PTSD from a veteran's voice

I Suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Part 1
by James Glaser, Posted December 31, 2007

No veteran wants Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In fact most will fight it for years, and when things really get out of hand, they have to go through the embarrassment of asking the Veterans Administration for help.

If you Google for a definition for PTSD, you find there are 677,000 pages on the subject. Here is one of the first ones I found:

A debilitating condition that often follows a terrifying physical or emotional event causing the person who survived the event to have persistent, frightening thoughts and memories, or flashbacks, of the ordeal. Persons with PTSD often feel chronically, emotionally numb. Once referred to as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue.”
I can remember when I first thought about getting some help with the problems I was having after returning from Vietnam. I was going to Arizona State University under the Vocational Rehabilitation for Disabled Veterans Program, after a tour in the Republic of South Vietnam with the Marines.

Basically, I was okay as far as I was concerned, but I was having nightmares and almost constant thoughts about Vietnam.

So I sought help at the student health center. I wasn’t the first vet they had seen with these problems. They had the answer all ready for me. That would be a big bottle of 10-mg. pills of valium. The pills were nice, and they did take Vietnam off my mind, but they also took everything else with it. Since I was trying to learn something at school, after a really crazy week I flushed the rest of the bottle and decided to just stuff everything into the back of my mind.

Like so many other vets, I stuffed that stuff; and every time it popped back out, I would stuff it in again. Some vets from World War II have been doing that for more than 60 years. The problem is that you can’t keep everything hidden. They might not know what is wrong with you, but your loved ones know that something is terribly wrong, and usually they are the ones who tell you that you need help.

There are lots of places to get help. Many vets used alcohol and others smoked lots of pot or snorted their problems away. In the end, though, most vets go to the VA for help, and that is where “scary” comes into play. First off, it is pretty unanimous that vets with PTSD don’t trust the Veterans Administration.

I still remember my first time at the Minneapolis VA looking for some help. The Nam vets at that time distrusted the VA so much that the building for PTSD was down the road about a mile. You couldn’t even see the VA hospital from there.

That first day was very scary. To begin with, I was totally embarrassed because real Marines wouldn’t need help, or at least that is what I thought.
go here for the rest
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0710e.asp

This has to be one of the best accounts of why Vietnam veterans didn't go for help. Please go there and read it all.

Whenever I read about people thinking veterans will try to get away with claiming PTSD falsely I think about veterans like Glaser. I remember the years of trying to get my husband to go and all the others. It was damn near impossible. It still is for too many,

First they don't want to admit they have a problem, even though they know they do. Then they don't want to hear the words. They don't trust the VA and they don't trust their own mind. Some say that if they ever said what was going on inside of them they would be locked up. Glaser stated it point blank.

To hear that so many in this country see fake PTSD veterans coming from all over the place is really sickening when you know saying you have PTSD is the last thing you ever want to do.

If you know them, what they are like, then you can understand all of this better. Please read what he wrote and then think about it.