“As we now know, war is not the only calamity that leaves human lives in ruins. While about a quarter of the soldiers who serve in war zones are expected to develop serious posttraumatic problems,10 the majority of Americans experience a violent crime at some time during their lives, and more accurate reporting has revealed that twelve million women in the United States have been victims of rape. More than half of all rapes occur in girls below age fifteen.11 For many people the war begins at home: Each year about three million children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect. One million of these cases are serious and credible enough to force local child protective services or the courts to take action.12 In other words, for every soldier who serves in a war zone abroad, there are ten children who are endangered in their own homes. This is particularly tragic, since it is very difficult for growing children to recover when the source of terror and pain is not enemy combatants but their own caretakers.” The Body Keeps the Score Published 2014

We would all like to believe all children in this country come from loving homes. They do not. Children are so easy to break and so difficult to piece together again. I know, I have been broken and I have in turn broken as each unhealed generation unwittingly does.

“For every soldier who serves in a war zone abroad, there are ten children who are endangered in their own homes.” Perhaps in this hyper-partisan era it will be viewed as unpatriotic to say those ten children deserve our care as much as one war veteran. I tend to resent memes about veterans and abused puppies not because they should not matter, but because they are everywhere. The memes, that is. When will such a spotlight be shown on all the broken children?

Instead we say things like “children are resilient” or “it’s none of my business” or we say nothing at all.

I have often thought of myself as growing up in a war zone. There was the silent war between my parents that lasted much of my childhood only to finally erupt on one traumatic afternoon when I was 16.

There were violent beatings.

My sister having my brothers baby.

A hit-and-run accident meant to kill.

A hole dug along a path meant for my sister.

A letter when I was 11 telling me that terrible things would happen to me, but we DeGoliers were survivors.

There was incest from an early age.

And there was rage and stone cold silence and suffering and fear. And just like in war, I became hyper-vigilant against the danger.

Perhaps I resent all the attention given to veterans of war and PTSD when my own PTSD spent decades destroying me and everything I touched. (I do not resent veterans, only the attention.)

Imagine how many children, already destroyed, going to war. Trauma on top of trauma. I too stepped from the frying pan into a different fire, adult life I had no tools to cope with, babies I had no idea how to raise while I continued to struggle with my own childhood traumas in the same old silence I was taught. And never ending abandonment by a husband who could neither stay or stay away.

Mental health needs a wider stage. There are so many players and little direction. But more importantly, health care should include the damage to minds the same as it includes setting a broken arm. The damage is just as real.