Why Some Soldiers Develop Ptsd While Others Don't

[Anglesachse]

I am pretty sure that even with out moving and stepping over the line, there were still days I was on the wrong side.

But prepare us it did, that much you have right Sarg.

 

[vikingr12]

He would give an allowance of 50 cents every Friday -- after an inspection of our room. Of course, we had already eaten square meals and knew how to stand at attention at 5 years old.

The inspection consisted of the white glove trick. One time I got tired of him finding something (dust under the bed, windows not clean) and really got my brothers together and went over the rooms thoroughly. I was convinced we wouldn't find anything. The floors shined.

Nope. He reached the threshold of the room, stood in the doorway, put on his gloves, and reached up. I wondered what I missed.

He came back down from wiping his finger on the top of the door trim -- a place we could not reach without a ladder that we didn't have. The glove was dirty as a toilet seat in China.

He went back downstairs and poured himself another scotch. Didn't say a word. Didn't have to.

 

[Spock]

Love sucks and life is fatal.

Classic! ...that'll be borrowed
ColA

 

[Spock]

A group of us spoke a little about this in therapy. We were discussing our personalities before and after. Here are just two opposites: The fun loving, outgoing, joker types seemed more affected by the brutal reality deep inside. They may be more likely to not accept the changes afterwards and struggle to not get sucked into the black hole or suicide. On the other side of the spectrum are bullies, little value of for life, liked to hurt animals or others, little empathy...who might show up for combat and for the first time in their life have a license to fire a weapon, or to actually do harm. They get really warped and love it, it speaks to them for the wrong reasons. The problems may not show-up in theater but when they come home from the biggest party of their life and lose that freedom to do harm; BAM! They can't come down from that power high and will chase more thrills, maybe end up a criminal, in prison, or dead. Some of them may not even get a PTSD diagnosis, they just get evil...

ColA

 

[JarHed]

You can't delete a duplicate. If you want to do that, send a report, click the Report link, to Anthony. He'll take care of it. You can also use the edit aspect to add to or correct a post.

 

[greginthesand]

This is an interesting topic and one that has been confounding me for awhile now. Specifically, I have always been a very positive individual that genuinely feels like one of the luckiest guys I know. My old man wasn't around when I was raised and i had some significant knocks during my upbringing that really conditioned me how to deal with bad things happening. Lastly, I was 37 before I really had any kind of significant combat tragedy exposure. All of that to me meant I should be good and able to handle whatever came my way. Part of the reason acceptance is so difficult.

In one conversation with one of my wizards, the idea was put forth that I had just been storing bad stuff up for years and my capacity to store things up and ignore them may have been tapped out and now it's all on my plate. Who really knows?

R/
Greg

 

[Spock]

A group of us spoke a little about this in therapy. We were discussing our personalities before and after. Here are just two opposites: The fun loving, outgoing, joker types seemed more affected by the brutal reality deep inside. They may be more likely to not accept the changes afterwards and struggle to not get sucked into the black hole or suicide. On the other side of the spectrum are bullies, little value of for life, liked to hurt animals or others, little empathy...who might show up for combat and for the first time in their life have a license to fire a weapon, or to actually do harm. They get really warped and love it, it speaks to them for the wrong reasons. The problems may not show-up in theater but when they come home from the biggest party of their life and lose that freedom to do harm; BAM! They can't come down from that power high and will chase more thrills, maybe end up a criminal, in prison, or dead. Some of them may not even get a PTSD diagnosis, they just get evil...

ColA

Just to clarify, I didn't meant that if you liked combat ops it is bad or evil. Most get the adrenaline rush and like the teamwork, pulling missions, finally doing what you trained to do for so long. I just commented on only two personality types to discuss how combat might affect someone with little/no empathy for life. Like mixing fire and fuel. Most people have empathy. Also, I don't buy the 1 in 5 get PTSD #. 1 in 5 might seek help or get diagnosed but nearly everyone is affected on some scale by combat, may a little, maybe more. In the HBO Documentary "War Torn" they head Docs at Walter Reed say that specifically.

 

[JarHed]

nearly everyone is affected on some scale by combat, maybe a little, maybe more

I'd agree with that as well. I don't see how any 'normal' person, training or not, would not be affected by the experience of combat. I got what you meant, as well, about the people with or without empathy. Of I use the word 'normal' in describing people when it in itself is a difficult thing to quantify.

 

[Spock]

Thanks, sometimes writing on blogs doesn't properly get the point across.

 

[Jimmy1]

I could talk on this subject for pages, but you don't need my psychobabble.