CreatiVets’ goal is to offer opportunities for relief and healing for the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country. Their purpose is to use various forms of art, including songwriting, visual arts, music, and creative writing, to help disabled veterans cope with service-related trauma (i.e., post-traumatic stress, or PTS) by fostering self-expression in a way that allows them to transform their stories of trauma and struggle into an art form that can inspire and motivate continued healing. Through compassion, they are helping veterans live again. Veterans suffering from PTS re-experience traumatic events years and even decades later, reliving the helplessness, fear, and horror associated with their traumatic event. Such strong, negative reactions often lead to anxiety, sadness, anger, depression, guilt, shame, irritability, behavior changes, and thoughts of suicide. These feelings can cause the individual to avoid environments that trigger reminders of the trauma, resulting in isolation and withdrawal from society and often leading to marital problems, difficulty in parenting, job instability, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and even suicide. Learn more at creativets.org