Campus Connection

[caption id="attachment_38843" align="alignleft" width="928"] Silouan Green, keynote speaker for Diversity Dialogues, played his guitar as part of an event Tuesday evening after he arrived on campus. Green says it was finding things he loved doing, like playing guitar, that helped him overcome PTSD.[/caption] A jet crash. A rape. Seeing a fellow service member die. Hearing about the suicide of someone close to you. These are just a few examples of situations where Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome could develop. It may happen immediately or take decades. A common attitude toward PTSD is that someone else is doing something about it, says Silouan Green, a veteran and expert on PTSD. That’s why, Green says, it’s important to have events like the Feb. 4 Diversity Dialogues at UW-L where Green met with students, faculty and staff to talk about PTSD. “To respond, we need to be committed to taking care of each other,” says Green. Green, who gave one of many presentations during Diversity Dialogues, shared his own experience with PTSD. Development of the disorder began after a jet crash while serving as a U.S. Marine. But it wasn’t just the crash that caused PTSD, it was what happened surrounding it — his friend dying, his wife leaving, the pain, the pills and other issues. He felt like a “broken Marine” who had lost his will to live. The essential component of PTSD, explained Green, is the development of symptoms after exposure to one or more traumatic events, whether those events are:

• directly experienced
• witnessed
• learned
• or by repeated exposure

PTSD can be set off by a host of triggers — sights, sounds, smells and more. “Think of the impact on students and their ability to study,” says Green. Green encouraged people to not be afraid to reach out and help people who they suspect have PTSD. He added that when bringing it up, there’s no need to label the issue PTSD. Instead, he encouraged the audience to help someone heal by sharing their own difficult experiences, listening and encouraging people to enjoy life through their own invitations and actions. “You have the ability to make every student excited about life. You do that by being excited about life,” says Green. “Your enthusiasm for life is more important to your students than anything you can teach them.”