Wreaths Across America Radio will hold a roundtable discussion today to provide education and open discussion on veteran healing from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how to turn it into purpose.
Joe Reagan, a retired Army Captain and current Director of Military and Veteran Outreach for WAA and one of the roundtable's moderators, said it is important to break the stigma about asking for help.
“Finding resources that can help veterans with PTSD is so crucial,” Reagan said. “They many times don’t need therapy and drugs. It’s as easy as connecting to people and organizations to help channel those negative emotions and turn them positive.”
Josh Jabin, the Chief Operating Officer for the Travis Manion Foundation, will sit on the panel with Amy Looney and Dr. Nicholas Polizzi.
Related
Polizzi a licensed clinical psychologist and the Acting Psychological Health Promotion Branch Chief and Government Action Officer for the in Transition program and the Real Warriors Campaign at the Defense Health Agency’s Psychological Health Center of Excellence.
Looney is the Vice President of the Travis Mansion Foundation, which focuses on empowering veterans and families of fallen heroes to develop character in future generations, according to its website.
“Wreaths Across America has a great community and is doing great things and we want to be there for them and be a part of this,” Jabin said. “This narrative is gaining traction because for so long, there was a negative stigma for veterans in the community who were seen as broken or needing help.”
Jabin said that through roundtables and organizations like WAA, “we are changing the narrative.”
One of the main points Jabin said he plans to discuss at the upcoming roundtable is how widely misunderstood PTSD and mental health is.
“It’s seen as a tattoo – you’re marked with it,” he said. “It’s thought that [PTSD] hands over you for life and that’s just not the case.”
Jabin said that so many people experience trauma in their life, and the body responds to trauma by going into survival mode.
“Having PTSD is a good thing because it enables us to not only survive it in the moment but also to work through and come back from,” he said. “In order to experience growth, you have to be able to face the trauma and allow yourself to go through the experience.”
Related
Jabin has done different types of roundtables with different topics of mental health discussed but said PTSD, which involves mental health and suicide prevention, is the number one topic in veteran space.
“We are losing too many veterans and military to suicide because they are not thriving from situations they could come back from,” he said. “I’m fortunate to be able to be involved in these sorts of discussions.”
This is the second roundtable WAA has held this year. The first was three months ago, according to Reagan.
“This roundtable we are about to have is very personal to me,” he said. “I lost a friend of mine, who was a veteran, from suicide.”
Reagan said it’s important to bring into the light things like PTSD that can be overlooked or the stigma that can come with it.
“Wreaths Across America is mainly known for wreath-laying ceremonies for veterans across the United States, but we are focusing more and more of our resources to also become a platform on how to help living veterans,” he said. “That will always be something that needs to be addressed.”
The discussion will take place at 7 p.m. EST and can be listened to here.
Want to get more connected to the stories and resources Connecting Vets has to offer? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Related
