PTSD name change pushed by more

PTSD name change pushed by more
March 11, 2011 posted by Chaplain Kathie
They face bullets and bombs, watch friends die, risk their lives everyday for a year at a time, endure no sleep, lousy food when they get to eat, spend their days worrying about what is going on where they are at the same time they worry about what is going on back home, yet some experts think they are so “thin skinned” changing a word will get them to go for help. Amazing.

MILITARY:
Taking the ‘disorder’ out of post-war stress
By Rick Rogers
For the North County Times
Posted: Friday, March 11, 2011
Soldier’s heart, shell shock, war neurosis, combat fatigue —- and now, especially for the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, post traumatic stress disorder.
Through the ages all have denoted the deleterious affects of combat on mental health that, depending on the numbers you believe, afflicts 15 to 40 percent of all combat veterans.
Whatever the name, those affected by it typically experience intrusive thoughts, intense startle responses and often attendant depression and self-medication.
The million-dollar question is, how can more troops be prodded toward seeking help?
Some in the veteran community suggest a marketing makeover. Specifically, dropping the “D” for “disorder” from PTSD nomenclature to lower the stigma quotient.
“When you tell anybody they have a disorder, they look at it as an emotional weakness of some sort,” said Bill Rider, president and co-founder of the Oceanside-based American Combat Veterans of War. “It is not a disorder.”
ACVOW counsels and debriefs Camp Pendleton Marines and sailors returning from war. Its office on the Marine base has been a fixture for years.
“It certainly is something that is going to happen to anybody who sees any amount of combat: exchanging fire with the enemy; your friends dying; you killing people, the enemy. It is going to happen,” explained Rider, who fought at Khe Sahn and has admitted to having combat stress himself.

The last decade? The term was used way back in 1978 and addressed Vietnam veterans but “experts” seem to think this is all related to Iraq and Afghanistan. The DAV commissioned a study, The Etiology of Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorders by Jim Goodwin Psy.D. In it he clearly said that they already knew of 500,000 Vietnam veterans with PTSD. Why do so many people want to act as if this is all new?

The best way to get veterans into the help they need is to get them to understand this attacked them and it wasn’t caused by them. Next, make damn sure when they want to get help, it is waiting for them and not making them wait for it. Make sure they don’t have to have more stress piled on top of their shoulders when they cannot work and can’t pay their bills because their claim is tied up. Changing the term has not worked since the beginning of this country and a word alone will not help them.

This part is the most troubling of all.

“Disorder” needs striking from PTSD, because only a sociopath could avoid post-traumatic stress after combat. If its normal, how can it be a disorder?

read more here
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/11/ptsd-name-change-pushed-by-more/