(instrumental piano music) - With PTSD, we have a trauma or traumas that have been avoided for months, maybe years.

Because it's an experience that was so upsetting that it was difficult to process it emotionally.

PTSD by definition is an illness of avoidance.

So people will have a hard time wanting to talk about an experience or they avoid things that will remind them of that experience.

(instrumental piano music) So today we're at the Fargo VA, getting ready for an event that we've been doing here for several years, but the first time now in about a year and a half.

Because of COVID, we've had to put this on pause, but we are preparing for a mask making event.

We've invited veterans who have trauma histories to come and design a mask in the image of something that reflects their trauma experience or their recovery from that experience.

(instrumental piano music) - I'm here, not because of one thing, but because of a whole lot of things.

My mask, is a reflection in layers of my nice calm life as a kid growing up in the military.

Through the initial experiences in the army and when I came back from my third tour in Vietnam.

I went through deep depression and I was suicidal at times, that's another cover, that's the black line that goes right through there.

And it wasn't until I wound up here in Fargo at the VA in 2010, that I really got into some decent programs here.

They helped me to understand why I was the way I was.

And so in the tail end of it, it's a happier set of colors.

And as I'm now approaching 80 years old, I am-- I'm at peace.

- And so the talk therapies that we do are typically reaching the parts of the brain, where the trauma is stored verbally, where they can actually have put words to the experience.

But trauma is also stored in parts of our brain, where we don't have access verbally and through artistic creative forms of therapy, in a sense, we can get access to those regions of our brain and process in a different way that can help dealing with addressing and healing from a traumatic experience.

Most of them will be new to this whole experience.

They will all have had some exposure to a trauma focused treatment.

They've been referred by their treatment provider here generally.

And there will be a few that have been here before, and who found this experience very therapeutic and want to come back and do another mask.

Anywhere from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to Vietnam era veterans.

So a large age range, all veterans, all with trauma history and trauma treatment history.

Some of them will have ideas already in their minds, what they want to put on the mask.

Others will have no idea, and we'll just kind of be inspired by the time that we give them to do this, whatever they need, whatever it could be helpful to them.

We'll be as staff walking around, assisting if anybody wants some assistance or have some questions.

And we'll basically give them three hours to do that.

- This one here, it symbolizes the hurt from within.

And trying to get out the chain around it is keeping it in.

It's like I'm being held within myself.

There's so much that has yet got to be said, but it's hard to say it, because we just can't open up as it's just embedded so deep, with so much pain.

And it's always there, always there.

Talking about it like this is very hard for me to find the words.

And like these ladies here that come and help me all the time and without them, I would be lost, totally lost.

'Cause when I came here 20, 30-some years ago, I was an angry individual and very, very lost.

And they helped me and they're continuing helping me.

(instrumental piano music) - As an option, we ask them if they're, if they're comfortable or if they feel compelled to actually write the story behind their mask so that it gives the observer a little bit more information and background about kind of the meaning behind their mask, if they fully understand it at that point.

- So I've been wanting to do this for about a year now, and so I've had a lot of time to think about how to represent my feelings.

Well, I got white and black on the mask.

And so, the black is all the cracks and it's hard to see because it's covered up with all the white.

The white represents how other people look at me.

They might not see the scars or all the cracks that I have on the inside, so that's why I kind of covered them up, but once people get to know you a little bit better, some of those things start showing through.

So on the, on the backside, it's all clear, you know, you can see all the cracks and everything because that's what a lot of people don't see.

Maybe one day my mask won't be so hidden.

I believe I'm on the right path now, but it's just, it's a long road.

(instrumental music) - I recently heard a veteran who did a mask a couple years ago, he finds it a great conversation starter for people to be able to share his story.

And a friend actually noticed something in the mask that he hadn't noticed before, and he kind of had a realization of why he made the face, why that he made the mouth the way that he did after she asked him some questions.

So it can actually be kind of, you can gain insight actually years after creating a mask through conversations.

It's very rewarding and it would bring tears to my eyes to think about it actually, so it's a powerful experience.

(instrumental music) - [Presenter Woman] Funded by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie public.