Navigating the Storm: Larry Brant on Healing from PTSD and Moral Injury

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Larry Brett. Larry is a Navy chaplain with 16 years of experience, but before the military, he has 25 years of experience of being a local minister. He is a board certified chaplain that specializes in PTSD and moral injury. So we're going to be talking to Larry about his experience. And thank you for your service, also, Larry, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

You're very welcome, and brother, you are worth it.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Sure. Uh so just as you said, I am a Navy chaplain. Uh, haven't always been that. Uh I actually will be transitioning out of the Navy this summer to whatever God has next for us. But uh grew up in the Midwest in the St. Louis area and uh actually went to college to be a musician. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in music. And after I got my master's uh degree in music uh from Southern Seminary, then I began working in churches as an associate pastor, leading worship services, and did that for 25 years uh in my uh last church, which was in Lincoln, Nebraska. Um, while I was there, um some of the church members uh who were firefighters and police officers approached me and said, We think you have the right temperament to be able to be a volunteer chaplain for the city. Would you consider doing that? So I prayed about it, talked to my senior pastor about it, and he said, Yeah, go for it. And so I did that for the next eight years and really enjoyed the ministry to the first responders and ministering to people quite often uh on their worst day uh because of of what was happening to them at the time, and eventually ended up running the ministry for the city, uh having about 28 voluntary chaplains that I supervised and doing that, and then God gave me this crazy calling to uh join the military in my 40s. So I went back to school to get the degree that the military wanted me to have, uh, lost 110 pounds and joined the Navy at the age of 45 and have been a Navy chaplain for the last 16 years.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Well, congratulations on that. Um can you define PSD PSTD and uh moral injury for for the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So many people have a pretty good idea what PTSD is, but if you if you don't, I'm gonna explain it for you. PTSD is fear-based trauma. In other words, something happens to you. Uh, quite often you're in fear for your life, and that causes uh deep trauma to the individual, emotional, mental, uh, sometimes even physical trauma to the individual. And it leaves you uh in a constant state of fear, paranoia, uh hyper-vigilance, where you're always looking for that next thing to happen. Um and and it's it it hurt because it it really hurts your emotions. It it kind of stunts your emotions because you're afraid to show your emotions that that you'll be rejected, um, and you're afraid of what the next thing's going to happen. Uh, moral injury, I consider to be kind of PTSD's evil twin, in that it's not something that happens to you, it's actually something that you have done, usually under the direction of someone in authority over you, or it may be something that you chose not to do, and the result of which goes against everything you believe in, emotionally, um, mentally, spiritually, ethically, and it breaks you to the point that you no longer feel that you are lovable or forgivable because you're just absolutely consumed by shame and guilt. And what happens in that situation is the person with moral injury, and quite frankly, uh, a person can have both PTSD and moral injury because they could have been uh had fear-based trauma because of something that happened to them, and their reaction to it went against everything they believe in, so then they also have moral injury. Um, but they are so consumed with guilt and shame that they back away from everything, they back away from their faith, they back away from their family, they back away from their friends for really a couple of different reasons. Uh, one is they're afraid that if these folks see their true selves, that they're going to be considered a monster. So it's better to just kind of back away, or sometimes they think that if they continue in contact with people from their faith, people from their family and their friends, that what has corrupted them will actually rub off and corrupt these other individuals. And so they will back away thinking if I back away from them, I can't corrupt them.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Now, I know uh people have different different opinions on this. Uh, some people feel that PSTD is only for veterans, and some people feel like you know, in the civilian world that they have it. Uh, what what's your opinion on whether PSDT can only happen to veterans or not?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Uh my opinion is it it is not just something for veterans. I think someone from almost any walk of life could have PTSD or a moral injury. And let me give you some examples. You know, you can have PTSD from a physical assault. Someone physically assaults you, and it was terrifying. And so from that point forward, you're constantly living in fear of another assault happening. You're going through your house constantly through the night, checking your locks more than once uh because you're afraid of what that assault, what another assault may happen. You don't have to be in the military for something like that to happen, whether it's a physical assault or a sexual assault, uh, which is both mental and physical, obviously. Um, and then with moral injury, uh, we saw a lot of moral injury come uh in first responders when they respond to a situation and the situation doesn't go as they think they should. So then they begin to second guess themselves and and think that they're they're not up to what they should be, and they're constantly um cutting themselves down and thinking that they don't have what it takes to do what they need to do, or in the medical field. We we we saw during COVID so many people in the medical field being exposed to moral injury because everything they did uh and the people still died. And so they began to just completely question themselves and their ability to do to stay in there. Or you can look at someone, maybe someone's in the corporate world, and the the company says, we want you to do this audit, we want you to do this report, but we want the instead of what the report should say, we want the report to say this because it'll be more beneficial to our shareholders. But if you tell the truth in this report, then we're going to fire you. You're going to be out of a job, you're not going to be able to provide for your family. So the person feels like they have to betray what they believe in and do what the company tells them to do in order to be able to put bread on the table. But they never look at themselves the same way again because they believe that they've sold out for a meal ticket. Those are just a few examples of how PTSD and moral injury can happen outside of the military.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Well, how do you feel like trauma uh affects spirituality?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Great question. Trauma can affect spiritual out spirituality in many different ways. Again, uh sometimes that person who has experienced the trauma says, God, how could you have allowed this to happen? And they begin to feel a disconnect with um with what they believe in, whether it's God or a higher power or something else. Um, they begin to have that disconnect saying, God, how could you do this? Or maybe because the trauma happened, because someone who was a spiritual authority uh did the trauma to the individual, then they start to question, are the people involved in this faith? Are they trustworthy because this person hurt me so much? Um, or they may question themselves, you know, because of what I did, because of what I allowed to happen to me, there's no way that God could love me, and there's no way God could forgive me. So trauma can really affect spirituality in several different ways. And that relationship to God or higher power, the relationship to the authority within their faith group, or even feeling like they no longer should even be in that spirituality or that faith because they see themselves as corrupted.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Well, for anybody out there looking to that listening and looking to become a military chaplain, uh walk us through uh what it takes to do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Sure. Be happy to. So a military chaplain, you need to have first and foremost, you need to have a master's degree that's at least 72 accredited hours in religion. Um, you need to come from one of the uh faith backgrounds that's uh uh recognized by the Department of War. Um, I know that they've just reduced those from like 230 something to about 30, but those 30 are really the ones that are almost always used. So one of those 30 recognized faith backgrounds, um, you need to have two years experience uh providing ministry in your faith group. So uh sometimes you can do that while you're going to seminary. If you have a if you have a position where you're providing ministry during seminary, there are guidelines that they have in which that can be credited. Um, and then you also have to be able to pass the physical height weight standards and be able to pass the the physical fitness test of each military branch.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Well, how do you go about helping people that uh suffer from PSTD and moral injury?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Um really uh what what I have done, especially here where I'm currently at in 29 Palms, California, uh when I was doing my uh Chaplincy residency in order to be able to work in a hospital, um, one of those residencies was with uh the VA, uh specifically the VA Medical Center in San Diego, California. And they put me in a PTSD domiciliary, and I'm going to explain what that is. This PTSD domiciliary, what what they did, and I would love to see the VA replicate this in other places, but they took homeless veterans off the streets of San Diego who were diagnosed with PTSD, and they housed them for six months. And during those six months, they uh worked with them to address what was going on with them, to address their addiction, to address their PTSD, to address their moral injury, and then they helped them find jobs and helped them find housing so that they don't go back out onto the street. And they've got about an 85% success rate, which is phenomenal. Uh, but while I was there, I saw how how they worked with moral injury, how they worked with PTSD, and I took those lessons. And when I came here to 29 Palms to be the Naval Hospital Chaplain, I took those lessons learned from the VA. And with their permission, uh, I took one of their programs and kind of tweaked it for active duty. And this program is called Building Spiritual Strength. So if you're a veteran and uh you're somewhere within a driving distance of a VA medical center, I encourage you to talk to one of the chaplains there and see if they have either a building spiritual strength program or another program that is very good called Real. Um, anyway, so what we did was I partnered with a mental health provider, and we would have an eight-week course for people diagnosed with PTSD and help them to either reconnect to their faith or to connect to a new faith, um, and then use that to be able to uh address their PTSD and moral injury. And we really had good success with that. And we didn't do that instead of their PTSD counseling, we did it in complement to their PTSD counseling so that one actually would feed off the other and then would actually increase in benefit.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Well, uh, I just released a book, and this book is called uh Restoring the Broken, because I realize that not everybody, as we talked about, not everybody is a veteran dealing with PTSD and moral injury. And quite frankly, uh there's a lot of people in in the church dealing with this, and not many pastors are are well versed in moral injury. They may know a little bit about PTSD, but they they're most civilian pastors are not well versed in moral injury at all. So I wrote this book to ministry leaders, to pastors, to ministry leaders, or to individuals who just want to learn more about moral injury, or maybe they think they may have it, and really what the church should do about it. And um, what I'm doing now is I'm educating pastors and educating churches on what moral injury is, how to provide a safe place for people with PTSD and moral injury, so that they can begin sharing their stories and how they can companion with him through with them through this so that they can come to a place of restoration and feel like yes, God can forgive me. Yes, God does love me.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

So people can keep up with everything that you're up to, so that's a contact info.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yeah, so they can email me at chapsbrandt that's c a p s b as in boy r-a-n-t at yahoo.com. And then the book website is www.restoring-the-broken.com. And if they want to, um, they can order the book if they want to uh and and read it. It's on um Kindle, audiobook, paperback, and hardback. Um, and also, or if they want to email me and ask me questions, I am more than happy to discuss with them, email them back, um, and just help them in any way that I can.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

All right. We'll close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on. Any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, what I really what I want people to understand is if you have PTSD, if you have moral injury, or if you know someone who does, they don't have to stay where they are. This doesn't have to be their final condition. There is a path back to restoration, and it quite often just begins with a safe place for them to tell their story. And if I can help you do that, um, I would be happy to do so. We have had some wonderful success stories here of people who have begun telling their story in a safe place and then getting additional help from there. And now they have restored, their faith has been restored, the relationship with their family, especially their spouse, has been restored, and even the relationship with their children. So just because you feel right now that this PTSD or the moral injury or the combination of the two have overwhelmed you, it doesn't have to stay that way. You there is a path back to restoration.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

All right, ladies and gentlemen, for more information on Dr. Brandt and his book and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to, visit restoring dash duh-broken.com. And please follow rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also visit www.curveball337.com to keep up with all things living the dream. And if you'd like to leave us a review, you can even leave us voicemail there. We might even play it on the show, you never know. And uh share that website and show to everybody that you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Dr. Brandt, thank you for your service once again, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Well, thank you for the invitation, and it's been my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.