November 24, 2010
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
We have a local military Honor Guard who performs duties associated with Veteran’s funerals. The Sergeant responsible for the services recently told me that his father passed away this year and now memorial services are more difficult emotionally as he can’t help but think about his dad. I was reminded of those responsible for crucifixions and the duties of putting men on the cross and then removing the bodies…especially the impact to those who physically participated in the crucifixion of Jesus.
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Gail;
-----The angles you have of looking at the Lord and life in Him are endless! Jesus’ ministry was not done in a corner. By the time those three years came to an end on the cross, the miracles He had done were known throughout the land. But not everyone had believed, though in one way or another they had to recognize the marvels of what they had been hearing and seeing. We know some, at least, seemed to proceed through His crucifixion with perplexing normality. In the shadow of the cross, four soldiers divided His garments amongst themselves and cast lots for His tunic, not because it was His, but because cutting a seamless tunic into pieces would destroy the value of its pieces. Then the guards posted at the tomb, having even witnessed the event of His resurrection, were not emotionally moved enough to decline bribes for their lies denying the power they had just seen. It seemed that some were unaffected.
-----Yet, I think it can be said even they were suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, not necessarily from the crucifixion itself, but from something more personally engrossing. Wikipedia states the symptoms of PTSD to include. “re-experiencing the original trauma(s) through flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, and increased arousal – such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, and hyper-vigilance.” From the first I heard of PTSD and its associated symptoms, I recognized it as nothing more than the same condition all people suffer, only exacerbated by a more acutely tragic experience. Which of us do not have pesky flashbacks of problems we’ve experienced or wrongs we have done? Have any of us not had nightmares and difficulty falling or staying asleep? What one of us has never become angry? And are not all of these somehow related to our tendencies to be hyper-vigilant toward what can damage our possessions, affairs, or persons? These are all normal conditions of the human psyche. Granted, the term “post-traumatic stress disorder” is coined to recognize when one or more of these states of being are occurring more intensely than normal. But the mere coining of the term to indicate conditions outside normality attests to the very common condition of avoiding stimuli associated with traumas.
-----The normality of these symptom’s occasional occurrence is defined merely by the acceptance of common experience. There were more peaceful days in this country when many of the events which occur now, if had happened then, would be downright shocking. We who live today would have trouble dealing with the events of the Civil War. When we cross into our eternal glory with the Lord, we will experience a new normal that will quite accentuate the reality of the PTSD we all had in this life as a result of The Fall. But in the meantime, our senses are dulled by the onslaught of fraud and sin all around us, even coming from us, so much that our minds block out a great deal of its emotional effects. Consequently, we come to call the really despicable situation of this temporal life “normal“, and live without response to the larger part of its continuously happening tragedy.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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