To Light Up A Home – A Support Group for Children of Military Veterans with PTSD

The moment I diagnosed myself as a “second generation,” a child of a military veteran with PTSD, was a defining one for me. My father, who was a soldier during the War of Attrition (1968) and the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (Yom Kippur War), has been coping with PTSD since his military service. During my childhood, our home was a chaotic and painful place. My father, who did not receive treatment for over thirty years, suffered from outbursts of rage, night terrors, impaired functioning and many other symptoms of war-related stress disorder. In the absence of any professional support or help, my mother and I were left to deal with the psychological burden on our own. 

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As a young adult, I decided to seek counseling and looked for professional terms, and ones of my own, that could become anchors of sanity. One important term I came across at that time was “transgenerational transmission of trauma", which denotes the significant psychological and genetic implications for childhood in the shadow of a parent with PTSD. 

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I invite you to join a support group called To Light Up A Home. Led by professional therapists, the group is set to be a protected space to process personal and collective experiences as the second generation, the sons and daughters of military veterans with PTSD. This is so as to enable personal healing, and together build a new social discourse about the consequences of war inside the home.

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With love and light,

Shiraz

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Link to the project in Hebrew: ToLightUpAHome.org

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