits.
Actions on are all basically the same,
stop
figure out what is happening
do some shit
report what happened
Couldnt be simpler but we get so wrapped up in blame and anger and all that messy shit that we forget to go back to the basics. The reason actions on worked is because they were simple, no matter how tired or scared you were that shit worked.
First know yourself
There are some basic take home points you need to know which we expand on in the courses, but this gives you some idea.
When you did basic training the military changed who you are - mostly for the better believe it or not. It was psychological conditioning to make you suitable for service. In particular it gave you a set of Stoic tools which enabled you to function in harsh ernvironements (the military) and cut away your dependancy on a whole lot of things that civilians take for granted. Each service has a different flavour to how this is done but the underlying concepts are the same. In basic training we break an individual down and make them into a service person. We take a young adult, typically in their late teens, when they don't have a fully formed sense of self. The military conditioning breaks this down and replaces it with a group identity that has a rigid honour culture - their tribe. It decreases their threshold for violence whilst at the same time increasing their threshold for pain and discomfort. The reputation of the tribe becomes paramount, service before self.
The military has evolved, both in how it processes conflict and in how it prepares personnel for that conflict. We produce extremely good troops now, but that comes at a price. The military conditioning could be likened to an intense and somewhat biased course in stoicism with an unhealthy dose of things that work for the military but fuck you up when you leave. This honour culture and the Stoic tools are what the veteran carries forwards into society when they leave the military. Honour culture is a culture that is now out of step with the rest of society and hence is why veterans often struggle to "fit in" when they transition out of the forces.
Inducting you into the tribe gave you some baggage as well as the good Stoic tools - the honour culture in particular creates issues. The honour culture creates a rigid framework where the value of a person is measured by their reputation as perceived by the group, their worth is based upon what they do for the group. In the military we add an unhealthy dose of despising weakness, a very narrow definition of success and a significant change in the threshold for violence. The culture despises weakness, values self-reliance and the stoic acceptance of hardship.
Sebastian Junger described the sense of dislocation he saw in troops returning from deployment as a post deployment alienation syndrome, however this concept of alienation applies to anyone whom has been through military training and then leaves. The tighter the unit bond, the greater the degree of alienation when that bond is broken and the individual leaves. The effect of leaving changes depending upon circumstances of ones exit. When you choose to leave because you have done what you wanted to and are moving onto greener pastures its generally a successful transition. When you are voted off the island by the tribe or even worse are removed due to medical issues the outcomes are often quite different. When the leaving is not of the veterans choice the sense of alienation gets compounded by a sense of betrayal. In many instances this becomes a moral injury.
So military training and service is a one way door, there is no going back to being the civilian you would have been had you not enlisted. That is not a bad thing. What needs to happen is seperating the wheat from the chaff. Find what will be useful moving forwards and getting rid of what is simply baggage that is weighing you down.
We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training
- Archilochus
The self help course is about adapting our military skills to a civilian setting and using those skills to overcome some of the problems we face. It's also about learning how to play nice with our demons - it's easier to manage something if you understand it. We cant compress that into this one pager, but we can give you a heads up about what is important.
Taking Time
The hardest part for military people to learn will be to take time, to stop and think and talk. We are action oriented people, get shit done people.
We recently ran an outwards bound course for veterans. On one day they had a hike to do. One member of the party wasn't at a high level of fitness and was blowing arse. At first they spread the load - shifted the weight to everyone else's packs. But that still wasn't enough. The group had to stop and wait frequently. When they waited the vets talked. When they stopped each time they shifted around and talked with someone new.
At the course feedback the veterans reported what at first was a huge frustration turned out to be one of the best days - what was at first frustrating actually became an opportunity and one of the best learning opportunities. Taking time doesn't come naturally to us and needs to be practiced.
Its worthwhile on things that are your pain points doing a first run through, letting the dust settle and then doing it again in slow time. This is after all a psychological process of putting things in their place - take time to find where things naturally fit rather than pounding them in with a hammer.
When to get help
At some point we all need a helping hand.
Its not weakness, but for veterans this is a hard wall to climb over. We are conditioned to despise weakness so its one of the hardest things a veteran can do.
Everyone has a breaking point, no matter how hard they think they are. As we get nearer and nearer to that breaking point our ability to deal with shit gets less and less. Little things become big things. Mouse shit becomes elephant shit.
We lose focus. We stress about the mouse shit while the elephant shit builds up around us. We become more and more dysfunctional as we approach that burnout point - when we tip from coping to not coping.
Once things tip over it can get pretty messed up pretty quickly - bat shit crazy messed up. We try to cope by putting in place things we think will make it better (coping mechanisms in psychospeak), but these often dont work - so we put more and more fixes in place. Eventually we self medicate to cope and then you are really on the slippery slope.
If self medicating doesnt work then the next step is altering reality (in your own mind anyway). We literally go mad, because we cant medicate the problems into submission we change reality to make them go away. Psychosis is the loss of reality testing when what is going on in our head gets way off beam. The paranoia sets in, everyone is against us and we get into a serious me versus the world fuck everyone frame of mind. Our demons are out to play and we hand over the reigns - its real fucked up real quick.
If madness doesnt work to make the demons bearable then people clock out - either by killing themselves or others. In a population that is trained to tolerate hardship, has the threshold for violence lowered, is action oriented, the flash to bang time for suicide or homicidal can be extremely short. Its whu the civilian risk assessments in mental health dont work well for military veterans - the frame of reference is wrong.
The time to get help is before things tip over - the earlier the better. If things have already tipped over then the time to get help is now. If you think you need help then you are right - you need help. All you need to decide is what kind of help. Finances spinning out - then get some budgeting advice. Everything getting on top of you and you feel like clocking out - then call the crisis line.
If someone tells you you need to get help our natural reaction is to get defensive. Take a breath, now think about it. They are probably right and doing you a favour - even if they did not mean it that way.
Getting help is not weakness
Military veterans are trained to be self reliant - anything else is weakness. But everyone has a breaking point - everyone. Our training made us much more resilient in certain situations - but much more brittle in others. Like an over tempered knife blade - sharper but much more likely to break when the pressure is on.
A large part of self recovery is about learning what we are good at and what we need a hand with. It's about how we think about things - recognising when we are at less than our best and working out how best to sort that.
Think of it like annealing that brittle blade - with a little effort you make it much less brittle but no less sharp.
What happens when you get help?
Most of the time its not a big deal - once you get past the 'weakness' barrier. Someone listens to your problems and offers some advice - how hard can that be?
What happens when its bad - like slit your wrists bad? Most of the time same thing. They will listen to you, see if the situation can be sorted and they may suggest seeing a Doc who may suggest some medication. The meds dont make you crazy, they buy you some time to sort your shit, when its sorted the meds are gone.
Its pretty rare to need some time in a psych ward. That usually happens in 2 situations - when you dont think you will be safe even after seeing the Doc, or when you have seriously lost touch with reality (psychosis - also known as lost the plot).
There is one other situation where we would recommend a veteran always gets some help. That is when you become entangled in the justice system.
In trouble with the law - dont just talk to the lawyer, talk with one of the veteran charities about what help you can get. Many veterans end up on the wrong side of the law - drugs, risk taking behaviour such as speeding, violence, gang life - it's actually pretty common.
Counselling
Ok Dorothy, you aint in Kansas anymore. In most counselling the temptation is to dive right in, the veteran lists a shit load of symptoms and the result is getting a lot of shiny new psych tools to address the symptoms. In our experience that simply doesnt work over time - it does not produce sustained change.
We understand the reason this happens - after all everyone on this team has been in the psychs office on more than a few occasions. We present in distress, we want it gone and the pressure is on the psych to make that happen in the limited number of funded sessions available. However, the symptoms are just that - they result from the disease. Fixing the symptoms does not fix the disease. If you have a fever from your meningitis and I give you paracetamol to make your fever less you will feel a little better - but you will still die from your meningitis. You need to treat the disease.
The other reason standard counselling doesnt work for veterans is because of two problems, the first is no one says what they actually mean anbd the second is there is no common frame of reference. I know it because I have been there. We all play nice, I dont tell the psych just how dark my dreams are because I dont want to end up under a compulsory treatment order with my guns taken off me, the psych isnt going to say you are serious fucked up like nothing they have ever met before because then you dont come back and word gets around. you dont think they wiull understand when you say you wish you could do a little social mowing of all of the oxygen thieves. Your veteran mates would laugh and nod knowingly, your civvy counsellor will freak out and you can expect a call from the armed offenders squad (SWAT for you Americans). So we all play nice and have tea and bickies and the in the end nothing changes.
We are taking a different approach. The symptoms are important - they help point us to what is going on. When the symptoms are getting in the way they need to be addressed. But the main effort will be going to sorting the disease - so that we dont keep ending up back in the same shitty place. That takes honesty and a common frame of reference.
The first steps are about why you are here and finding what you need to do to dig your way out of whatever hole you are in. The next steps are about getting out of the hole, the last steps about moving on. Sounds simple - its actions on again in psych speak.
When you want to fix something you need to know how it works, so if you are smart you grab the manual and then follow the instructions. Well, sorry to disappoint you but there is no Haynes manual for fixing broken veterans.
What do you do when there is no manual? You take a good hard look at how it works and ask people who know shit. There are some counsellors who work with vveterans (not many but there are some). But veterans who listen and offer advice as mentors are often just as effective. You work out what bits work and what bits don't, then when you understand it you can work out how to fix the broken bits. It takes time and perseverance. That is what you are going to do here.
The first step is to study yourself. Take a good hard look at what works and what is broken - be brutally honest. You are going to come back to this regualrly so write it down. Going back and reading it allows you to call bullshit when you atrt lying to yourself. It is something that with time and practice will become a constant in your life. talk it over with a mentor, get some perspective because it hard to see things clearly when your head is stuck up your arse.
This step is not about what happened, what demons you have or what you have done. At this point concentrate on who am I, what kind of person am I, what do I do, what sort of person do I want to be? Dont try working out what to do, that comes later. Making freinds with your demons comes later. First you need to look at yourself and work a few things out - first know thyself.
Self recovery
Maslows hierarchy of needs tells us that before you can start fixing shit you need the basic survival needs sorted. That is shelter, food and safety. If any of those are a problem they need to be sorted or you will end up back where you started. Once thats sorted you can start on the hard stuff.
You have done this before, so some basic preperation then actions on for whatever mess you happen to be in.
We all learnt in training that preparation is a large part of success. Think of this like preparing for a major exercise or deployment. There is admin to square away, kit to get, medical to sort, and a timeline to follow.
What follows then is mission specific training, some general shit fuckery and then H hour - when it all gets real.
So how do you use your military skills to get yourself out of the shit?
You've done this before - thousands of times, but usually on someone else's ground, plan and timetable. So use the planning skills you have been given.
You have the mission - undertake self recovery. Think of it like vehicle recovery. Got stuck so stop spinning your fucking wheels and digging yourself in further. When shit is spinning out of control just stop and go to ground. Sounds simple enough - but we all know the devil is in the detail, so lets break it down.
What is the intent - are you just going to do it for shits and giggles, or are you trying to achieve something worthwhile? What is it? The intent is how you are going to measure success and its what will keep you motivated - so spend a little mental horsepower on this one. Self recovering a vehicle means looking at what you are stuck on or in and figuring how you are going to get away from it. To recover you need an anchor point to pull yourself out. For your self recovery that anchor point is your intent.
Ok - so you think you know why you are doing this - you think you know what your intent is.
Is it fluffy bunny or is it SMART - short, measurable, achievable and all of that shit you've heard sooo many times.
It actually doesnt matter if its SMART or any other cute acronym - it's your intent so it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it - you will know when you have achieved it and anyone who doesnt like it can fuck themselves. Just make sure you write it down at the top of the page - even if it's in crayon (don't eat them!).
In the course we talk at length about the reasons for doing this but suffice it to say here that you need to have a reason that means something to you or you will not self recover - first things first - find your intent.
Got a mission, got the intent - the rest is just filling in the blanks in your military mission appreciation.
By the numbers...
1. conduct your intelligence preparation of the battle space (IPB) - what the fuck? In real life this means let the people around you know that you are fucked and are going to try to self recover. You are about to take on what will be a fair chunk of work and that it might rock the boat at times - so tell anyone who will be able to help or risks becoming a chew toy if/when you lose your shit. Ask what their pain points will be and what they can do to help - this is intelligence gathering and preparing your battle space.
2. Determine the specified, implied and essential tasks. Identify who can be a support/mentor. Identify how much time you need each week to do what you need to do to self recover. If you are drug adicted plan in the Narcotics Anonymous meetings (or any other support that takes your fancy) - it aint going to work if that time is when you go to work so get real. Any essential tasks coming up (hint - anniversary night out, birthday presents, paying loans etc), plot them in.
Implied tasks involve shit like getting a book to journal in (and a crayon or two). We prefer actual physical writing as it engages parts of the brain that help in this process. That means you need some where to write in your journal - the couch in front of the TV with the latest episode of Shorty street on will not cut it. It means tasks like sorting some physical space to actually do it away from distractions. The journal is where you keep track of what you are doing and why - and what you think of it. Be honest and it will keep you on track.
3. Review available assets - that's mil speak for what you have on hand to get the job done. What are you short of - beg, borrow or let us know if you have a critical shortfall. Don't steal or we will have another problem to deal with.
4. Determine your constraints. What is an absolute non negotiable (hint your partners birthday, kids birthdays, medical needs etc). Be realistic - if you are already working 2 full time jobs then 10 hours a week at NA means you will either die of a heart attack or have lost touch with reality.
5. Identify the critical facts and assumptions. We have some at our end - for instance we assume you can read and write. If you cant and are using dictation software then well done and stop eating the crayons. We assume you are in OK medical shape - we dont expect you to be in the shape you were in service - but if you risk having a stroke getting your 500lb arse off the couch, then see your doctor first (that should have happened in step 1 by the way). Do any of these become a war stopper? if not then note them and carry on.
6. Conduct a risk assessment. Identify each risk and determine your actions on. For example if going to NA rocks your boat and you need a stress day have you got sick leave? Would your Boss be open to annual leave at short notice when you explain you are doing the course (see step 1). If not then schedule your risk in order to mitigate it.
7. Any critical information requirements? Ask - someone has probably already sorted that shit before.
8. Now summarise and tidy your plan. Make sure you have all your S sorted - from S1 to S9 (personnel (family), int, ops, log, med, plans, comms, training (you), finance).
Got a mission, got an intent, got your plan. What you have just done is what this is all about - taking military skills and applying them to your daily civilian life.
Self recovery
Actions on vehicle stuck - Self recovery - determnine the route of exit, find an anchor, find the resources you need to get out of the shit, recover the vehicle, drive away. Same shit here, your intent is your anchor, you need resources so find a mentor, AA or NA, counselling, whatever works but doing it alone has a much lower chance of success. Keep trying different things until you get free, then head in the direction that achieves your intent.
Dont make it harder than it needs to be, we aint invading Afghanistan, not this time. This shit will happen on your ground. You set the plan and the timetable - it's all up to you.
You've done this before - thousands of times, but usually on someone else's ground, plan and timetable. So use the planning skills you have been given.
Our approach to self recovery is the self help course.
Our self help course is a stepped course similar to AA and NA - its breaking the problems up into bite sized pieces. There are some common features in our course with those stepped courses - such as a mentor, a structured progression, a multi dimensional view of the problems (physical, mental, spiritual and community), and an emphasis on connectedness.
There are also some significant differences in our approach. We dont accept that you cannot control problems alone (or this course and what we are advocating here would not exist), what we do believe is that not all problems can be sorted alone - its a matter of how fucked up you are.
We expect people to to accept responsibility for what you have done, but not for what you are not responsible for. Its not about being powerless, its about approriate boundaries and responses. Its about editing our stories so that we learn from them and can move on.
A key area where we differ is in the spititual dimension. Its not that we dont belive in the value of a healthy spirituality, rather its that we need a framework that will work with the most common injury we deal with, moral injury, in any religious setting. Our approach is structured in the concept that religion provides a framework for approaching the moral dimension of these problems, but religion is not required to address the moral dimension.
Moral injury is explored in the self help course, suffice it to say here that both athiests and religious people suffer moral injury - which means it runs deeper than our chosen religion.
The process therefore to self recovery is;
The concept is to work out where the pain is, take steps to sort it, and then change the way you think and live so that you dont end up in the same shit again. There is a requirement to look at the coping behaviours, where we may have hurt the people around us, and to make that right with yourself.
Its not rocket science - its more like 3 rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson.
WRAP stands for wellness recovery action plan
its a series of psychological tools which aid self recovery.
The lnk is below to the workbook. Print it out and work your way through, it will help sort some of the problems.
We are continuously updating our courses and adding new information, so check in often. Let us know what you think we should do, what is it that would make a difference? Leave us comments on what you like, what you think is bullshit and what you think needs to be here.
The No Duff learning centre (NDLC) is a project of the No Duff Charitable trust (NDCT).