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As most of you know, in my limited spare time, I work as an advocate for Veterans trying to bridge the gap between civilians and Veterans. It is no secret that this gap exists and, in some areas, is very hard to cross. One of the topics that come up a lot is that of PTSD, or PTS if you prefer. As a Veteran who deals with the daily struggles of this issue, I feel that it is important for civilians to see us for who we really are and not these crazy, overly sensitive people who will snap at any second.
Earlier today, I was talking with a friend of mine and we started to discuss the subject of PTSD. During this conversation, this friend of mine, Casey, shared with me her personal view on what could be a leading cause for the development of PTSD in some people. She said the following:
"It's my personal opinion that the prevalence of PTSD is in part due to a lack of problem solving skills in every day life and a lack of proper coping mechanisms. People don't deal with true 'hardships' in life anymore. The idea of a horrible day is when you get a flat tire or something. People used to lose some of their children and people died from things like pneumonia all the time."
After seeing this, I stopped and went through it again. And I found what she said to be pretty fair and thought provoking. Have we, as country, lost touch with "real problems"? You see #FirstWorldProblems used to describe issues that people are facing, normally as a joke. Does this make us mentally weaker and make it harder to deal with some of the world's true hardships? While death is an everyday occurrence, the way in which it is seen in combat is unlike anything most people will ever see. War is truly humanity at its worse. Hunger, disease, poverty, are seen everyday but for the majority of us, we rarely have to deal with it directly. It is a 30 second commercial on TV or one person standing on the side of the road with a cardboard sign. Then, we are thrown into combat where we are forced to face such things. We are asked to not just deal it, but to thrive in it.
Then following our 12, 16, 18 months in combat, we are returned to our normal, boring lives where these issues are once again seen from our couch or in passing. We are left to process everything we saw, smelled, and heard and make sense out of all the craziness in our once "normal" but now abnormal world. People are talking about #FirstWorldProblems while never having seen the things we have. Never dealt with what we had to deal with. Never forced to thrive in ways we had to thrive. For some, the closest they have been to seeing a disease take a family member is during a game of Oregon Trail. We, as veterans, find ourselves unable to make sense of this all.
PTSD is one of those things the medical community finds hard to explain. Why is it that two people can go through the same event but both come out of it differently. Is it from a lack of exposure to real world problems? How can we best live and raise the next generation to better understand the world outside of their well manicured lawns and big TVs and iPads?
Earlier today, I was talking with a friend of mine and we started to discuss the subject of PTSD. During this conversation, this friend of mine, Casey, shared with me her personal view on what could be a leading cause for the development of PTSD in some people. She said the following:
"It's my personal opinion that the prevalence of PTSD is in part due to a lack of problem solving skills in every day life and a lack of proper coping mechanisms. People don't deal with true 'hardships' in life anymore. The idea of a horrible day is when you get a flat tire or something. People used to lose some of their children and people died from things like pneumonia all the time."
After seeing this, I stopped and went through it again. And I found what she said to be pretty fair and thought provoking. Have we, as country, lost touch with "real problems"? You see #FirstWorldProblems used to describe issues that people are facing, normally as a joke. Does this make us mentally weaker and make it harder to deal with some of the world's true hardships? While death is an everyday occurrence, the way in which it is seen in combat is unlike anything most people will ever see. War is truly humanity at its worse. Hunger, disease, poverty, are seen everyday but for the majority of us, we rarely have to deal with it directly. It is a 30 second commercial on TV or one person standing on the side of the road with a cardboard sign. Then, we are thrown into combat where we are forced to face such things. We are asked to not just deal it, but to thrive in it.
Then following our 12, 16, 18 months in combat, we are returned to our normal, boring lives where these issues are once again seen from our couch or in passing. We are left to process everything we saw, smelled, and heard and make sense out of all the craziness in our once "normal" but now abnormal world. People are talking about #FirstWorldProblems while never having seen the things we have. Never dealt with what we had to deal with. Never forced to thrive in ways we had to thrive. For some, the closest they have been to seeing a disease take a family member is during a game of Oregon Trail. We, as veterans, find ourselves unable to make sense of this all.
PTSD is one of those things the medical community finds hard to explain. Why is it that two people can go through the same event but both come out of it differently. Is it from a lack of exposure to real world problems? How can we best live and raise the next generation to better understand the world outside of their well manicured lawns and big TVs and iPads?
Command Post
PTSD
Mental Health
Military Life
Combat
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 19
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Unfortunately it is seen as a weakness, yes, and civilians attempt to play on it because it seems as if it's amusing to them, to see someone suffering from this affliction of PTSD as pushing their buttons so as to activate Bruce Banner's "Incredible Hulk." These people are truly the sick ones, the civilians that provoke someone troubled with this affliction, because they want to see the capabilities of violence and rage within the individual suffering from PTSD. Yes, I believe if they made military service mandatory for at least 3 years, or if these civilians seen 1/3rd of what we have witnessed overseas, then it would be treated differently. Now War is a video game, and "cool" to these newer generations. They would be the ones shell-shocked if they seen firsthand what WAR truly is.
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Solid thoughts. I think there is definitely some merit to this line of reasoning. When 911 happened I heard so many news people and others say, "this is unprecedented". Yeah in the US maybe, but tell that to the Somalians, Kenyans, Irish, Philippinos, Lebanese, Isrealis, and the list could go on. We have been blessed to not experience war on our soil for over 150 years; and to some extent as a culture we glorify it. I personally glorify the commitment of those that have served, but make no mistake, there is nothing glorious about war. So we as a people are generally unprepared for the ravages of human suffering and atrocities against humanity that are concomitant with war and once engaged they become a necessary part of any combatants survival.
Simply put, don't judge a someone that is doing everything they can to make sure they, and those with them, survive another day of mortal combat. I would say that few in this country understand the true meaning of that word "mortal" when they think about war, few have lived in constant purposeful mortal danger...not a bad neighborhood, but a place where there are people that are strategizing every minute of every day on ways to kill you. We say war is hell, well we haven't really been there yet, but the edge of conflict in war is probably as close as it gets here on earth. And it's not a surprise that it's hard to come back and "be normal" when you've been as close to the edge of hell as you can get in this life and then you come back to a place that thinks normal is losing it because you lost your cellular connection, or someone took your parking place.
Simply put, don't judge a someone that is doing everything they can to make sure they, and those with them, survive another day of mortal combat. I would say that few in this country understand the true meaning of that word "mortal" when they think about war, few have lived in constant purposeful mortal danger...not a bad neighborhood, but a place where there are people that are strategizing every minute of every day on ways to kill you. We say war is hell, well we haven't really been there yet, but the edge of conflict in war is probably as close as it gets here on earth. And it's not a surprise that it's hard to come back and "be normal" when you've been as close to the edge of hell as you can get in this life and then you come back to a place that thinks normal is losing it because you lost your cellular connection, or someone took your parking place.
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There are far more people in this country dealing with aspects of PTSD than just military veterans. For instance, most first responders; Police, Fire and EMS that have been on the job for any significant period of time have been subjected to horrible scenarios that humanity has thrown at their feet. The family members and victims who have suffered violent crimes perpetrated against them or their loved ones just to name a few. I agree with the author's friend who stated that coping mechanisms are what give some the ability to be less affected by an experience and I feel that this concept is the key to treating those that are suffering today. By fostering supportive peer networks, strengthening the injured to stability so that on-going counseling can help establish effective coping mechanisms in individuals that will allow them to return to some level of normalcy without struggling through their anxiety alone we could help others overcome the demons that dwell in thse dark memories and experiences.
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Something I wrote for work a while back... https://www.hillandponton.com/why-some-vets-develop-ptsd-others-dont/
Why Some Vets Develop PTSD, and Others Don’t - Hill & Ponton, P.A.
So, what makes some veterans suffer from severe PTSD from seemingly less traumatic incidents, while others are seemingly unaffected by the horrors of war? The answer is still unclear, but modern research has provided us with some answers.
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I don't discount the concept you bring up as i feel it is a contributing factor for some..
However
PTSD is not a new phenomenon, it has existed under other names since war began.
If you except that "Shell Shock" or "Combat exhaustion" terms used previously to "name" what we now are calling PTSD are real and like condition to what we are seeing now.. then the premise of ""It's my personal opinion that the prevalence of PTSD is in part due to a lack of problem solving skills in everyday life and a lack of proper coping mechanisms. People don't deal with true 'hardships' in life anymore"
falls on its face.. because "Shell Shock" or "Combat exhaustion" were commonplace at a time in history that "People used to lose some of their children and people died from things like pneumonia all the time."
However
PTSD is not a new phenomenon, it has existed under other names since war began.
If you except that "Shell Shock" or "Combat exhaustion" terms used previously to "name" what we now are calling PTSD are real and like condition to what we are seeing now.. then the premise of ""It's my personal opinion that the prevalence of PTSD is in part due to a lack of problem solving skills in everyday life and a lack of proper coping mechanisms. People don't deal with true 'hardships' in life anymore"
falls on its face.. because "Shell Shock" or "Combat exhaustion" were commonplace at a time in history that "People used to lose some of their children and people died from things like pneumonia all the time."
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I wish I had the answer to raising kids that are resilient to life's struggles. Although I didn't get PTS while in the military I now have some flashbacks from my 24 years as a Corrections Officer. Responding to offender fights, slashings, murders, and staff assaults have taken their tole. I have been able to process through most of the trauma. It's my kids I don't know how to help because of how the different personalities handle the stress.
My oldest a police officer of 4 years, responding to day to day work related crisis has PTS. My second son, an 8 year active Marine, is silent about his duty in the middle east. But has made enough side comments to let me know he deals with his own demons.
What has been said makes sense, raising our kids to have better, have a longer child hood, have it easier has left them unprepared for the hardships of service. I would not have changed doing for our kids what we have. Except we could have exposed them to seeing hardships of others. Then how to process and help.
I guess we spared them to much..
My oldest a police officer of 4 years, responding to day to day work related crisis has PTS. My second son, an 8 year active Marine, is silent about his duty in the middle east. But has made enough side comments to let me know he deals with his own demons.
What has been said makes sense, raising our kids to have better, have a longer child hood, have it easier has left them unprepared for the hardships of service. I would not have changed doing for our kids what we have. Except we could have exposed them to seeing hardships of others. Then how to process and help.
I guess we spared them to much..
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When I was finishing my BA in Psychology, one of my final papers was on PTSD. Although I do have it on my record, it is more anxiety than anything else. The thing I have found most interesting in its rapid occurrence is the broad spectrum of individuals affected. For instance, the memories that haunted me for the longest times eventually faded and I dealt with them. However, I have friends who went through the same exact events and have not recovered. I do think that my past experiences before the military helped me to deal with a lot of the stress and crazy situations that I faced while serving. I think the problem lies in coping mechanisms. If you do not have a healthy way to deal with the issues, then they will only get worse and eventually consume you. With that said, I have also met some very strong men who have been devastated by this "agent orange" of our generation. The severity of the experience, as well as the own individuals resilience have a lot to do with the recovery process. I find PTSD strangely fascinating and I hope in the future to be able to help our servicemen and woman fight this.
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As you stated 'war is humanity at its worse' - I agree 'war is poison for the soul' and I think to some degree PTSD is a natural adverse reaction to the exposure of the violence and stress experienced in war. The abnormal stress levels experienced in war that trigger PTSD could be a viewed as a form of a psychological 'inoculation' that is designed to weed out such 'bad' behavior and acts as a protective mechanism for us. While mentally we can override our fears and still wage war there may be a much deeper unseen biological affects on the body that may help to explain why soldier A is not affected the same as soldier B. Natural selection and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) may be the culprit. I know the eyes just starting to glaze over but bare with me. Telomeres are involved in maintaining genomic stability and regulating cellular proliferation - more or less they help protect our DNA when our cells split. Stress has been shown to shorten the telomer length and in this case size does matter. The longer your telomeres you are more likely to be a healthier individual. A good deal of research has proven a correlation between telomere length and health and these little DNA end caps may even contribute to having a pessimistic outlook. So our individual biology may be just one of many determinants that seal our fate and likelihood of being effected by PTSD.
As to the civilian world understanding the human conditions of combat I don't this bridge will ever fully be crossed. Kind of like explaining the smell of the color 9. Not sure if the hipster bitching about Starbucks not having gluten free muffins is ever going to have any desire to make the trip over that bridge - if so they will more than likely be part of the 1% that signed up.
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/transgenerational-effects-of-ptsd-or-traumatic-stress-do-telomeres-reach-across-the-generations-2167- [login to see] .php?aid=30791
As to the civilian world understanding the human conditions of combat I don't this bridge will ever fully be crossed. Kind of like explaining the smell of the color 9. Not sure if the hipster bitching about Starbucks not having gluten free muffins is ever going to have any desire to make the trip over that bridge - if so they will more than likely be part of the 1% that signed up.
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/transgenerational-effects-of-ptsd-or-traumatic-stress-do-telomeres-reach-across-the-generations-2167- [login to see] .php?aid=30791
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