Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a disorder with a wide variety of causes. This blog will deal with PTSD caused by our service personnel that have served "in country" but some individuals still do not understand this disorder so we will start with a simple question - what is PTSD?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events and characterized by such symptoms as survivor guilt, reliving the trauma in dreams, numbness and lack of involvement with reality, or recurrent thoughts and imageswordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
The above definition is a very simplified one. If you try to look up PTSD you will find a variety of definitions but for our purposes this is the easiest to understand. PTSD is not a "new" disorder. During WWI it was called shell shock and during WWII it was called battle fatigue. Both of these terms were often used in a derogatory manner, making the men suffering with these very real problems like cowards. Even today many people use PTSD in a demeaning manner, many professionals doubt the validity of the disorder and some still think PTSD is not a real disorder.
As a nurse I understood the dynamics of PTSD but as a wife of a Vietnam Veteran I saw first hand the reality of what this disorder can do to the man or woman that serves in forward combat operations. To compound the problems the veteran must face is a lack of support for the family members. Most service related suffers of this disorder were men however, with more women serving in the forward combat zones, PTSD is now an equal opportunity disorder.
Each of us, the family at home, eagerly await the return of our loved one. We all think that life will return to the same as it was when our loved one left. But when the excitement of the homecoming wears off and daily life grind returns many find that the man or woman that came home is not the same as the one you remember and while the service is doing a better job of providing counseling for the veteran the spouse is left to figure things out on their own.
As time passes you will notice that your loved one seems distant at times or when you go to dinner that your spouse seems tense and jumpy. Someone in the kitchen drops plates or pans and your spouse jumps and then loses interest in the dinner. As you drive around town you may find that the old favorite routes are avoided, trash on the road is given a wide berth, the kids are not allowed to sneak up on the parent and go boo. Nighttime becomes a nightmare for you as your spouse starts having nightmares often waking you up calling their buddies names warning them of danger. And in all of this you have no where to turn to learn how to live with this new problem or how to help your loved one.
One of the reasons this type of help is scarce is because no two suffers of PTSD have exactly the same reaction to their experiences and therefore there is no manual of correct responses. Each family must navigate this nightmare maze on their own.
In the next section I hope that those of you who have been through this will post your experiences and for anyone with questions I am hoping that maybe you will be able to find some answers.
