Writing for Veterans: Healing the Brain

Story Work for Veterans: Healing the Warrior Brain Through Storytelling

By Carl Barnes

"Stories" Written by
Geneo Graves, Heidi Raye, Johnny Bulford, and Richard Casper
(CreatiVets)

"There's the ones that I can tell you?.
And they'd probably take your breath?
But they're nothing like the ones
?That I can't talk about yet
?They call me a hero?
But I ain't no saint?
Everything that they don't know?I wish I could say
Where I go when I close my eyes at night?
I was taught to keep 'em locked up inside my mind?
They're buried in the darkest place
?Underneath the guilt and shame
?Life is a living hell when it hurts this bad to tell?
Stories

They think I got it all together
?But th?y don't understand?
And how could they ever?
When they ain't ever been
They call me a hero?
But I've stood next to saints?
They're no longer here so?
Who else can relate to
Where I go when I close my eyes at night
?I was taught to keep 'em locked up inside my mind
?They're buried in the darkest place
?Underneath the guilt and shame
?Life is a living hell when it hurts this bad to tell
?Stories?Stories

"We still love life, we haven't yet forgotten and we keep hoping, hoping for...everything."--Anne Frank

"Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." --Andy Dufresne, "The Shawshank Redemption" (novella by Stephen King, movie screenplay by Frank Darabont)

During the final session of "Partnerships for Veteran and Military Health: Strengthening Networks" conference hosted by the CU College of Nursing and Skaggs School of Pharmacy, Joe Lambert of StoryCenter (https://www.storycenter.org/staff) detailed his work in digital storytelling. The co-author of "Digital Storytelling: Story Work for Urgent Times" detailed his life's work helping individuals and groups tell stories through collaboration with experts in digital media. StoryCenter's mission statement states, "We create spaces for listening to and sharing stories, to help build a just and healthy world. Our public and custom workshops provide individuals and organizations with skills and tools that support self-expression, creative practice, and community building."
One aspect of the mission Mr. Lambert detailed was the importance of establishing an ethical framework that focuses on the storyteller maintaining creative control of their narrative beginning with the consent process. The need for veterans to maintain control over their very personal and private trauma experience is of utmost importance. Trust is many times a broken bond between the warrior, the government, the military and the civilian population they serve who can't, or are unwilling to relate to the trauma they experience.
In an earlier lecture of the seminar, they described the physiologic changes that prolonged exposure to trauma induces in the brain, such as activation of the insula that allows one to have a sense of embodiment that results in a lack of impulse control. In addition, alterations to the limbic system that regulates emotions. An impairment in the sense of mind and body is disrupted, creating alexithymia, or a lack of emotional awareness and inability to describe and identify emotions one is experiencing. Through storytelling, Mr. Lambert attempts to create "sign posts" of experiences and emotions that help the traumatized person gain perspective.
Other presenters used integrative approaches such as mask art therapy to help those who are unable to express in words how they are feeling by painting face masks. The veteran is instructed to paint the inside of the mask as they see themselves, while the outer surface is how they believe others perceive them. Similarly, dance movement therapy is described as "storytelling via intentional and authentic movement." Dance allows for kinesthetic empathy or "me observing you, me experiencing you."

Returning to Mr. Lambert's session, he played a digital story created by veteran Elvis Leon, called "Angel of Anbar." He then provided a prompt for each member to write on that dealt with things that is carried by one's hands:

These hands have held_______ (something delicate), and lifted _______ (something heavy) and_______ (something precious).
 
They have reached down into the earth at_______ (place) where I felt _______ (natural item/sensory detail), and the _______ (natural item/sensory detail)
 
They have worked side by side of _______ (name of elder mentor or family member), and _______ (another person) as _______ (family or personal work tradition) and _______ (another tradition).
 
These are the hands that hold _______ (a value or lesson) and _______ (a value or lesson).
 
These hands taught me _______ (something you were told as a child about resilience or endurance).
 
These hands hold stories. These hands are mine.


After the eight minutes were up, we were invited to share our product and the three who did ranged widely from a wife speaking of her life's journey along with her husband to one who spoke of self-induced vomiting, negative body image and self-acceptance which was quite powerful. For me, the prompt of holding something delicate in my hands triggered memories of my research on Monarch butterflies in college. First, thoughts of the delicate finger work required to manipulate the instruments while doing butterfly "brain surgery"  transitioned to actually holding the butterflies during the feeding process and watching their antennae twirl with delight after unfurling their curled proboscis into honey-filled troughs, watching as they sucked the honey like they were drinking from a straw.
The rather dark transition to lifting something heavy with our hands prompt was triggered by the morning lecture on suicide prevention and how many vets choose to end their lives at a VA. This was something I experienced as an ER doc many years ago when a vet shot himself in the parking lot. The next prompt reminded me of looking through his wallet to identify him and seeing pictures of the people in his life and his fishing license, which led me to a "flip book" run-through of my life, including my times fishing with my grandpa. I didn't have time to complete the entire thing in the time allotted and started to add later but stopped after noticing I was writing differently than the rawness of "being on the clock" so I chose to just end it.  The result is a bunch of run-on sentences, but I think "cleaning it up" might have detracted from the essence of the exercise.

"The Lines of My Hands"

These hands have many lines, where one ends another begins, like lines of a story. A lifeline, a timeline. And, in a college laboratory these hands held a hungry Monarch butterfly's wings, index finger and thumb meticulously pinching a dissecting needle to unfurl her proboscis into a shallow trough of dilute honey--her antennae twirling with delight as she sucked in the sweet nectar like a baby with a bottle. And, these hands have lifted with all their might on a white plastic backboard carrying the lifeless body of a veteran who chose to end his time on Earth at the VA--a place where he knew his brothers would do right by him and understand, even if they did not condone.

And, these hands held his wallet that told a story like a child's flip-book--a driver's license that revealed his name and gave his "tale of the tape" specs; a fishing license letting me know what he enjoyed doing in better times; a snapshot of him and his young bride with their future ahead of them; one of a steely-eyed soldier in dress uniform whose determined look of confidence makes a nation sleep safe at night; a wrinkled photo faded by time of a child beaming with pride while holding a fishing pole with its trophy catch, a walleye perhaps, at the end of the line.
These hands reached down into the earth, sifting through moist black dirt feeling for plump slithering night crawlers to take fishing with Grandpa on any number of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes; St. Croix, Mississippi or Minnesota rivers; or just some out-of-the way and too-small-to-name fishing hole along a country road--hoping to hoist a trophy of my own, but accepting a "shut-out" all the same, as time spent laughing with Grandpa, the funniest man I've ever known, was always the catch of the day.

They have worked side by side with my dad when I was a child, mirroring how his strong hands grasped every type of ball, racket, club, and mallet known to the sports world--one of his personal traditions--and, side by side with my step-dad, Frank, "The Mad Hungarian," making "Hungarian turkey" by thrusting an unsuspecting stick from the yard through a hunk of salt pork to cook over an open fire, then dripping its fat onto a bed of fresh-chopped vegetables atop slices of soft caraway rye bread from Cecil's Deli--one of his family's traditions dating back centuries in Hungary when food was scarce.?
My lined hands have held many things and will continue their work until the end of my line.