Posted on 04/29/2019 2:01:00 PM PDT by Chainmail
I was listening to the Larry O'Connor Show this afternoon on WMAL and while he was discussing the latest mass shooter atrocity at the synagogue in Poway, a caller named Todd called in and described being in shock that VA facilities had "no security checks" and after all, "veterans have PTSD" and "could bring a weapon in at any time".
I tried to call in to the show to talk to Larry but he very shortly segued into Redskins football and the bored-sounding lady screener let me know that I wouldn't be on.
First of all, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the completely normal human response to some period of time where the person is subjected to experiences that they would never ordinarily experience: strong, unrelenting fear, seeing people killed, including friends, and maybe suffering wounds and permanent damage. When we send our young men and lately women into combat, they are all in some way changed by that experience. During my war, the war in Vietnam, we had mines and booby traps that made you watch the ground very carefully, snipers that could pick you out of a group and kill you, mortar and rocket attacks to hit you in your positions, and ambushes, night attacks, infiltrators, and so on.
PTSD or the "Shakes" were a given. Everyone had some form of it and when we got back, it caused nightmares, the Fliches, maybe broken marriages, maybe drinking, and in some rare cases, suicide.
It has almost never caused violence against others. That was a Hollywood myth that sold a lot of tickets during the aftermath of our war - you know, the "Crazed Vietnam Vet" going bugeyed nuts at the smallest provocation and slaughtering everyone their paths. You know, Rambo and Billy Jack and scores of others on the big screen and TV.
The reality is that most or all of us came home, adjusted, healed and went forward with our lives. If anything veterans are the most stable and solid members of our nation and all that I have see of our latest veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq confirm this view.
I wish that Larry had immediately countered that caller and came to veteran's defense but he didn't.
The only real treatment that would work for me would be getting the underlying issues that caused the event to happen resolved. We can start with why was the FBI involved in placing the bomb. Maybe if Trump wants to declassify some stuff that would be a good thing to declassify.
Combat doesn't actually work that way; infantry units in any battle wear out very quickly and take casualties at a high rate, generally one dead out of four hit. During WWII in Europe, combat units were moved from frontline to reserve continually to avoid too much fatigue and too many casualties. Units that were left in place too long lost at such high rates that they were constantly replacing experienced soldiers with inexperienced soldiers and units had very few people at the end of a long stretch that had started at the beginning.
In battles like Tarawa, or Iwo Jima, or Peleliu, units were so attrited that they became combat ineffective long before the battles were over.
In Vietnam, I found the average time in combat before you became wounded or killed was a month and a half. Most of the infantry Marines I knew had been wounded at least once, some more than that and were still there hanging in there because they didn't want to let their fellow Marines down. (our grenades were responsible for a lot of our smaller wounds: there was no way to throw them far enough to avoid being hit by our own fragments. Many Marines didn't even report those wounds and self-treated them).
The phenomenon of lesser or more severe PTSD had more to do with the individual's nature than the severity of combat - but nobody can ever equate infantry combat with anything else.
That's one of the reasons why I consider the idea of young ladies in infantry combat as the height of idiocy.
God bless you and thank you for your service to our country!
There are a couple of new and very powerful treatments available.
One is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). It has been remarkably effective with some people struggling with PTSD. The big caveat with EMDR is that *everything* hinges on the skill of the therapist.
This type of treatment requires serious training and experience. An incompetent practitioner can make things worse.
This most fascinating development has been the accidental discovery of the effectiveness of ketamine in the treatment of PTSD; as well as depression, and various types of chronic pain. I have seen a veteran with phantom limb pain improve.
Ketamine is a fifty year old anesthetic with the best safety record of all in current use; it does not cause respiratory depression. It is still used in pediatric surgeries.
There are a few modes of administration, the most effective being i.v. infusion of low doses under medical supervision. These are doses far below those necessary to cause anesthesia. And there is *zero* risk of addiction.
The ketamine effect is astounding. It, too, does brain rewiring. The miraculous aspect of ketamine is the speed at which results are achieved.
It is really the drug of choice for suicidal patients, when you don’t have four to six weeks for the SSRIs or SSNIs to kick in. And the fail rate of those meds is unacceptably high. Acceptable to big pharma and their puppets, yes. To patients, no.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK361016/
This study was consistent with a 2008 study showing antidepressants performing not much better than placebos.
Ketamine works on different receptor sites; NMDA blocking. This increases glutamate evels. I suspect the future of antidepressants will be found in glutamate.
In 2015, the NIMH found SSRIs to be effective in relieving symptoms in 40 out of 60 people, within six to eight weeks.
Properly administered, ketamine can relive symptoms in hours.
The patent on ketamine expired years ago, so there is no big $ to be made; thus, treating PTSD and depression remain off label uses. Thus, insurance cos can get out of paying.
However, a synthetic has been developed, Esketamine. The far less sclerotic Trump FDA fast tracked it, brought to market by Janssen, a division of J&J. It was declared a “breakthrough drug”, based on its efficacy in suicide prevention.
It has now been approved (March, 2019) as a nasal spray. I have no doubt that this will foam the runway for the i.v. version.
I have studied the scholarly journals. The overall efficacy of ketamine in reducing the symptoms of depression, including the intractable type, is 70%. In the treatment of PTSD, it shoots up to 95% in several studies.
Can you tell how excited I am about this?
A few caveats:
Treatment is often not a one off event. Many people find they need periodic boosters.
It’s expensive. There are many in the profession working on ways to get financial assistance for patients. Things are happening at supersonic speed. Expect changes.
New “ketamine clinics” are popping up every 15 minutes. They are not all created equal.
Here is a link to a clinic run by people whom I know well and trust 100%. It’s a model of a an excellent facility. Note the emphasis on wellness, rather than being a ketamine dispensary. The clinic offers a number of complementary health and wellness services.
For good explanations of PTSD and EMDR, I really like YouTuber, Katy Morton. Katy is a licensed therapist and a very engaging, warm personality. She has a real talent for explaining complex psychological topics and making them easy to understand. She has about 20 million videos on a plethora of subjects.
Thanks for that post...one of the things that makes FR worthwhile!
Part of me recoils at the idea that we were psychologically damaged - I looked at us as being the very best our country could offer and the effects of combat were just another price we had to pay.
I was deeply depressed for years - partially due to seeing and experiencing so much death and partially because of our treatment by nearly everyone when we came back. It would have helped to have had the treatments you have outlined.
Unless you actually know more than we do about the “extra issues” the guy had, and actually know some folks with PTSD, then your opinion is uninformed.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m referring to the information that was made public during the trial of the murderer. Is that “Hollywood?”
I’m sure my opinion is uninformed. When I go out in public I’m uninformed about almost everyone I see. Knowing more about PTSD isn’t going to make me less cautious.
The tank forces were mostly Midwestern National Guard units as well. Maywood, IL made a big deal about remembering Bataan for decades.
Hypervigilance is a good term. I’m like that everyday all day.
I have survivor’s guilt, especially due to one situation, but I realized I don’t have control over that. God had other plans for us, and here we are.
I’m with you 100% on paranoia. It’s not paranoia if they’re really trying to get you heh. I use that one quite often.
What drives me to real anger is when guys do themselves in though. The last friend that did that left behind a wife and two very young kids. That’s the absolute most selfish thing a person can do, no regard for others at all.
The 1993 bombing isn’t out of everyone’s mind. You didn’t make it clear that you were talking about the earlier one and not the 2001 one. That’s what was so confusing.
Certainly glad you made it out of there. It has to be something that would give a person nightmares forever. No, “we” haven’t forgotten but there are sure a lot of politicians and voters who act as if our enemy is not our enemy. So much so, they even get elected to Congress for which we’ll pay dearly some day.
You should really read the details of the therapy.
No, I recall his first name Harold and I’ll look through a book he gave me to see if his last name is there. He and his twin brother were both captured and were in the death march. His brother didn’t survive.
No - I didn’t write his name in the book. For some reason, Hicks comes to mind. My husband and I met him in 2001 and the book he gave me is the 31st U. S. Infantry Regiment - History/Lineage/Honors/Decorations and Seventy Fourth Anniversary. My mother’s only brother was killed on Bataan in January 1942 and he was a member of that Regiment as I suppose most infantry was. One of my uncle’s letters had the Infantry logo on it which I guess depicts a Polar Bear? This gentleman wanted me to have the book. We sat for several hours in his home while he related those years to us.
I have another book that was put together by the sister of a Bataan prisoner who was put on a ship to Japan and was lost at sea. She lived in Irvine, CA and was a neighbor.
Bad times, interesting times. I have a lot of the letters that my uncle sent to my mother with the last one she wrote to him on Christmas Day 1941 and returned to her. The family didn’t get the word of his death until February sometime. His name is spelled wrong on the memorial at the American Cemetery in Manila and without a direct descendant to request the correction, it could never be corrected. He was unmarried, no children and only three sisters left by the time I discovered the error.
The trope of PTSD-as-dangerous comes from Hollywood yes. You may not have seen it firsthand but you can count on almost everyone else having done so. Rambo, one example, almost everyone has seen that.
I got out in 98 but did four years in Iraq 2004 - 2007. Upon return I figured everything was fine as I settled into my new job. Then I got caught in traffic. To me it was “blocked ambush” and “now I am going to die”. It was pretty bad so I went to an earlier schedule avoiding traffic. It’s gotten better over the years but I still go up when in traffic or especially if I am lost.
That’s my PTSD story. Not enough to report or be seen for. It’s just there and I deal with it. My daughter thinks it’s funny or an eye-roller when she’s in the car with me. Which I guess means it’s ok.
Yup, lots of fun events. My favorite for me was when I went to visit a girlfriend at her work in a department store right after I got out of the hospital.
This store had tall automatic glass doors and just as stepped into the threshold, a car backfired behind me and I hit the deck so hard that I hurt my nose. Then the doors closed automatically and firmly closed on me.
I was struggled for several seconds to get free and while I was stuck there a nice older lady cautiously walked up to me and asked if I needed help.
I stood, all red-faced and said “epilepsy, Ma’am” and left as quickly as I could.
You are so correct that ‘most’ actual in-country vets came back, picked up with their lives and went on. The most public damage for vets came from the fakers. Those vets traded wholesale in selling their phoniness with tall tales, dressing like a rambo throwback and clogging the system with false claim after claim for that magic willy wonka gold 100% disabled 3,000.00 a month free ticket from the taxpayers. Added to that the actually wounded vets and real PTSD sufferers pushed aside because the pressing throng of phonies took over strained VA schedules. I bet more than a few vets have been in VA facilities waiting rooms or PTSD group sessions to listen to the ones that plainly were no where any area or had no exposure to anything PTSD inducing to hear these vaunted heroes rattle on to their avid listeners on what lies to tell to a VA shrink to trigger a PTSD rating. Meanwhile the vets waiting in long lines and lists get pushed further back to get health services. My example was being placed on an 11 month waiting list to get a 35yr old piece of shrapnel removed that was causing problems and ended up getting it done in a non VA facility.
I have also been skeptical about veterans flocking to the VA about alleged PTSD, particularly because I have heard the accounts of some of them and from what I could see, they were poppycock ("I got PTSD because I heard an explosion several blocks away from me..").
The therapy I really needed, I got: a return to church, an exceptional wife and wonderful children - and if I feel like whimpering after that, I talk over several beers with the guys who served with me .
I have a short book, “Kora!” written by William R. Evans, maybe self-published, he was one of those wheeler-dealer kinds and was close to my MIL’s husband. The husband was meek and mild and I couldn’t imagine how he survived. I finally asked one day and he said you had to have friends.
The author ran a racket where he would break legs or arms for half their rations. He had to break the bones the night before and on the way to hard labor they would fall and “break” an arm or a leg and get to spend weeks in the infirmary w/o the back-breaking, forced labor.
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