With time and treatment, PTSD sufferers often recover?

With time and treatment, PTSD sufferers often recover
Sunday, November 11, 2007
By DEAN BAKER, Columbian staff writer

Most people recover from post-traumatic stress disorder, but first they are likely to suffer acute anxiety, fear and anger for months or years, says Jim Sardo, the psychologist in charge of the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Clinics in Portland and Vancouver.

Trauma victims frequently suffer temporary psychological wounds, but only a few wind up like Christopher Paul Partridge, 25, of Vancouver, Sardo said. Partridge is accused of pulling out a pistol and shooting at a driver who cut off his car on the highway.

"We don't want to pathologize an entire population," said Sardo, a psychologist who directs post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse programs at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The staff includes nine psychologists, counselors and social workers specializing in PTSD and working in both Portland and Vancouver.

The staff helps vets face issues from nightmares to cognitive processing as they beat back war-zone symptoms and learn to function well again in civilian society.

"A huge number of folks come back from combat fairly symptomatic, but we expect about 85 percent to recover," Sardo said. "About 1,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans received help from the Portland VA for PTSD this past year," he said.
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One of my brothers had a degree in psychology and social work. He worked with getting kids out of the welfare system and into higher learning. A lot of the time he spent counseling kids from the Boston area. He was pretty good at his job, but before he died, we hardly spoke anymore, because he refused to understand how an adult can experience PTSD from trauma, but could understand how a kid can develop it from crime. His idea was that education and environment played the true role with PTSD. Even with a brother-in-law diagnosed and treated for PTSD, he would not open his mind enough to learn anything about it. This article sounds more of the same line of thinking.

It is exasperating how professionals can say that people are "cured" from PTSD as if they "get over it" when there are in fact very few studies even suggesting such a thing. There are various stages of PTSD, just as there are various stages of any illness. There are different levels of it. What is never legitimately argued is the result of not treating PTSD with therapy and medication. True PTSD does not "go away" on its own. It only gets worse. Shock can "wear" off but trauma is a wound that does not heal itself "with time" unaided. Every time I read an "expert" who should know better even suggesting such a thing, I want to scream.

When my brother passed away it was a shock. He was only 42. There is a vast difference between being in a traumatic situation and being wounded by it. I have no idea where this "85 percent" will recover from PTSD came from. Sardo gave no information on where the "studies" came from on anything he had to say. After reading everything I can get my hands on for 25 years, there has been very little claimed along these lines. Believe me that if anyone wanted hope, it was me searching everything and anything to find some hope that my husband would be healed, returned to the way he was when PTSD was mild for him to endure. What I have found is treatment stops it from getting worse and many do get better. Recover from it, has not been the case in anything I've read. They can live a life again instead of just being alive.

Probabilities are that they will heal but the possibility of full recovery is a pipe dream. The sooner they get into treatment, the lesser the extent of the wound. Healing as soon as possible works best no matter what the wound is. Prolonging treatment, waiting to "get over it" or for it to "wear off" is one of the most dangerous things a "professional" can ever claim. I'm sure the "experts" like Sardo would disagree with me, but then that is what they get paid for. I have the luxury of reading what they all say and learning from them. Just like Sally Satel who is under the impression that PTSD is not real in most cases. Unfortunately there are too many getting attention like them but the vast majority of the psychologist and psychiatrist and clinicians are of better minds. Anything you read when trying to figure out what PTSD is needs to be taken into account and then weighed against the majority of opinions along with stated studies, experience and yes, even anecdotal testimony.

If you find they seem to be offering false hope that someone you love will get over it, you need to keep in mind that they are in the minority. Just as my brother was chastised by his own boss for dismissing what PTSD was putting my family through, people like Sardo need to be equally challenged by others with a stronger backgrounds, experiences and understanding of what PTSD actually is.