Thanks for your service.
I have never served in a traumatic situation, so I cannot comment on that.
But I admit, it really bothered me back in the Seventies the way they painted every Vietnam Veteran as being damaged goods, unable to control themselves or keep their lives together. I grew to hate that image the media and Hollywood presented, because I knew that even though many good men were traumatized by their combat experiences and managed to forge on in life successfully, there were also good men who had great difficulty dealing with their experiences.
Then, when Gulf War I and II came along, the media and Hollywood portrayals and news coverages of military personnel with PTSD seemed to skyrocket again, but this time, even more so. It brought back all those feelings of anger for me, because it seemed that it was being over-reported.
I have tried to keep in mind that many military people now survive injuries that even as “recent” as the Vietnam era, would have not survived, and that may be part of the apparent increase in presentation to the non-military public, particularly with respect to traumatic brain injuries.
I support the efforts of the medical community to address this in various ways, and I think if a veteran who has seen combat has difficulty coping...there should be readily available and effective help made available to those who need it.
Like you said, and I agree...PTSD is a normal human reaction to traumatic events, and I have always felt that people deal with it differently. Some people deal with it straightforwardly and personally with varying degrees of success. Some deal with it by engaging professionals...also with varying degrees of success. I think much relates to the individual, and there simply isn’t any way of getting around it.
I have heard it occasionally said that more emotionally sensitive people incur a greater amount of psychic “damage” as a result of traumatic situations, and less emotionally sensitive people seem to transit the combat experience in a more “intact” state, but...the more I consider it, the more I feel like I am channeling a psychiatrist, so I am in territory I don’t have any right expressing opinions on.
But I will say this-I dream a lot, and sometimes, it is so realistic and the situations portrayed are so unpleasant, that, even though it may only be a dream for me, it can take a better part of the day or week to shake it completely. Having a fertile imagination, it is unnerving for me to think of having dreams that vivid, based in personal, actual experiences, particularly combat. And the thought of having them repetitively, night after night, year after year, well, that prospect makes me blanch.
When I hear a veteran describe experiencing nightmares (and in my profession, I had some opportunity) it rings all too true. A few years back, I spoke for several hours to someone who had been aboard the USS Indianapolis when she was sunk. He did not discuss the dreams in detail, but simply told me he had them for years.
And some fifty years later, after the event, as he described to me having the dreams, his face turned crimson, and he began to get very emotional and choked up.
Fifty years later.
I told him he didn’t have to discuss it anymore, but he said he wanted to, since he “never talked about them to anyone”.
Honestly, his reaction to only TELLING me about having the nightmares terrified me. I just cannot contemplate it, because I have some idea just how vivid and real dreams can be. I thank God I have never been put in the situation to “find out” how I would deal with it.
As a result, my gratitude to those who have (on my behalf) is genuine and deep.
I don’t know what to make of the seeming epidemic of PTSD, so I am going to generally stay out of that aspect of it since, like combat, it isn’t my place to comment on it. I will leave it to those who know of what they speak.
Just look at the epidemic of anti-depressants that are being prescribed across this country and you will get an idea of what it's all about.........No different from the opioid epidemic.
And if you can get a VA psyche doctor to classify you as having PTSD, you get disability benefits too..........
Where have I seen that before?
There’ a new form of PTSD called “being the male child of a feminist single mother”.
Thank You!