Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I was talking to my caseworker today, along with an intern and another caseworker about PTSD, or as it is known, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was brought up by the subject of Veterans, as the intern was thinking about interning at a VA, which is basically provides care to veterans. She had started thinking about it because of someone she knew having a husband return from the war, and as is common with war-time soldiers, he had PTSD. If you do not know, PTSD can cause severe flashbacks, or changes in your personality for brief periods of time. As a result, this returning soldier beat his wife, who he had loved for some time now and had previously shown no signs of aggression, in to the hospital.

Honestly, I think PTSD is a very important issue, though I am biased slightly, as I had a diagnosis of PTSD at one point in my life, albiet not anywhere near as severe as most cases with soldiers. Even still, I would flinch when people got close to me. And it is much much worse for soldiers. And as our soldiers return, I feel like they're not getting any real support. Though, this is not a new phenemon, especially as it happened with Vietnam in particular too.

But imagine as 150,000+ soldiers return, I think quite a large percentage will have, or be diagnosed with PTSD. I think an even larger percentage will go undiagnosed. I feel like we're making a huge mistake, because all the news I hear about this subject is how the soldier's aren't getting the psychological support that is needed. What I feel the worst about though, is that we're creating a phenomen that is War, but the people we involve in it, we don't help them out as much as we SHOULD be, if they even survive.

Looking at it sociologically, I feel like we, as a nation, are abandoning people who need us, because it's so awkward to think about, to talk about, this idea of PTSD. Because often, I think we just want to forget about the war we were involved in. Especially the consequences of it. Even when we leave our fellow human beings in trouble.