Reducing The Stigma Of PTSD In Army Culture
by Ron Capps
July 14, 2010
Ron Capps retired from the Foreign Service and the Army Reserve in 2008, after a 25-year career serving in Kosovo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. He now works for a small NGO in Washington D.C. His full essay appeared in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs.
When the phone rang I jumped a little, startled, and nearly shot myself. This would have been ironic because I was holding the pistol in my hand planning to kill myself — but I would have pulled the trigger while it was pointed at my foot rather than my head.
This was in 2005. I was a soldier on active duty. I spent more than 20 years working in places like Kosovo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur. I've seen some bad stuff, and somewhere along the way, my brain stopped working right. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
I remember lying on my cot in my tent in Afghanistan bundled into my sleeping bag, terrified because the dead had come to talk with me. They came every night, wresting me away from a warm, comforting sleep into a series of wretched, tormenting, wide-awake dreams.
On one night, it would be a farmer and his wife burned Bible-black and twisted into hideous shapes who asked, "do you remember us?" Oh, most certainly. On another, 42 men all shot in the back or in the head and left to die in rocky ditch on a frozen January morning. "Why didn't you do more to save us?" they asked. Why, indeed.
The images terrified me mostly because I couldn't stop them from taking control of my mind. I knew I needed help but I didn't ask for it because I thought I would be ridiculed, considered weak and cowardly.
In Army culture, especially in the elite unit filled with rangers and paratroopers in which I served, asking for help was showing weakness. My two Bronze Stars, my tours in Airborne and Special Operations units, none of these would matter. To ask for help would be seen as breaking.
read more here
Reducing The Stigma Of PTSD In Army Culture
by Ron Capps
Courtesy of Ron Capps
Ron Capps spent 25 years in the Foreign Service and the Army Reserve. Like many other soldiers, he suffers from PTSD, but unlike some others he asked for help.
July 14, 2010
Ron Capps retired from the Foreign Service and the Army Reserve in 2008, after a 25-year career serving in Kosovo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. He now works for a small NGO in Washington D.C. His full essay appeared in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs.
When the phone rang I jumped a little, startled, and nearly shot myself. This would have been ironic because I was holding the pistol in my hand planning to kill myself — but I would have pulled the trigger while it was pointed at my foot rather than my head.
This was in 2005. I was a soldier on active duty. I spent more than 20 years working in places like Kosovo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur. I've seen some bad stuff, and somewhere along the way, my brain stopped working right. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
I remember lying on my cot in my tent in Afghanistan bundled into my sleeping bag, terrified because the dead had come to talk with me. They came every night, wresting me away from a warm, comforting sleep into a series of wretched, tormenting, wide-awake dreams.
On one night, it would be a farmer and his wife burned Bible-black and twisted into hideous shapes who asked, "do you remember us?" Oh, most certainly. On another, 42 men all shot in the back or in the head and left to die in rocky ditch on a frozen January morning. "Why didn't you do more to save us?" they asked. Why, indeed.
The images terrified me mostly because I couldn't stop them from taking control of my mind. I knew I needed help but I didn't ask for it because I thought I would be ridiculed, considered weak and cowardly.
In Army culture, especially in the elite unit filled with rangers and paratroopers in which I served, asking for help was showing weakness. My two Bronze Stars, my tours in Airborne and Special Operations units, none of these would matter. To ask for help would be seen as breaking.
read more here
Reducing The Stigma Of PTSD In Army Culture
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