Race, Culture, and PTSD

(billiard balls clacking)

(upbeat music)

There are a lot of
stereotypes, you know?

People see me, first thing
they see is a large Black man.

You know, a lot of people who I talked to,

they didn't even think
I got shot in the army.

They just thought I was in a
gang or something like that.

You know, it was easier to
associate me getting shot

by a gang member rather
than by a sniper in Iraq.

(billiard balls clacking)

I looked down at both my legs
covered in a pool of blood,

and I thought, "Oh,
we're gonna die here.

We are going to die."

There had to be about four
surgeries in Iraq and in Germany,

and then when I got back to the States,

it was about 14 surgeries in the hospital.

I made this miraculous recovery

and I was able to keep both my legs.

I have an injury that's high up on my leg.

In order to see the entire scar,

I almost have to lift the
hospital gown all the way up.

I mean, I could see some
hesitation in some of the nurses

and being a large Black man,
it was really uncomfortable

for me because I didn't
want anybody to say

I tried to sexually assault them

or I'm trying to flash them,

so it was a lot of tension
in some of those rooms.

After I got out the army,

I dealt with a lot of survivor's guilt,

and I dealt with that
the only way I knew how,

which was to drink,

and that's when the PTSD
started to settle in

really, really bad.

I also was having daydreams

and nightmares about
getting shot by the sniper.

I had this scenario in my mind

that the sniper didn't shoot to kill me,

he shot to wound me,

and he would come back later
on in life and finish the job.

So this was what was on my
mind every time I went outside.

(soft music)

So I was drinking myself
to sleep every night.

I wasn't taken serious,
by clinicians at the VA.

I hate to say it, but when you're Black,

you can just feel these things.

You can feel the respect
that people have for you.

You can feel the respect
people don't have for you.

You can just feel it, and
in some of those rooms

that I went to, felt rushed
out, didn't feel heard,

didn't feel listened
to, didn't feel wanted,

so I hated the VA for a long time.

I would go without medication

or go without talking to someone

just because of the way I
was being treated there.

(somber music)

So I just continued to
drink and drink and drink,

and then one day, I drank
two bottles of Bacardi,

I took a handful of pills, and
drove myself to the hospital

and said, "I tried to kill myself.

Save me if you can."

And when I woke up, I was in a padded room

and the first person I saw was my mom,

and I thought, "Ugh, you
can't do this to your mom."

They told me about this program

called the Warrior Salute Program.

They said, "We're gonna
get you off the street,

we're gonna get you a job,

and we're gonna get you
the help that you need."

And I started doing group
therapy with other veterans

and that's when things
started to turn around.

(upbeat music)

I had an opportunity to
move to Atlanta in 2010.

The best thing the VA did for me

was I had a African-American
female therapist down here.

I was able to open up to her.

There's nothing like being able
to express how I really felt

to a Black doctor that understood
what I was going through,

and I wouldn't be afraid to express it

in a way that I wanted to express it,

in a way that I felt
wouldn't get me arrested

or wouldn't get something put
in my charter, in my notes

that later on down the line
would come back to bite me.

Any veterans in the room?

One, okay, perfect.

I was a Cav Scout.

I've been speaking for 10 years now.

When I'm on stage, I'm
able to share those stories

and talk about how much I
beat it, and more importantly,

help other military families understand

what their veteran's going through.

Having the opportunity to get on stage

and share this story with other veterans,

you know, it's very therapeutic,

physical and mental healing.

Nothing like it, nothing like it at all.

So that's what keeps me going.

I'm a native New Yorker,
I'm a Bronx girl.

And if you know anything about New York,

it's a cultural melting pot

where we respected everyone's culture.

Racism doesn't exist in my vocabulary.

When I joined the military,

I knew that I was gonna
have certain experiences,

but how I was treated as a Hispanic woman,

it was almost like I was less than.

When I joined the military in the '90s,

it was a more Caucasian-dominant,

what we called salty old dogs,

middle-aged White Caucasian men,

or White Caucasian women
that had a point to prove,

that they measure up to their counterpart.

So here I am, this boisterous, vivacious,

Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx.

And man, I was the biggest target ever,

because my tone of voice was wrong,

how I spoke was wrong.

It was racially charged.

When I decided to join the Navy,
I had such pride and honor.

I was gonna be a lifer,
I was gonna do 20 years.

I think I did four years,
10 months, and some change.

I was sexually assaulted twice.

So I have PTSD from that.

(bicycle chain whirring)

And my first sexual assault
happened when I was in Illinois,

in Great Lakes.

Yes, it was racially charged.

When I think of the assailants,

there was so many emotions

I just did not know how to deal with them.

I felt such shame.

And when I came home,

it was like I had failed.

I felt lost.

I was pretty much drinking
a fifth of vodka a day,

tossing it back like water.

I mean, in my culture, we
don't disrespect our parents.

And the first time I had that outburst

where I said the most nastiest
things to my mother (sobs),

I knew then, there was
something really wrong,

'cause they didn't deserve that.

My younger sister was maybe
about 10 or 12 years old,

and I understand why my mother said,

"Okay, no, pack your stuff,

and you gotta get out,

because if I'm gonna lose
you three sheets to the wind,

I can't lose her as well."

Once I found out that I was
pregnant, I stopped drinking.

I was like, okay, I gotta
get my shit together.

I had my daughter.

But then once I went back to work,

and the stress of working, I
went right back to the bottle.

My mom looked at me and she said,

"Okay, Marlene, enough,
we gotta get you in."

So with EMDR, I was able to process

a lot of the trauma,

and we actually got to the
heart of where my bitterness,

and anger came from.

And once we went through
that process, oh my God,

it it was almost like, here's the trauma,

here's an envelope,
put it in the envelope,

and we sealed it, it's done.

The trauma's happened,
you can never forget it,

but the emotions attached
to it is what we deal with.

So EMDR helps you, I
don't wanna say detach,

but kind of process those
emotions, understand what that is,

and then put it to bed.

Not only was I able to live again,

I was able to go back to
school, get my degree.

I'm engaged to be married now.

I have found my new normal.

I have been able to come back to who I am,

and these experiences that I've had

has made me the woman I am today.

(gentle music)

Does mindfulness help?

Absolutely.

But there's days where
my PTSD can be full blown

and my mindfulness is not gonna help me.

(gentle music continues)

Originally when I went into the military,

I was a corpsman serving
with a Marine Corps unit.

They call you their doc.

Nobody messes with a
Marine Corps unit's doc.

The amount of stress that you
have in there is tremendous.

I have one of my brothers

or one of my sisters
laying out there bleeding,

I'm gonna run out there

and I'm gonna do whatever
I need to save them.

And half that time,

you're also firing back
if you have to fire back

and you're trying to drag
them out of harm's way.

I felt traumatized,

but also the other aspect of it

was dealing with some of
my military sexual trauma.

I shared that with one
of my superior officers,

but what she ended up doing was far worse

than what happened in the shower.

She was holding my
evaluations above my head

and saying, "you're gonna do what I want."

(somber music)

I'm of Vietnamese descent.

Left Vietnam on April 30, 1975,

the last plane out of
Tan Son Nhat Airport.

There weren't supposed to
be bearing any kids out,

but because I was so small,

my mom could hide me in her jacket.

My joining the military

was definitely a way of
honoring the sacrifices

that everybody made.

But the military let me down.

I could not trust my chain of command.

I could not trust anybody.

I was all like, "I'm getting out of it.

Enough's enough."

My mental state when I left the military

was not good at all.

(somber music continues)

I was drinking a lot when I got back

and having nightmares at
night when I was sleeping.

I was cussing and screaming,
kicking, punching,

had thoughts about demons,

had moments where I contemplated suicide.

(somber music continues)

My mom didn't really know how to help me.

Within the Asian culture,
it's always about saving face.

So how are you gonna come
out to your dad or your mom

and tell them, "I was sexually assaulted"?

So the only thing my mom knew

was to hold onto her Buddhist faith.

And my mom reminded me that
before I left for the military,

I received my Buddhist name
called Strength of the Heart.

That led to me seeking help
from my Buddhist teacher

and I decided to join the monastery

and I ended up staying
for 15 years as a monk.

(gentle music)

I still have PTSD symptoms,
especially if I'm driving.

That will set off my PTSD,

especially when I start feeling
that I'm getting boxed in.

(traffic noise crescendos)

(bell chiming quietly)

And I didn't really seek
treatment in the VA system

until about 2017.

One of the modalities was the
prolonged exposure therapy

and the first couple of times,
it was severely excruciating

because I had to retell
everything over again,

but it tremendously helped me.

It helped me to open up to my fiancee

and actually tell her what happened

and that was the first time
that I ever told anyone

besides my therapist.

It's no longer a skeleton in the closet

or baggage that I have to carry.

(bright music)

Now I'm a person that is thriving,

a person that is moving
around in the world

with PTSD symptoms

that I now have tools and
ways to be able to manage it.

My Buddhist practice helps me ground,

but the evidence-based therapy also helps

because it helps you
unlock feelings, emotions,

so I think both of those go hand-in-hand.

(bright music continues and fades)

(waves crashing)
(birds chirping)

As an indigenous person
it was a big challenge

being an enlisted person in the military,

dealing with difficult
people, the harassment,

the biases, the racial remarks,

not only as a person
but as a female as well.

Every station I went to, there
was some sort of incident

that would occur, and
it was usually by people

that were a higher ranking than me.

You know, they forced themselves on me,

and it was kind of destroying
who I was as a person.

I didn't really realize until later

that it actually was
military sexual trauma.

My name is Suzanne Allen.

I did a total of 20-years
military service.

(gentle music)

I am actually a Sac and Fox Nation

of Oklahoma tribal member.

(gentle pensive music)

I remember the teachings that
my grandmother taught me,

you know, about prayer
and having faith and hope

and belief in yourself

and her telling us to not
completely trust everything,

because of the way she grew up,

and just the way our treatment
has been throughout history.

The way the tribes dealt with outsiders,

only talk to the ones you really trust.

(airy music)

When I went into active duty,
I was under the assumption

that everybody was kind of treated equal.

Unfortunately, a rude awakening

that I was treated quite differently.

That resulted in several incidents,

what you consider basically assault.

I turned that stuff inward,

but that's when the
binge drinking started.

I did seek out help from what
you would call medicine men.

They provided certain, I guess,

I don't know if you call 'em, rituals

or things they wanted me to do every day.

At the beginning they
were helpful somewhat.

When I retired, that was the point

where everything came back out.

You know, I spiraled out

for a good four or five years there.

I lost a lot of jobs.

I went through, I think a total of 17 jobs

that first five years out.

I was homeless like three different times,

and I was hospitalized three
times for suicide attempts.

I remember sitting on the floor,

I had broken a razor, and
I was cutting my wrist,

and all of a sudden I
said out to the universe,

I said...if the universe out there,

I don't know what to do.

And then in that moment I
actually heard this voice to stop.

And I stopped what I was
doing and I'm like, what?

'Cause I thought there was
someone in the room with me.

(gentle music)

And I felt like at that moment

that was like my grandparents,
they were telling me,

"No, you can't keep doing this."

You know, going to the VA was
helpful after all of that,

because I don't think I
would be here at the moment

if I hadn't.

I think as an Indigenous person

you have to look at traditional treatments

as your base for everything,

and then sometimes you're gonna
have to go outside of that,

because one or the other

is not gonna be the sole
thing that's gonna help you.

You're gonna have to seek out
as many resources as possible.

Going through the VA
and getting counseling

and going to the programs
has helped me deal

with a lot of things.

Have to go through the
anger and that resentment

and those feelings and
thoughts of yourself

and the people around you

before you can get to the other side.

And that that's been
the biggest help for me

is going through all of that

and getting to the other
side to where I am now.

But for our tribe,

there are things that
everybody has gone through,

whether we are in service or not,

that you need to try to be open with.

'Cause that's really the only
way you're gonna heal yourself

is you have to talk about it.

You have to take that step.

(light music)

I had a temper growing up

and my feelings were easily hurt.

My skin color was real black,

and I got teased in my own
family about my darkness,

as well as outside my family.

Everybody called me
black Jeff, black Jeff,

black Jeff, black Jeff.

They would laugh, and I
would get angry and angry,

and you know.

I had no experience in fighting,

but I knew that I could get real loud

and be like a little
bitty chihuahua, you know?

But I'll show you my teeth.

I was hoping my teeth
would scare you off of me

and I'll never have to bite you.

(birds chirping)

You know, my experiences in the military

as far as dealing with racism

was just a series of things that happened

based on the fact that
I was a black soldier.

When I first was deployed,

it was myself and another black soldier.

When we got to the unit,

they ran out and they
said, "Well, welcome.

We're glad you're here.

We've been waiting on
our generator mechanics."

And they didn't ask us what our job was.

We were the people that were gonna be

running the telecommunications equipment,

one of the most important jobs there.

That's the job we actually came to do.

(birds chirping)

We had a captain, every time he'd
hand out the worst detail,

he kept getting us.

From the time I got there
until the time I left,

the color of my skin
once again was an issue.

(car running)

(mellow music)

While I was over in Kuwait,

I was a message delivery carrier.

I had the task of traveling
to the notorious Death Valley.

It was called Death Valley
because it was bodies,

burning bodies, dismembered bodies.

And then we had the bombs
that was a possibility.

I did that run at least 85 times.

It created a lot of anxiety and fear.

If I was a white soldier,

I probably would've got a Bronze Star.

(mellow music)

The trust factor, I
don't think it was there

as far as being able to share,

and say, "Look, hey, this
is what's going on with me.

This why I'm drinking like this.

This is why I'm smoking all the chassis."

You know, "Something is
really eating my lunch,

and this is my medication."

I never told anybody.

When I got back from combat,
I was sent to Germany,

and I continued to drink and drug,

and I had no idea that what
I had went through in Kuwait

was like, still turning inside of me.

I didn't know.

I was very easily agitated.

This aggression finally boiled over.

My stepson, he told me
that a man had hit him

for spray painting his name
on the basketball court.

I snapped.

And before I knew it,

I had a real good run in
with the guy, and I hurt him.

I beat him up pretty good.

That landed me in court martial

because the guy was actually a captain.

I take full responsibility for what I did,

but I know that everything
that I had been through

shaped my response.

It was very difficult to
establish trust in the VA

being able to help me

because of all the stories I had heard,

passed down stories of racism.

(mellow music)

Well, long story short,

2012, I went to the VA here
in Dublin, and I enrolled in,

it's called cognitive
behavioral therapy, CBT.

And I did that for 12 weeks.

That's when I came to terms that I got it.

For three years, I worked out
my medicine with this doctor.

That was a process of saying something

that black Jeff would never say,

well, we'd tell you how I feel.

This doctor, he never fought me.

He was more like, "Listen,
I'm here for you."

Now I work peer support,
so I'm like, you know,

I'm like the frontline when it
comes to veterans coming in,

needing somebody to identify
with them right off the top.

And it's like, "Listen, man,

I've been right where
you at. I understand."

You know, I went to work the other day

and this veteran saw me,
and this is a white veteran,

and he hugged me, and he said,

he said, "Mr. Jones," he
said, "I thank you, man."

He said, "I thank you.

You really been helping me."

And I'm like, "Yo, man, hey, you know,"

look, this what I do.

You know, this what I do."

(soft music)