“PTSD is not psychosis, its a form of severe anxiety to a life threatening event/s.”
anxiety to a real life threatening event is actually a good thing. It keeps a soldier hyper vigilant and saves lives.
The problem is that the military realizes that a healthy anxiety to dangerous situations can be/is a hindrance to a good soldier doing his job. Thus they give these soldiers a 180 day supply when they send them out into combat. You could call it courage in a pill.
The problem is that although the anxiety of the life threatening situation is suppressed, the soldier continues to enter life threatening experiences and retains the memories of the experience. Much addiction is psychological in that the individual needs to continue the medication in order to not retrieve the stored memories of the traumatic experience. In short, the drug is needed not just to help the soldier at the time of the trauma, but to continue to block the retrieval of the memory of the trauma years later.
Drugs that merely block a symptom from surfacing, including the SSRI’s DO NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. They merely allow a person to hide from dealing with it!
Yes and that is why 180 or any should be given at deployment, which they are discontinuing. However, I believe it is very helpful to those managing severe anxiety.