Has PTSD evolved or have we?

by Chaplain Kathie

The following is a good article but it implies that PTSD has evolved instead of the fact we have evolved regarding knowledge, no longer dismissing what traumatic events can do to humans. If you go back in the historical records of battles throughout time, you will discover exactly how horrific warfare was and what it did to the warriors. Many accounts are within the Bible itself. Reading the words in most books of the Bible along with the discarded books eliminated from what we read today, you can find the trauma of war deeply changed the participants. David's accounts are one of many. Judges and Kings addresses warfare. When Joshua took Jericho, everyone was slaughtered by hand to hand combat. As for noise, screams would have filled every ear as the sound of the swords slashed thru skin and bones. Body parts and heads went flying thru the air. Ancient weaponry flung fire and burning oils onto the enemy forces on both sides. In many cases helpless captives were slaughtered after the battles were over.

In ancient times, the suffering of the warriors was treated as a judgment of God and hidden from others so they would not be ostracized. Even the ancients had ways of "healing" the warrior with cleansing rituals, spending time away from home to "purify" the warrior. Ancient Native Americans had sweat lodges and cleansing ceremonies as well.

When you read the accounts of the Spartans, the females, also trained in warfare to protect the homeland as the males were doing battles away, sent their sons with the warning "come back with your shield as a hero or carried on it" in other words, come back with your honor or dead. No one wanted to hear complaining of what combat did to them even though they were just as deeply wounded as the modern soldiers are today. The wounded were regarded as cowards.

This attitude was carried over into our own Revolutionary and Civil War where affected soldiers were shot for being cowards instead of treated as a casualty of war. It is not that the wound we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder did not exist in history. It's more the fact we did not know what it was.

With science and technology, there is long distance warfare coupled with close range. The carnage remains. The death and destruction remains. Civilians are still killed in the process including children, women and old men. Comrades still lay dead on the battlefield and they have to be recovered. The wounded still have to be transported. The trauma wounded still return home to family and friends with a questionable futures as PTSD infects every part of their lives, yet science has also provided us with a better understanding of what makes humans work.

People tend to forget that up until Vietnam, PTSD wounded, were virtually ignored. After WWII, the "shell shocked" were sent to live on farms to be taken care of or sent to mental intuitions. The functionally shell shocked were left to fend for themselves. Vietnam veterans came home, much like all other generations but they fought to make sure this wound of war was treated and they were compensated for their wound. With all we know about Vietnam veterans, there is much that is not reported on. The families destroyed by it are not counted. The suicides we discuss today with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were hidden from the public because shame forced the families into silence along with lack of knowledge. The incarcerated Vietnam veterans convicted of crimes that should have been related to PTSD were ignored and justice denied. Homeless veterans walked the streets of cities and towns depending on alcohol and drugs to kill off feelings and cope with the jumping nerves, nightmares and flashbacks.

Because of the Vietnam veterans, we are as far as we are with PTSD. It is not that warfare has evolved. It is that we have evolved because of them. Think of them when Vietnam Veterans day comes again on March 29th and thank them for what they did for all veterans and their families.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder has evolved with war
By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
Posted: 03/24/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT


EL PASO -- During the Civil War, infantrymen who had a difficult time coping with the carnage they witnessed were said to have "soldier's heart."

In World War I, it was "shell shock," and in World War II, it was "battle fatigue."

Although post-traumatic stress disorder finally was diagnosed in Vietnam War veterans, little treatment was provided to them when they first returned.

"They didn't do anything when we came back," said Jeri Elena Mark, who suffers from the disorder.

She served on a Hawk missile crew in a Vietnam War combat zone.

"In 1985, they (Veterans Affairs) started giving me something to control the anxiety," she said of her wartime service.

Mark says she still has night panics, which she calms by checking the backyard and making sure the house alarms are set.

In 1989, Congress directed the VA to create the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder to research the problem.
go here for more
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_11980973?source=most_emailed

Military puts focus on epidemic of suicides
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — In Maj. Thomas Jarrett's stress management class surrounded by concrete blast walls, American troops are urged not to accept post-traumatic stress disorder as an inevitable consequence of war.

Instead, Jarrett tells them to strive for "post-traumatic growth."

During a 90-minute presentation entitled "Warrior Resilience and Thriving," Jarrett, a former corporate coach, offers this and other unconventional tips on how troops can stay mentally healthy once they return home. He quotes Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Paradise Lost author John Milton and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, among others.

Walking through the crowd of young GIs in the makeshift classroom, Jarrett urges them to fight their "internal insurgents."

The overriding theme of the course: Troops have the power to determine how they react to the horrors they may experience in Iraq. They can either accept them as traumatizing events, or transform them into learning — even empowering — experiences.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-03-24-iraqsuicides_N.htm

The problem is too many thinking they are helping are causing more damage. When you tell warriors they can "train" themselves to overcome the wound of PTSD, you are telling them they are to blame when they cannot. This is not a wound of the mind,although it's easier to explain that way, but a wound to the soul, the heart of the warrior. The vast majority of veterans I've been in contact with during 27 years, along with my own husband, are sensitive humans. Courage often comes with sensitivity in their core. It is was causes them to act on behalf of others, putting themselves aside for the sake of someone else.

The warriors have within them the same foundation, or core, as people going into law enforcement. They have within them the ability to take a life in order to save a life. This they are prepared to do, trained to do, but too often when there have been one too many traumatic events, they are also wounded.

The National Guards have within their core the same foundation as the people entering into fire departments and emergency responders. That is the ability to risk their lives for the sake of saving someone else. This is one of the biggest factors in the National Guards and Reservists rates of PTSD coming in higher than the military forces. It is also one of the reasons the military forces are now presenting in at higher rates every year. Each redeployment increases the risk of PTSD striking by 50%. Again, one too many traumatic events will produce more and more PTSD wounded.

The military will not understand that there are different types of people any more than they will understand this is not a mental wound that they can train themselves to avoid, but a wound to the foundation of the individual. This is why civilians are also wounded by traumatic events they survive. To ignore the human condition is to keep ignoring what needs to be done for the warriors. If they keep misunderstanding what is at the root of PTSD, they will keep making the same mistakes they have been making for 30 years and we will keep losing them, burying more after war than we do during it.