PTSD: Can you find your way to truly go back home alone?

"You've always had the power to go back"
PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
May 13, 2017

It is no secret I love old movies! As a child, they got my imagination into high gear. When I grew up, knew more about what makes us who we are, I noticed how many lessons on life were actually in the script.

One of my favorites is The Robe. I tell veterans they need to watch this movie and see what Combat PTSD is. It has all of it but few connect the life of Tribune Galio to all the symptoms of PTSD. 

"In the Roman province of Judea during the 1st century, Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio is ordered to crucify Jesus of Nazareth but is tormented by his guilty conscience afterwards."

Tribune Galio was haunted by the sound of the nail being driven into Jesus, had nightmares and during flashbacks he kept asking, "Were you there?" He had mood swings, anger issues, you name it, all classic symptoms of PTSD. He believed he was possessed by the Robe that Jesus wore on his way to be crucified. 

In the end of the movie, there was an awakening to the power he had within him all along to heal. He believed in the power of love again to the point where he would rather die than return to the way he was before.

Dorothy couldn't have gone through what she did alone. She had friends walking by her side. It was a walk she had to do but she didn't have to do it alone. Why do you think you have to?

There is no place like home!

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: She wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Scarecrow: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I—I think that it, that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em — and it's that — if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?
Glinda: That's all it is!
Scarecrow: But that's so easy! I should've thought of it for you...
Tin Man: I should have felt it in my heart...
Glinda: No, she had to find it out for herself. Now those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!
Dorothy: Oh! Toto too?
Glinda: Toto too.
Dorothy: Now?
Glinda: Whenever you wish.
Glinda: Then close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself, 'There's no place like home'.

She had the power inside of her all along. Can you find your way to truly go back home alone? Were you alone while you were away?

That's the biggest secret of all. The power to do what you did in the military was within you. The courage was not something you were taught. You already had that. The compassion to care enough to be willing to endure whatever you had to go through to do what you were sent to do, was in your soul from the moment you took your first breath. No one trained you to care.

Resilience was already in you. The "training" you got was nothing more the BS. You already had all of it but what they didn't tell you is that you also had all that you needed to heal afterwards.

I have no magic wand to suddenly make it all better for you. Believe me, my life would be a lot easier if I could do it for you. But that is something you have to do for yourself for a change, in order to really change.

All I do is help you to see things in a different way and discover what is already inside of you. You can take the power way from what is haunting you, like the Tribune did and you can use the power you had all along to go back home.

PTSD caused the change in you but no on told you that you had the power to change again and that, that is the key to fight your way back to a happier life.