Readywriter
Active Member
I decided to start this thread because of events that happened this weekend. I was medically retired from the military after being wounded in Iraq and since then Ive been volunteering full time to minister to veterans that suffer from ptsd or other forms of dysfunctional behavior brought on by military service. What happened this weekend is related to that but Im not going to expound upon it out of respect of privacy.
Most of the time the issues that these men and women suffer from stems from either never experiencing being, or forgetting what it is like to be, truly loved. There is a very common theme with people who suffer from ptsd, and that is the majority of them have been molested or otherwise seriously abused as children and being victim to things like that messes up a persons understanding of love.
And this is what I see in adults that have broken homes, or drug habits, or problems with law enforcement, society failed them (and I dont say that with any sort of political implications). Im not writing this post to make anyone feel bad, I just wanted to set up the reason for my following message: You have no idea the impact a genuine smile can have on someone that is hurting, there are people out there that have never had someone smile at them, it could very well save their life.
Most of the time the issues that these men and women suffer from stems from either never experiencing being, or forgetting what it is like to be, truly loved. There is a very common theme with people who suffer from ptsd, and that is the majority of them have been molested or otherwise seriously abused as children and being victim to things like that messes up a persons understanding of love.
And this is what I see in adults that have broken homes, or drug habits, or problems with law enforcement, society failed them (and I dont say that with any sort of political implications). Im not writing this post to make anyone feel bad, I just wanted to set up the reason for my following message: You have no idea the impact a genuine smile can have on someone that is hurting, there are people out there that have never had someone smile at them, it could very well save their life.
