Funniest Anger Moment

[anthony]

B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

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1. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions.Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.​

2. Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.​

3. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.​

4. Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event​

5. Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event​

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

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1. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma​

2. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma​

3. Enability to recall an important aspect of the trauma​

4. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities​

5. Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others​

6. Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)​

7. Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)​

D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

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1. Difficulty falling or staying asleep​

2. Irritability or outbursts of anger​

3. Difficulty concentrating​

4. Hypervigilance​

5. Exaggerated startle response​

Above is the DSM IV-TR diagnosis for PTSD, I have removed A, E & F as they are irrelevant, and only the above three clusters are the primary symptom base for PTSD.

If you look at the highlighted criterion above for each cluster, you see that there are several symptoms, yet you only need to meet, one, two or three, depending on which cluster, B, C or D.

So, you could have one person who meets the bare minimum, being:

• B - One symptom from the five
• C - Three symptoms from the seven
• D - Two symptoms from the five

Next person, has completely different symptoms again, from the above example. Now you have two people with PTSD, completely different suffering, not one symptom the same. Then you will have people with unique symptoms, as well as same symptoms that crossover one another, but severity will often be different.

Type of trauma also rates severity. A one-off event, whilst traumatic, does not significantly reprogram the brain, compared to say, years of being within an abusive environment. Even though the felt threat may be real after the event, it is not the same as being within the abusive environment for an extended duration. A person who has been raped, may have what they feel are severe symptoms, then they meet a person who has been in tortured, raped, beaten daily, etc, in a domestic violence or captive beyond their will, and you will see much more severe reactions in that person, as their brain has been completely reprogrammed.

Military training does this, depending on service, as each train differently based on service type. Land forces are typically the worse, because they are face to face contact, so therefor more emphasis is placed on tactical combat in training, than say the Navy with Ship protocols, being sunk, etc. The normal human response is to run from danger, ie. a shot is fired. Land based forces are trained until instinctively they run towards the shot fired. That is completely against the brains normal capacity for self safety, hence any person enduring military training has been reprogrammed to some degree. As we tend to be on land more, those in land forces tend to have more severe reprogramming based on land activities, where a navy person would instinctively react if on a ship, where the land based force would not, thus they would look towards the navy person for the way out and rely on their training.

Any person who endures long durations in a combat zone, ie. years, whether at once or in total, is more likely to fall within the complex trauma range vs. someone who only deployed for a month. Navy personnel often find they don't function well outside of isolated locations if primarily ship based during their employment, as their brain becomes used to being isolated on a ship, so when on land, they don't cope as well. Like putting a soldier in a war zone, then back in society... they don't cope well because their brain adjusted to the war zone, so they feel safer their than society.

Symptoms are diverse between each sufferer, as well as severity. One may sleep like a baby, the next not at all. One may have flashbacks and dissociate, another barely or not at all. PTSD is the same illness, but each person endures uniquely symptom wise, as well as severity. Soldiers will often have heightened anger problems vs. someone who was raped, will have major agoraphobic / being around males (based on female being raped).

 

[No Folded Hands]

Eh, well, more info to digest, and thanks for the post, Anthony. I'm curious as to any thoughts you may have on my own fundamental reactions, considering I was not trained by the military for hand to hand, firearm, etc face-to-face combat. I seem to have many oif those reactions and am myself at something of a loss to explain it. It just seems to fit who I have always been, which in the time and place of my younger years was the "unfeminine" gal who despised makeup and ruffly dresses, ran the woods with her dog, pulled a 55# recurve bow, rode her own motorcycle, flew aircraft, etc, when no or few other women were doing so. But that kind of mindset hardly makes one military trained as for land force engagement!

I found something else in your post very enlightening. Oddly enough, I am one of that group that does run forward into danger without a thought, but only under one specific circumstance. This was the quality that so many people in my initial training group commissioning in as medical offcers displayed that the trainers told us we were literally crazy --and that they liked medical people that way because they could always train us to take care of ourselves, but they could not train us to care enough about any potential patient that we forgot everything but the need to get to and help them. Reading your post suddenly made it clear to me why the kids they had playing wounded kept asking us during breaks if we'd really do the things they saw us do in training, as automatically as they saw us do them. To us, it was normal behavior. To them, it was crazy. I frankly never realized that before. We really were nuts, compared to how normal people think in such a situation.

Oh yes...I will never stop being impressed by the way they trained us to look out for ourselves. It displayed amazing insight into our thought processes, especially as they didn't share them. Most military officers would probably have told us to do it because that was protocol and left it at that. All our trainers did was start reckoning up how many non medical people might die if a medical person in a dangerous situation didn't (for example) put on their own gas mask before running to stick one on a patient. There's the guy who has to help you, so he isn't there to help someone else, and maybe in coming to help you he ends up dead so there's him AND all the other people he might have gotten to if you hadn't been dumb...the people who work on you, so they don,'t work on another...it keeps going. I swear halogen light bulbs suddenly went off over just about every medical head in that tent, and no one that I know of ever forgot the point.

 

[willis williams]

NFH, I'm not sure were you fit but damn you would make any redneck a fine girlfriend. You could even patch them up after the stupid shit we do which is usually after the words watch this. LMAO:p Just teasing. I think that in a way you were combat trained maybe not to kill but it is one hell of a fight to just charge in on most military related injuries. When I agreed to be a combat lifesaver and went to school at first I thaught another ten lbs on the bottom of my ruck and promotion points. Then the medics and a field nurse I think is what she was started teaching and seeing the wounds and burns / chemical warfare that I now took on along with the fighting, disarming mines, and the fun part blowing shit up. It was scarry to think that I now had to stick ivies in, J tubes, learn about clamping arteries, and everything they could cram in our combat forward heads. I passed school with a bunch of bruises in all kind of places learning everywhere you can stick a damn ivy. Never had to use my training in combat thank god but I new I could handle it. But if that wasn't a form of combat training then what is because in a fire fight if one of my team was hit I had to put down my rifle and work. Guess I'm saying maybe it wasn't hand to hand or rifle but I think in a way you were combat trained. You were just trained to fight sucking chest wounds, amputations, burns and on and on. I did use my ivy skills one time a private that would not take a piss test held out for four or so hours half way through the second 1500ml bag of saline he pissed. So my vote that don't count is combat trained for a differant stile of combat with differant tools. Oh and for fun the guys in my class would practice ivies after class because we would be tested under time and pressure so we would chill the saline in the fridg for a bit see how many we could take without having a piss. The cool ones felt good as hell in the georgia heat suprised we didn't get a heart attack. We got all the saline we wanted and cathaters for practice so we would make bets on who could cath thier own arm I got pretty good. Serer is in school to be a med assitant so I volunteer for her test dumby when she missed the first time I said you don't what you are doing she said do it yourself then smartass so I did it was a butterfly cath so it was way to easy but it sure suprised her I had to tell her then that I had done lots of them before. Just a little more fun to go with the teasing at th top. Tex

 

[willis williams]

Sappers are combat engineers who advance with the front-line infantry, and they have fought in every war in American history. That is what it said on google kinda pissed me off because it don't say shit about what it means to be a sapper. Then I realized I shouldn't be looking at that shit anyway I also was looking at footage of the real mogadishu somalia and some of the the movie footage to some realy cool music and told myself the patience it takes to disarm a russian anti tank mine with a mouse trap or a mercury switch or even a magnetic detenator so the infantry can get to the fight is the patience I am going to try and addopt with my PTSD. It will just take time. So I broke the rules and said f*ck the Dr.s and had a couple hard ciders that were in the house and it will be better tommorow.

 

[No Folded Hands]

Fine girlfriend for a redneck eh? Sounds like it's the equivilent of looking out for the rangers, infantry, sappers, and whoever else...:P (just teasing back tex. :) )

I vaguely remember hard cider. Sort of like beer, I think, in alcohol content? Anyway, I hear that about patience. I got a pep talk myself tonight along those lines. Something like whether it's 1, 2, or 10 traumatic things you need to work through, the point is that you can work through them...wwhich I guess is a kind of pep talk for everyone. T'isn't how much time, but that it can be done, hey?

 

[willis williams]

I like the teasing I just made it through my return aniversary with mild upsets. March 28 1994 the presidents deadline for the last americans out I left on the last shipment landed on the 29th or 30th in the middle of the night straight to two weeks debriefing and then two weeks leave and I ain't been right since. Had to do a bit of drinking and crying in the rain but this old airborn sapper made it through so far.

 

[Jeremy Haycox]

This was a couple of weeks ago.....
I was home alone which is sometimes when I am at my worst, since I don't have my wife and kids to help keep me in check. I was cleaning to keep my mind from drifting into unwanted territory, and I went to put something in my kids room, afyer which I tried to close the door, but there were legos in the way. Instead of just bending down and picking up the legos, I got pissed off and tried to to shut the legos into the door frame I guess. The door paneling broke away from its' frame, and I ended up having to reset and glue the whole thing!!! Atleast it didn't cost me $$$. Kinda funny now. Hey just a question, does this site have a mobile app like facebook for smartphones??

 

[brodes]

Hey there Jeremy, how ya goin mate, listen ,your avatar photo,what the hell is that mate,a dust storm, or someone smoking a giant cigarette,holy shit! Cheers Matty

 

[brodes]

Went to town tonight shopping & walked past a music shop & thought, i might by a guitar, haven't played in a while, anyhow i think it might be good therapy.So i outlayed $800 on a fender strat,so two things are going to happen here,im going to sound like Steve Vai, & sound shit hot , or Lemmy from Motor Head & destroy it........Maybe the last bit....Patients Matt Patients............:)

 

[willis williams]

That is cool I haven't figured out how to play any instruments. I was going to try the native american flute just because I like the sound but of coarse money and patience shot that to shit. That does sound nice to sit back have a couple beers and just jam. It sure would have been nice the last couple nights combined maybe 3 or 4 hrs. sleep. Even went to therapy and still didn't sleep. Congrats on the new toy and I hope you end up like the first choice.

 

[No Folded Hands]

There are 3 or 4 smallpianos scattered around the campus here, in a few different buildings --not for lessons or classes, these pianos have signs on them saying sit down and play me. I always stopped if I had a moment passing by and tapped out my own little melody on them. Got a chance to buy a real old one still in tune for 50 bucks but had no place to keep it! A year went by with me sniffing every time i thought of it. Then a couple months ago I acquired a good sized electronic keyboard from a used stuff place (thrift shop), got the power adapter and "pedal" (it's called a sustain lol) for it from radio shack, and put the whole kit and caboodle up on a high bookcase after making sure it all worked. I was kinda busy there for awhile with VA stuff, and now I'm afraid to seriously try learning it until I get a little farther away from "break everything that doesn't move" :p Good luck with your guitar, Matt.

 

[brodes]

Just woke up,havin a pretty shitty night , a few more bad dreams ,when is it just going to leave me alone ,can't seem to get my head around it. Stuff happened along time ago,so why does it keep attacking my dreams ,Wish it would just bury itself,& give me some $%^&*$# peice.