Testing to prevent PTSD

Where do I start on this one? It is obvious that Sgt. Major Devaney gave this a lot of thought and is very smart. The problem is he seems to have done too much studying of books and not enough studying of people.

Combat PTSD is not as much of a mystery as it is a misery. They can prevent PTSD in a lot of cases but that can only be accomplished by responding to the survivors right after "it" happens. They haven't been able to do that because while the commanders understand the nature of warfare they do not understand the nature of humans.

Testing to prevent PTSD
Avoiding people and increased anxiety are signs of PTSD.
Author: SgtMaj David K. Devaney

I believe many cases of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be prevented in combat troops through proper education. According to the American Psychiatric Association, PTSD is a severe anxiety reaction to a traumatic event, such as rape or war, in which individuals repeatedly relive the event, avoid stimuli associated with the trauma, and experience symptoms such as difficulty sleeping and irritability.

1 Typically the symptoms develop shortly after the event, but also could take years to develop. The duration for symptoms is at least 1 month for this diagnosis. Symptoms include reexperiencing the trauma through nightmares, obsessive thoughts, and flashbacks. There is an avoidance component as well, where the individual avoids situations, people, and/or objects that remind him of the traumatic event. For many people there is increased general anxiety, possibly with a heightened startle response. According to D. Grossman, for many people diagnosed with PTSD, it is like being told they have cancer; they assume it is fatal.

2 PTSD is more like being overweight.

3 Some people are just a couple of pounds overweight and they can use self-aid to get their weight under control. Other people are 20 to 30 pounds overweight and will need buddy aid and/or professional assistance. But full-blown PTSD is like being 50 to 100 pounds overweight, and without professional assistance they will likely have much trouble surviving. Almost all combat troops will have some form of PTSD or combat stress after continuous combat, but most of them will be fine.
Precombat education in the form of lectures about the psychological and physiological effects of combat will prevent much combat stress because it teaches warriors about the phenomena found in combat. Much self-induced stress comes from a lack of education, such as people being raised hearing “thou shall not kill.”

4 According to The Marines’ Bible the commandment should have been written, “thou shall not murder.”

5 The point is there is a big difference between murder, which is unjustifiable killing, and justifiably killing an enemy combatant. When someone is trying to kill you or those you are sworn to protect, you are justified in killing them first.
read more here

While it is not always possible emotional debriefing works when it is done correctly. Having a safe place to talk about what happened brings the whole warrior into the "now" and begins the process of leaving the event behind them. If it is not done, then that event takes hold. Changes happen in all traumatic events. Every part of the survivor is reacting to it. Leaving them psychologically where it happened ends up freezing the end in their minds.

I had a National Guardsman contact me after two suicide attempts. He was on patrol in Iraq when a car approached them at a high rate of speed. The end result was he had to open fire and killed everyone in the car. It was a family.

The image of the parents and kids lying dead in the car haunted him. He had kids of his own back home. He couldn't let that image go and it took over his whole life.

Once we had established mutual trust and he knew his thoughts were safe to relate, he trusted me enough to be able to "watch" the whole event. Long story short, he had forgotten everything he tried to do to prevent what happened.

He thought he had become evil but when he was able to understand what happened, why it happened and what his intent was, he was able to forgive himself and he started to heal.

The above article points out the spiritual aspect of PTSD. It is a spiritual wound and must be addressed spiritually, not pacified by religious slogans.

It cannot be medicated away. Medications numb so that therapy has a chance to work but if that is the only treatment they receive, then all it does is puts PTSD to sleep along with every other good emotion.

The whole veteran must be treated in order to really heal. They have to relearn how to calm down their bodies as much as they have to calm down their thoughts. If this is all done soon after the traumatic event, they have a better outcome. If it is allowed to go on for years, then they face a lifetime of medical intervention.

As Vietnam veterans have proven it is never too late to get help to heal even for them, but had they been treated soon after they came home properly, it would have prevented a lifetime of suffering and most of what they lived with afterwards could have been bypassed.