PTSD and a hamster in every think tank

One day while driving back from a memorial service, my check engine light went on. Not being able to afford any repair bills, I freaked out. It was a long ride so I checked the time thinking I could just pull into KIA and get it checked out. It was too late and I was told I would have to bring it in in the next morning. My husband got up and took it in. A while later he called to say they had to do a diagnostic check because they couldn't see anything wrong. There just didn't seem to be any reason for the issue. A half hour later, he came home with this stuffed hamster. He handed it to me laughing and told me it was to remind me of how to not do something really stupid again because it cost us $90 bucks to discover I hadn't put the gas cap on tight enough.

The little gadget in my gas tank was always there but I didn't know it.

That is what is happening with PTSD right now. There seems to be a lot of people driving the conversation on PTSD without a clue of what has been there all the time. Just because they suddenly discovered it, doesn't mean it just showed up.

When I read what a reporter has to say about PTSD and leaves us with the impression they think PTSD is new, I usually give them a pass since it really isn't there job to know the history of PTSD. Sure it would be good if they had some basic knowledge, did some homework to know what questions to ask but they are not as troublesome as when "professionals" get it wrong.

If there is an article on PTSD, I am usually reading it even though I may decide it is not worth posting. Reading We live in the age of trauma on Salon this morning was one of those times when to my horror I was screaming OH MY GOD so loudly that I woke up neighborhood. First read about the guy I will be talking about.

Charles Barber is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale Medical School and author, most recently, of "Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation." He is director of The Connection Institute for Innovative Practice, dedicated to studying the narratives of people recovering from mental illness.

Now take a look at this picture. Notice the date and what was happening in 1978.

See the words, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER?

Now read what he wrote.

Yes, PTSD is the reigning diagnosis of the day. But unlike other diagnoses in other eras, there is no clear drug and no definitive way of treating PTSD. By its very nature, the whole business is messy and complicated. But what is clear is that the long-term toll of trauma, both psychological and financial, is stunning. According to Harvard’s Linda Bilmes, “The peak year for paying disability compensation to World War I veterans was in 1969 – more than 50 years after Armistice. The largest expenditures for World War II veterans were in the mid 1980s.” Payments to Vietnam veterans have not yet reached their highest point. Trauma transpires on a near endless battlefield.

The current prevalence of “PTSD” is striking, particularly because it did not exist as a diagnosis until 1980. There were, of course, earlier terms to describe the psychological aftershocks of war trauma — in the Civil War, the wonderfully evocative term “Soldier’s Heart” was used; during the World Wars, “shell shock”; in the 1950s, “gross stress reaction”; in the 1970s, “post-Vietnam syndrome.” Somewhere along the way there was also “going postal.” But it was not until 1980 that the American Psychiatric Association, largely as a result of lobbying from Vietnam veterans, codified PTSD as a formal diagnosis.

Just because the "experts" he noticed had said that it was not called PTSD until the "mid 80's" that does not mean he is right. I was at the library in 1982 reading what experts had to say about PTSD. In 1984 Point Man International Ministries was helping veterans with PTSD and their families. All of this was known long before many knew about what was already being done.

At least he got the part about Vietnam veterans pushing for it to be treated. Their efforts led to psychologist and crisis intervention teams. When today's experts fail to acknowledge what was already being done and when it was being done, it leaves a huge vapor leak almost as if there is an excuse to be making stupid mistakes now. If we pretend that PTSD is something even close to new it is like pretending none of the research ever happened.

There is a clear way of treating it and it involves the whole person. Their mind, body and spirit. Some need medications but some do not. Some of them are helped better by one approach to teaching their body how to calm down again but someone else needs to do it another way. All of them need to work on their spiritual side but again, depending on their beliefs, there needs to be a variety of avenues for them.

Giving medications alone does not help them heal. They only get numb. Until the "professionals" plug into diagnostics with true knowledge and understanding they will never be able to fix the problem. All of them need a hamster to remind them to always look for what has been there even though they just didn't see it.