Recognizing National Post-Traumatic Growth Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. BERGMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in belated recognition of Post-Traumatic Growth Day--I repeat, post-traumatic growth.

Observed annually on June 13 as part of National PTSD Awareness Month, this effort was initiated by Boulder Crest Foundation, a nationally recognized nonprofit helping veterans, first responders, and their families turn their struggles into strength.

When we think about the numbers of veterans and first responders who have experienced an event, the numbers are small but not inconsequential and staggering but, I think, kept too well hidden. For example, over 50 percent of veterans have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetime.

Mr. Speaker, let's just go back a little bit in history because ``PTSD'' was not always a term of reference and a term of the norm when it came to dealing with stress. In World War I, I believe the term was ``shell shock.'' In World War II, the term was ``battle fatigue.'' In Vietnam, when I was there, we used to call it the ``thousand-yard stare,'' a certain emptiness we would see in others that indicated an increased level of stress.

That was then. How did we, especially in the military, deal with whether it would be battle fatigue, shell shock, or the thousand-yard stare? Back in World War I and World War II, there was this thing called the troopship. When, let's say, you were in the South Pacific and coming back to the States, you boarded a troopship somewhere and sailed, in some cases, for well over a month just to return to U.S. soil. It was the same thing with the European theater or the North African theater.

There was a long period of time where those combat veterans who had been under tremendous stress had a chance to decompress over a period of time with each other and share their experiences, cry, hug, laugh, but work through it in a way that used the element of time together to, again, work through the challenges of the horrific events that they had experienced.

In Vietnam, the timeline shortened a little bit, and please don't let me forget Korea, as well. Because when you look at the memorials here in Washington, D.C., you have got the World War II Memorial, which is a tremendous testament to our country coming together to overcome evil. You have got the Korean War Memorial. For those of you who have been there, the darkness of that memorial is evident in the expressions on the faces of those soldiers there at the Korean War Memorial. You have got the Vietnam Memorial, which has all the 58,000-plus names of the men and women who gave their lives in Vietnam.

Some of my colleagues who served there, the only way that they can come to grips with some of their PTSD is to go to the memorial and visit their comrades whose names are on the wall. We have dealt with it differently, but we tended to think of it as relieving stress in a negative way.

After 9/11, after Desert Shield, and Desert Storm, the first war that we were involved in where members could be on the battlefield one day and back literally in their homes within 48 hours. During OIF and OEF where a person could come off the battlefield on a Wednesday and, again, be at home watching TV and watching their friends on the battlefield within 48 hours, there was no time to decompress. There was no time to work through the challenges that you have seen.

What do we do? Well, PTSD is real. Nobody disagrees with that at all. How do we turn a negative into a positive?

Well, how about in changing the term ``post-traumatic stress disorder'' into ``post-traumatic growth.'' Take the experience, work through it in such a way that you grow from it. Think about all the men and women who currently serve, only about 10 percent have been diagnosed with PTSD. That is of all who served.

For those who served in combat zones, the rate of PTSD can reach up to 20 percent. Among first responders, police officers, firefighters, and EMTs, 80 percent have experienced at least one traumatic event while on the job.

Between 10 and 30 percent of first responders will develop post- traumatic stress disorder. Again, whether you are in the military, whether you are a first responder, whether you are a NICU nurse, a cardiac nurse, a physician, you give it all for those people you are serving. Whether you are a first responder in the healthcare field, or in the military, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with what you gave? Can you return to a positive attitude in your life?

That is why the belief among servicemembers and first responders who have gone through this, we have figured out that the best way to deal with what we deal with internally is to move forward with an attitude of what happened happened. How do we grow from it?

It is easier said than done because in the society in which we live today with instant communications, social media, and reliving things, it is tough, in many cases, to leave the negative behind us.

There are different therapies, group therapy, individual therapy, there could be potentially in some cases, as we advance therapies in new areas, and not taking a pill--here, take a pill for this. This will make you feel better. If that pill doesn't make you feel better, take two of these pills type of thing. We have to get rid of that because it doesn't help.

We are human beings, and I would suggest to you that one of the options we have to promote the idea of post-traumatic stress is to get behind some good things. Both Democrats and Republicans here in Congress, who want to do better in this arena, there is a caucus here in the House of Representatives called the PATH Caucus. It was formed about 3 years ago.

I happen to be the Republican lead and my dear friend and colleague Lou Correa from Los Angeles is the Democrat lead. We call it the Noah's Ark Caucus, where one Democrat and one Republican come together and join it, but the whole goal as the PATH Caucus--the title is, Psychedelics Advancing Therapies, keyword advancing therapies. We have kind of casually renamed it the good path caucus, which means get off opioid dependency and advance new therapies to allow members of the military and first responders and everybody else to actually get inside of themselves and be able to release those demons through different kinds of therapies that don't involve taking a pill, taking another pill, taking another pill, changing the pills, whatever it happens to be, forever.

It is about new therapies that will enable those members going through it to open up their minds, clear out the demons, and move forward with life.

We have a responsibility as the House of Representatives and as the legislative branch of our government, to include the Senate, to do the best we can on the legislative side in enabling resources to be focused on research that enables that individual growth to occur.

We are a long way from getting to the point where we can say we are done with this. We will never be done with it. There will always be new advancements in therapy, new advancements in dealing with the human mind, the brain, the least explored and least understood part of the human body, but it is who we are as God's creatures that will enable us to move forward with continuing to grow.

I am honored tonight to just call this to the attention of the people watching and especially to my colleagues who--again, not Democrat or Republican--have chosen to make the world a better place by helping people be their best selves, to continue to grow after, in some cases, very horrific, stressful events.

I ask everyone who is listening, please consider--because we can all have a bad day--what a positive affect you can have on others when you present yourself to them, when they are under a time of extreme stress and potential disorientation, to lead them down a path that they can grow from what they have gone through. We can all make this world a better place by helping one another.

I thank the Speaker and the House for allowing me to talk today on celebration of post-traumatic growth normally. We will be celebrating it again next year on the 13th of June on that annual day.

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