Hud's Corner

Patience’s Gifts

Hud — Sun, 27 May 2007 03:19:02 +0000

These are the affirmation, prayer, and expanded serenity prayer that were written by Patience Mason, the wife of a Vietnam veteran, Bob Mason, the author of Chickenhawk. (patiencemason.blogspot.com)

Affirmation

I’m _______________and I’m ____years old. I am home from the war. I can feel safe here. I live in ________________. I live with___________________, and ____________cares about me. I can feel sadness and despair and fear and anger and guilt. I can cry and those who love me will still care for me. I need to have these feelings so I can let them go. Each time they come up, I can use them as evidence that I need to do whatever it takes to take care of myself. I can ask for and receive help.

Prayer for Veterans with PTSD

Creator (Higher Power or whatever term you identify with), I know that it’s not within the harmony of the universe that I be healed from the trauma of my experiences in the war without pain. Help me through the pain. Surround me with the golden light of healing; fill me with the white light of peace and love. Help me to bear that pain as I go through these memories. Help me to cry. Help me to remember. Help me to love myself no matter what happen to me or what I did to survive.
Amen.

Serenity Prayer for PTSD Veterans

Grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change: the war; what happened to me; what I did or didn’t do; and that what happened was traumatic no matter how effectively I have stuffed it.
Grant me the courage to change the things I can: my attitude towards my symptoms-help me to accept them as normal responses to war and evidence that I need to take care of myself by talking about what happened to me with a safe person and getting whatever help I need; my actions-I no longer have to blow up, drug up, deny or repress my symptoms. I can accept them as evidence of how much I have been through; my reactions-instead of freaking out, blowing up, or trying to repress what I feel, I can focus on the symptom, whether it is numbness, anger, a painful emotion or memory, dream of flashback, or a physical reaction, feel what I feel, go through and have the pain and learn whatever it is that you want me to learn. Then I can share about the effects of trauma on people. Finally I can change how I see these symptoms-as normal responses to trauma which helped me survive and will help me recover even if they are painful.
And grant me the wisdom to know the difference. Help me to be willing to accept that I survived something terrible, and that I can learn from it and heal if I look outside my own head for help, and that I deserve to heal.

The Carroll Gang

Hud — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:17:12 +0000

You can listen to the Carroll Gang every Wednesday and Thursday mornings on KROL (Carroll College), 88.5 FM on your radio dial. The Gang is made up of three generations of Carroll grads who size up the news around the world, the Nation, the State and our Helena area. The leader of the pack is Hank Burgess, the much beloved English Lit Professor of 36 years at Carroll and Tom Huddleston of Hud’s Corner. Kevin Keeler will sit in when one of the others are absent. The programs are filtered with a definite “liberal” viewpoint, albeit with courtesy, respect and reflective of the values that each received from their liberal education at Carroll.

HCTV’s Hud’s Corner

Hud — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:55:42 +0000

HCTV’s Hud’s Corner is a half-hour television talk show that appears every Tuesday evening at 8:30 p.m on Helena Civic Television (Cable Channel 11). The program usually includes interviews of progressive political candidates; information about local organizations; and discussions of timely topics.

* On Tuesday, February 19th, the program will about the upcoming Queen City Ballet program, Enchanted: A Tribute to U2. Meet Queen City’s Director, Campbell Pryor and two of the very talented Middle School young ladies who have been long-time students and who choreographed their first pieces that you’ll enjoy at their program on Feb. 24th nd 25th.

* On Tuesday, February 26th, we’ll add another section to our series on PTSD for Combat Vets. The program will talk about the new and innovative vet-to-vet groups at Fort Harrison. The groups are confidential and open to any combat vet who is having difficulty reconnecting and fitting in. The entire series of four shows will be run again in the month of April.

January, 2007

Hud — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:19:15 +0000

Hud’s CornerBy Tom Huddleston
2006 is now in our past. It seems that the older I get, the faster time flies by. I remember in high school praying that the days would hurry up and end so I could turn 16, get my drivers license, and put away the embarrassing J.C. Higgins coaster. It was way “un-cool” for a high-schooler to be seen riding a bike to the movie. At least it was in 1959. Having my own car would springboard me into the next right of passage; the world of dating and counting dots on the back of Olympia beer labels. But it seemed to take forever for that birthday to arrive. Now, in my twilight years, it’s as if the clock’s in a race to the obituary page.

November, 2006

Hud — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:01:26 +0000

PTSD Blues

Hud — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 22:48:15 +0000

The Mask

Hud — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 22:19:15 +0000

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them are me. I give the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled within as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness is my game.; that the water’s calm and I need no one. But, don’t believe me! PLEASE! My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is a mask. Beneath dwells the real me: confusion; fear; lonely. But I hide this. I panic at the thought of my weakness and frantically create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows. Yet such a glance is precisely my salvation. I know it! If it’s followed by acceptance and by love, it is the only thing that will assure myself that I am worth something! But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare, I am afraid to! So I play my game, my desperate game with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within. So begins the parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.! I idly chatter to you…surface and top-of-the-head talk, saying nothing of what’s crying within me. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I’d like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I cannot say! I don’t like hiding, honestly. I want to genuine, spontaneous, and me…but I need help! Please hold out your hand, even when it seems that it’s the last thing I want. Each time you are kind, gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand me because you care, my heart soars with small and feeble wings, but they’re wings. Your sensitivity, sympathy, and your power of understanding breathes life in me. Your help gives me the help I need to be the creator of the person that is me. You can help me break down the walls and strip away the mask and my shadow world of panic, uncertainty, and loneliness. Don’t give up on me. I may fight against the very help I need, but I really want your gentle hands of love and caring…firm, but gentle hands.

12 Steps for Living with PTSD

Hud — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 22:12:54 +0000

Refrain from using alcohol or drugs, especially to cope with problems.
Participate in regular outpatient therapy and ensure that you have immediate access to professional help:

To express your troubles and vent unpleasant emotions;
To receive support and work through emotional pain;
To hear alternative viewpoints about your problems.

Always ask for help, including hospitalization, whenever needed; seek out treatment for all medical problems and enduring pain.
Communicate respectfully with your loved ones and others. Rather than needing to win every point, make sure no one loses.
Socialize on a regular basis with old and new friends.
Establish and routinely take part in leisure activities at home and in pleasurable recreational activities outside of your home.
Resolve your anger and irritation immediately and constructively and take a “time out” if necessary.
Work at getting regular, restful sleep every night, eat healthy foods, and regularly engage in aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise.
Give and receive compliments and affection; show generosity and kindness; volunteer your time to help others.
Think, listen, talk, write and read objectively and analytically.
Lighten up! Cut yourself some slack!
Remember! If you want to get out of a hole, let go of the shovel.

A Veteran Returns to Vietnam

Hud — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 22:11:55 +0000

Being A Marine

Hud — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 22:08:59 +0000

I’m one of the many who have earned the title of United States Marine. It began with the day that we stood in painted footsteps waiting to have our hair buzzed. That was the day that we found out that our real name was Maggot. An angry man, wearing a smokey-bear, began to yell and we jumped. He yelled again and we jumped higher. Then came the day that we put on class “A’s” and fell in for the last time. With the cadence of a single heel, we marched down the grinder and joined the Corps.

I was in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divisions with two tours of duty. I was a boot, a defensive back, a radioman, an embassy guard, a brig-rat, a 3.5 rocket man, and an airborne, scuba recon Marine. I have humped, jumped, bumped, and dumped green. I saw a little war in Santo Domingo and a bigger war in Vietnam. I’ve walked with pride and I’ve known numb. Since May 1st of 1969 I began a lifetime of both missing the past and fearing tomorrow. I’ve doped, groped, moped and hoped.

I was lucky. I asked for and got some help and I’m beginning to live outside of the bunker and the hole. Three operations have helped with the physical pain and I was sent to the VA’s National Treatment Center for PTSD in Menlo Park, California for the emotional pain. A shorter program at the Boise VA Hospital reconnected the spirit loss. It wasn’t always pleasant and the shakes don’t go completely away, but the people cared and things are better. I wrote the “Blues” in treatment and am passing on two gifts that helped me then and today. The “Mask” said for me what I couldn’t say and the steps are wise to recall everyday.

You might find this site on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder useful.