News Can Ptsd Be Linked To Violence?

[Friday]

Gonna be choppy. Apologies.

Ctd. from above : PT 1
PTSD where people haven't been conditioned to violence, still acting violently.

- Self harm
- Suicidal ideation / impulse / acts
- Violent panic attacks (screaming, lashing out, breaking things... Violence undirected, uncontrolled)

This last one's kinda borderline, in that it's not physically assaulting someone (like assaulting yourself in self harm, or someone else in a panic attack)... But I think it's the closest to the killing rage I get into sometimes. It acts the same. Killing calm closer to self-harm, though. Anyhow:

- Violent language. Deliberately attempting to wound others, to make them feel their pain & the belief that another person hurting will make them feel better... Just like I know a physical fight will make me "feel better". And if the other person is non-plussed? Or doesn't show enough horror/pain/sympathy... They become enraged. Sometimes enough to kick it up to physical violence (against objects, other people, or themselves), sometimes the verbal stuff gets worse. Lashing out again and again demanding a reaction. Or threatening / emotional blackmail (suicide, usually, but all manner of very bad things). Using someone as a verbal / emotional punching bag.

 

[Friday]

Originally what sprang to mind was the above, after the fact, and this here below. I don't know if it would count in PTSD-land, so much as acute trauma. So I split it up.

Part 2

1) In disaster response, the biggest danger we faced wasn't the disaster itself, but were the people we were trying to rescue. They were in survival mode... And people who would never hurt a fly? You'd better believe were fighting us as if we were trying to kill them. Often at the drop of a hat. Fine one moment, trying to claw your eyes out the next. A nun bit me. And she was the hardest in flight-mode. Had a helluva time coaxing her out. Apologized for hours and hours afterward. Didn't even squish spiders. She was absolutely horrified. Never thought she would ever hurt a person in a million years.

People in fight response were usually pretty "easy". You calm them down, and stay back, and they clear their heads pretty fast. And as long as nothing startles them...Good to go. Flight response people? Yeesh. Come running to you to save them, clobber you, apologize, clobber you again. Run away. Coax them out. Clobbered all over again. I'm more inclined to throw restraints (or jab them with knock out juice) on runners than anyone else, because they're so damn unpredictable. And they will kill people, and not even notice, in their frantic need to get away. Nothing and no one is real to them. They're not doing it on purpose. But a wake of violence trails them, if you don't lock them down where they can't hurt anyone. Fast.

So that's clearly acute trauma response, with violence on both sides... But

2) I have limited exposure to people with PTSD outside of an acute setting that's not military (mostly sitting through panic attacks with rape victims a year or two out)... So this could be where I'm dead wrong. In that limited exposure... I've noticed the same trend as I found in natural disasters. When people kick into survival mode? Look out! People accustomed to anger & physical violence? Have leashes. At least some degree of control. Usually. They're used to their anger, they're used to wanting/needing to lash out, and have coping mechanisms in place to control it. Even if they've never gotten further than a fist fight, much less gotten comfortable with death & violence, they're still moderately comfortable with restraint & violence. People who abhor violence against others (even if they hurt themselves a lot), the "would never" people? Don't. They haven't spent ages learning to control their temper, or the urge to fight. They prefer to run/hide. But cornered animals bite. So when they get pushed too far? Lash out. And do so reeeeeally wildly.

I feel safest with combat vets & similar; they know what they're capable of. Even if they're the most dangerous, because limits are higher. Trained to kill. Have killed. Can kill again. Choose not to. That conditioning we all go through is always, always, always coupled with obeying orders. Not doing the things we want to do, no matter how much we want to do it. Self control. Discipline. Big problem, PTSD eats self control & discipline.

Least safe around pacifists. They don't know what they're capable of. So they don't take measures to protect people around them from themselves. And they don't catch themselves. Light comes on for a moment? They don't wrestle their self control back. They've got no self control. Someone else has to stop them.

The whole "Who is more dangerous, the white belt or the black belt? The white belt."

***

Sorry for the length. & I don't know how accurate any of this is, just my observations, and those are clearly both biased & limited. The links I'm making might be pure BS.

 

[scout86]

@FridayJones , THAT was kind of the point I was trying to make. That those impulses are THERE, in everyone, but part of PTSD is that that particular wiring is exactly what's messed up so it seems pretty obvious that there'd be potential consequences. And maybe that metaphorical "leash" is what kept me from throwing the hammer. It was very much a "Wait! You can't really do that!" moment.

Big problem, PTSD eats self control & discipline.

Yes! And, my concern, for myself, is the leash will hold for awhile, but I'm not so sure it can't ever break. (You got bit by a nun???)

 

[Friday]

@FridayJones. (You got bit by a nun???)

Momentary thread jack ;) I know! Right??? I whip out that story and the scar whenever my catholic friends start bring up "whose is bigger" nun & ruler stories! It's on my elbow, of all places. She bit clean through the skin, little dime sized scar. I forget about it until I tan, and it doesn't, or the catholic-school-horror-stories start kicking into gear at a party. Got infected like crazy. Human mouth is filthy. Lol. The jokes really just kinda keep flowing (body of anti-Christ, nun with a dirty mouth, elbowing your way intro heaven Friday? Tsk. Tsk.). She really was such a very sweet, kindly, little old lady. Later. Not then. Survival mode.

 

[scout86]

You got bit by a nun AND she broke the skin? Wow! Gives a new meaning to "religious extremism"!

 

[Ronin]

I feel so bad for laughing.
Like dammit, talking about topical things, that was just discussing and close to home enough to be comfortable, this makes me actively feel baad. Goddamn nun.

 

[Sighs]

@Anarchy - you may be thinking of Lt Col Dave Grossman - wrote a book on the psychology of killing. Brief summary as I understood it - in the past they used red and white round targets - produced good shots but shooting at people turns out to be a little different - fewer than expected shot to kill - being shot at and even seeing mates killed not enough to make some of them shoot. So - training changed to human shaped targets - conditioning. Then modern simulators - shooting moving life like humans. Then we turned those same simulators into computer games and sold them cheap to teenagers who had not undergone the psych testing of adult soldiers. Now we wonder why our society is so violent.

I have a little experience with this as I shoot a compound bow. Shooting line or round targets is somehow very different to shooting photos of animals, which is different again to shooting 3D rubber animals which is different again to shooting an actual animal. Very hard to get the heart rate down and breathe the first time you draw on an animal rather than a target.

 

[Deleted member 28740]

How many are violent to them selves and also to others? My harming is to self, not others, anger aside.

 

[Ronin]

I'm not all that sure about 'violent'... intensely protective/defensive/not afraid of confrontations where I believe it's needed to step in, yes. But it's not the same as picking fights, going after people for the sake of it, first responses being automatic responses and not regretting them later/not listening to the voice of regret, I'm tempted to answer with simple 'no'.

Live and let live works better.

A lot of people in my life believed all the argumentative I do is 'violent', but then, I don't do argumentative when I hate the person, almost never. I do argumentative when I care, and care deeply; the rest, I can't give a damn for / would outright sabotage in some ways that aren't as open as to be upfront.

To myself is a separate question, one I'm not in a mental space to answer. I reduced a lot of ways I SI'd in in the past years. Embracing currently feels as a form of fight on itself though. And present enemies? I don't tend to talk.

 

[Tanishq]

PTSD by itself?

For me, this is very tricky question to answer. I am bookmarking this and will respond later when I am done with thinking and understanding.

 

[Deleted member 28986]

Violent panic attacks (screaming, lashing out, breaking things... Violence undirected, uncontrolled)

I have non-combat PTSD and I relate. I have behaved somewhat violently in the past, especially with causing damage to physical things, but sometimes scaring or threatening people, too. I don't like to attribute it to PTSD—that would be unfair to non-violent sufferers—but I don't think I would have done them without PTSD. It's really confusing. Sometimes I look at these events as flashbacks.

 

[intothelight]

Violence is not always something that is expressed outwardly. If one's definition of violence includes self-destructive behaviors, then PTSD has a strong correlation.