When he came home from serving in Vietnam, Scott Hauer knew he had issues arising from his service. Learning to write to deal with those issues took decades. Now he and journaling expert Annie Ginder are helping other veterans use the same system to cope with the psychological effects of their military service. Hauer and Ginder have put together a program called Writeface to help veterans journal their issues. That, in turn, lets the veterans decide how they want to cope with recurring problems. The idea of helping veterans deal with their stress and other issues came to Hauer after decades of ignoring the aftereffects of military service. "But I was in total denial for 18 years," the Conestoga resident said last week. Then he was forced to face them. "I got into an accident on the road in the early 90s and I started having flashbacks. That scared the daylights out of me," he said. Attempts to cope with those flashbacks sent him to counseling through the VA health care system.
"I expected him [my counselor] to fix things for me and he wasn't doing that. So I decided to write about my issues and I found that cathartic," he said. "I got my problems out in the open and then I could make a conscious decision to change them if I wanted to do that." Journaling is an ideal way to help people expose concerns that have been troubling them, Ginder said. "There have been studies that show that people who take 15 or 20 minutes a day to write have fewer hospitalizations and even lower blood pressure," Ginder said. Ginder, who has been teaching journaling for about five years, said the secret is writing as fast as possible for about five minutes at a time. "The faster you write, the less chance there is to self-edit and the result is more true to your feelings," she said. "This allows you to uncover your subconscious. You can then work with a therapist and you can reflect on what you wrote." Hower's writings led to public performances featuring his written work with a local theater group at the beginning of the 21st century. "I was building sets and I knew the director and the people there," he said. "They contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of the Spoken Word Festival. It was a good thing for me to realize people wanted to know what we were going through." While he was working his way through his problems, Hauer began encountering other veterans who were trying to cope with their own issues. "I was working at a job in Connecticut, loading materials in my van, when a man approached me and asked if I was a veteran," Hauer recalled. "When I told him I was, he asked what branch [of service]. Then he hung his head down and asked if we could talk. I found out he was fresh back from Iraq and it came out that he was having problems with keeping jobs and in his relationships." Those impromptu contacts kept happening. "I don't know how they recognized I was a veteran, but they did. It happened at least 20 times. It took me a while, but around 2010, it dawned on me that there is a need for help for veterans like these," he said. "I knew writing helped me and, at that year's Spoken Word Festival, I ran into a certified journaling instructor. I explained what I had done and the issues veterans were having and we came up with a curriculum to help them write and work through their problems." Hauer and Ginder came up with a 10-week curriculum for veterans who wanted to use writing to begin working their way through their post-war issues. Then he had to contact veterans who could be helped through the program. "I went to the veterans' court in Lancaster and didn't get anywhere. I was walking away, pretty down, when I saw Tabor Transitional Center's Veterans' Victory House. I stopped in and they were interested. That was in September, 2014, and two weeks later we started. We've been doing it ever since," Hauer said. "So far, we've had about 100 veterans go through the 10-week course. The youngest was 26 and the oldest 83." That program meets in Lancaster. Another, combining writing and art, meets in Columbia, and a third, an equine group, is getting underway in Conestoga. The groups range in size from four to 13. "Six or eight is optimal. With that number, we can share and not be pressed for time," Hauer said. "If we have too many, it's difficult to share." "We meet for an hour and a half, once a week," he said. The veterans write about their experiences and their post-war problems and then share their compositions if they choose to do so. While they are encouraged to write poems because they are short, they can also write prose. "I prefer poetry because it's a nice literary form. It forces people to write what they need and say it as short as possible. We're not trying to create the next poet laureate," Hauer said. But he doesn't force the veterans to write poetry. "I just show them the tools. They can choose to use whichever one works to give them some self-awareness." "Journaling allows access to different parts of the brain and gives people a different perspective," Ginder added. "It's interesting to see the changes in some of these guys when they start writing." The program is now available just in Lancaster County but Hauer said he would like to see it expand throughout the United States. Veterans interested in participating can call Hauer at 717-209-0410. The program is free. "They've already paid it forward with their service," he said. Comments are closed.
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