This is a shout out to all you vets who have returned home and faced re-entry into the civilian job market. Not always easy, is it? There are challenges and surprises that don't exactly make the road to employment open and smooth.

Well, you're not alone! There are people out there working hard to make your re-entry more simple and profitable. For example, a Mental Health & Vocational Rehabilitation Professional has contacted me to help him gather information about your experience as he seeks to understand your journey and find ways to be of assistance. He works at SOC Enterprises, a company that has recently launched a Wounded Warrior Employment Program.

Please answer (anonymously if you choose) in the comments any/all of the following questions, or send an email to him directly using the address below. Help us explore ideas and solutions for all of you returning home and beginning a new chapter in your lives.

1. What are the main barriers veterans face when returning to the civilian workplace?

2. What stigmas do you encounter?

3. How do your mental health/PTSD symptoms affect your vocational experience(s)?

4. Share your personal experience(s) in seeking and obtaining employment opportunities.

5. What benefits and support would you like to see available to you?

The more you tell us the more we can help. Leave your answer here in the comments, or send your own personal email to David Gitlin: dgitlin (at) socent.org.

(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)

There's the tendency in PTSD to shut down - mentally, physically, emotionally, linguistically. Totally understandable, but not a great idea. No one can help if you don't offer some form of communication - about your mental, physical and emotional state.

Case in point: I have a client I really enjoy working with. She's very bright, very dedicated and really committed to healing. The only thing she isn't committed to is thinking things through for herself. She'd prefer that I excavate, find, and polish the answers to every question. Unfortunately, while I'd like to do anything to help her, this is not something I can do.

Your healing must come from YOU. The strongest progress is made when YOU decide what you think, know, feel, want, wish for, desire and dream of. When someone intent on helping you feel better asks a question... "I don't know" is not an acceptable answer. You have to do better than that. "I don't know" may be your first impulse, but then you have to take the time to figure out the answer. The part of you struggling to heal deserves the time it takes to dig deep and pull out some concrete thought.

Recovering from PTSD means being specific. It means taking a look, seeing what needs to be seen, finding the words for it, and then - making choices and decisions about what to do with and about it. No one can or should be doing that for you.

Today's BTG Big Question: Are you doing whatever it takes to communicate?

Be honest now: are you sitting in a group or therapy session or across from a friend trying to support your healing effort and relying on them, him or her to do the work? When someone asks you a question do you automatically tune out, lie down and hope the answer will just magically spring into the air?

Doing whatever it takes to heal means doing the heavy lifting. Means doing the stuff you don't want to do. Means making the effort to find the words, make the sentences, chase the thoughts that lead you (and the people trying to help you) closer to making meaningful hookups, discoveries and associations.

Toughen up, survivors. Grit your teeth. Buckle down and move the words and thoughts around until you are able to express what needs to be expressed. You have to own your recovery; communicating is part of earning that.

It was difficult for me to find the words in my own healing process. One thing that helped was writing things out; mulling them over on the page first helped me find clarity that allowed me to later express ideas. What has helped you find new and effective ways to communicate?

(Photo: zik "Tay")

The end of another month of the BTG workshop! For those of you working it, let me just tell you I admire your dedication and tenacity. Recovery will be yours!

Before we wrap up Doing Whatever It Takes To Heal, a quick reminder: The deadline for this month's contest is midnight Saturday. The focus for the contest: What's your healing goal? Check out details here. (FYI: To insure everyone's privacy, contest winners are kept anonymous. No announcement will be made. Which means you should feel competely safe submitting your healing goal and taking the chance to win a FREE 30 minute self-empowered healing coaching session!)

OK, on to the good stuff: We've covered a lot of topics this month in terms of doing everything possible to overcome PTSD. The final installment (for now!) is a BTG Big Question that really underlies the entire healing process:

Are you doing whatever it takes to be committed to healing?

The path to healing post-traumatic stress is long, the journey fraught with successes and failures, our minds and bodies - beleagured and exhausted - can frequently suggest we will not achieve the end goal. Despite all of this you must press forward. You must find that extra reserve of strength (which you DO have, I promise) and stay on the road to recovery.

I failed in my own healing quest many times. I went at the goal like a line backer and found myself tackled before I'd barely begun. Treatments I believed in didn't bring anticipated results. My body broke down and impeded any kind of action. My mind turned to a pool of butter that trickled and seaped beyond my grasp.

Still, even during those times when I thought I would have to accept defeat - even on those days I didn't know in which direction victory would be found - I forced myself to remain devoted to the task at hand. Repeated failure was an option; giving up was not.

Ask yourself today: Am I doing whatever it takes to be committed to my healing? And answer yourself in a long-winded list of all the ways you're making the effort.

Then, pat yourself on the back, appreciate the strength and resilience it takes to do what needs to be done, and reward yourself. You're working hard, don't forget to give yourself a break every once in a while! And then, double down your bets.

(For those of you who do not answer affirmatively to this question, sit yourself down and figure out why. Do you want to heal? If so, why aren't you doing whatever it takes to commit to that goal? What more could you do to strengthen that commitment? Make a list of options. Choose one thing and do it in the coming week.)

(Photo: Raeesah (: )