Shame on the President for mouthing off about something he knows nothing about; perpetuating a cruel stereotype.
PTSD exists. When it's a veteran who carries it, it usually affects the veteran and his/her closest friends and family. The rest of us don't carry the burden.
It can lead people to self medicate to the point of addiction, self isolate, and suffer depression which can ooze out as apathy or anger.
Sometimes it is used as a catchall label for any "problem" behavior - especially "psychological" ones - where other causes - such as brain trauma due to exposure to IED explosions - are overlooked. It also leads to generalization which ignores a person's whole history before service.
There's a difference between facing the many problems that are triggered because of war experiences, and the duty of the country to provide treatment -- versus idly speculating that anyone with PTSD is dangerous.
It wasn't until after the diagnosis became widely known, that my own mother said she finally understood some of my (late, WWII) father's reactions. Many thousands of men had suffered this to some degree, yet managed to struggle through their lives. They might have had it a little easier if there had been recognition then. Recognition, treatment, not stigmatizing.
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PTSD lasts for a long, long time and affects families along with the person struggling with the affliction. My grandfather had PTSD post-WWII, after serving in submarines in the Pacific. No one understood PTSD then - and many lives of many veterans and their families were sadly affected by the consequent drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, alienation and destruction of relationships.
We know much more now. PTSD has a name. We are equipped to help people get past the impairment and regain a fulfilled life.
My grandfather with his PTSD finally found some level of fulfillment in retirement - with a 3rd wife, and a passle of poodles that he bred in Kensington, Maryland. (I will never forget the puppy, George Washington, that he gave me at age 5 - a fluffy, post-PTSD bond across generations. )
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Society has very false stereotypes of PTSD, especially around vets and violence.
The neurosciences have ample evidence and a strong understanding that PTSD is entirely separate from violence.
Science says PTSD does not cause or lead to violence. However society falsely believes it does. Society's understanding of PTSD is flawed.
EXAMPLE 1:
If a violent person with PTSD is violent, people say "a person with PTSD" was violent - ignoring the fact that they had violent tendencies.
Similarly, if a violent person with blond hair is violent, would people say "a person with blond hair" was violent - ignoring the fact that they had violent tendencies?
EXAMPLE 2:
Let's say Jon has three characteristics:
• they have blond hair
• they have PTSD
• they are very strong, "muscled out"
Let's say another person (Don) has the same three characteristics, but he has also been violent to others many times in the past.
If Jon and Don get into a barfight, what will jurors find as the primary cause for their fight?
Will it be their having blond hair?
Or PTSD?
Or muscles?
Or Don's violent nature?
Vets with violent tendencies can act out violently. Vets without a violent past do not. Violence is NOT due to one's hair color, their musculature, their height, any mental illness, their veteran status, their name, their favorite color...
» PTSD does not cause violent acts.
» PTSD is not only in vets.
» All vets do not have PTSD, but many may.
» Anyone severely traumatized can develop PTSD.
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I want to better understand why persons with PTSD don't recognize they suffer from this, then seek help. Or is PTSD such that one may recognize it, but that causes refusal of help? Or is it that help isn't easily accessible?
Or is the VA failing to the veterans’ empowerment movement, which “organizes volunteering trips and disaster relief teams, and exercises meet-ups to re-engage veterans in their communities” (July 2016 link here)?
Why aren't family and friends of persons with PTSD not ensuring that their love is allowing persons with PTSD are connected?
And what about PTSD arising from disasters in civilian life?: domestic violence, gun culture gone mad, loss of everything in fire and hurricane stoked by Our increasingly hot Earth.
Who in politics highlights that mental health issues are pre-existing conditions, deserving recognition and treatment? Who's presuming that “health care” concerns are just as likely mental health issues? We point to opioid crisis as about addiction, but basically a mental health crisis drives addiction.
We have a president who is a disturbed man, avidly applauded by millions of Americans. We have rabid tribalism and so much political handwringing.
And trillions of dollars have freedom around the world, while there's profit from slaughter in Yemen or Syria.
I wondered yesterday if the Thousand Oaks slaughterer had tried every kind of outreach available, but couldn’t bear any longer the frivolousness of life around him.
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@gary e. davis Important questions. Thank you for laying them out. Simply by posing them for thought helps people better understand PTSD.
I'm writing a book about the impact of the neurotoxic anti-malaria drug mefloquine on the lives and health of soldiers and veterans who had to take mefloquine from GW1 in 1991 to 2014 when it was banned.
In 1993 a Canadian Armed Forces medical officer told a post Somalia conference "most of the problems of Canadian and American soldiers were due to mefloquine impairment."
In 1994 a CAF medical officer LCdr Greg Passey MD told the CMA Journal that he found 20% of the soldiers of three Battle Groups had PTSD.
I found this report in 2013 and gave copies
to senior retired officers who were there in 1993-1994. They said the it would have been impossible
for LCdr Passey to have done his research without them knowing about it. In short, it was a sham.
There is plenty of evidence that the PTSD story was
concocted to cover-up the high rate of disability
caused by neurotoxic mefloquine.
This has been reported in medical journal articles.
google nevin mefloquine forensic.
Lt. General Bill Carr DFC former RCAF commander
helped with the first phase of my research. He asked
"why won't the media report this story?"
In my opinion there has been a highly coordinated
strategy to suppress the story.
Is there a PTSD hoax? Was it concocted by LCdr Passey MD? Did he act alone?
There is much more and it more complicated than that.
The British Library has archived my research.
Chris Chivers NYTimes has most of it.
search
pratt passey mefloquine
canada commons mefloquine inquiry 2016
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@David Andrew Henry:
You make many assumptions. Your premise is that PTSD is an issue in soldiers, and is caused by the neurotoxin mefloquine. You are implying that PTSD is caused by this/similar neurotoxins. How do you explain those who have PTSD but were never exposed to mefloquine?
Your premise is damaging society's understanding of PTSD. It falsely links it with the military (a profession that uses force and violence). PTSD has nothing to do with violence.
First, PTSD is unrelated to the military or soldiers. It has to do with war or other shocking events (trauma).
PTSD is caused when a person undergoes an event so emotionally shocking, that it makes them fear (in an exaggerated way) any future similar event. A soldier who saw their buddy surprised at night and shot, will always be "on alert" and can act out when afraid. A solder's "acting out" may involve excessive force/violence. For soldier who was already violent, their PTSD will ensure their exaggerated response is violent.
PTSD is wrongly associated with veterans. This is because a percentage of men who enter the military (and law enforcement) have a history of aggressive tendencies. So if these men are traumatized in war, their prior violent nature will come out due to their PTSD-induced exaggerated fears. Society sees that prior violence, in those few vets who "act out" - it is not from PTSD but rather from their prior violent makeup.
Someone with PTSD and no association with violence will not use violence.
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@IN This is a complex matter and difficult to deal with in a short comment.
Trauma and stress are normal human reactions to abnormal events. (globeandmail joe freisen kandahar march 2005)
The crux of the matter is that thousands of young soldiers were disabled by the neurotoxic anti-malaria drug mefloquine.
The PTSD story was concocted by LCdr Greg Passey MD in 1994 to cover-up the mefloquine scandal.
Passey first reported his sham research in Maclean's magazine in March 1994:
"A Few Bad Men" where he said he found that 20% of the soldiers of two infantry regiments had PTSD. This was false and misleading. He didn't do any research.
LCdr Passey retired in 2000 and opened
a PTSD clinic in Vancouver.
In May 2008 LCdr (retd) Passey told the Canadian Senate National Defence Committee "I did the first large scale PTSD research project in the world in 1993-1994 that found that 20% of the soldiers had PTSD" This was false.
An officer who commanded one of the Battle Groups in 1993 after reading LCdr
Passey's reports in 2013 said: "We've been bamboozled...Passey couldn't have done any PTSD research...he couldn't have found the soldiers."
ref CMAJ Passey Birenbaum PTSD November 1994
Almost everybody has been bamboozled by the constant repetition of the PTSD story in the MSM.
CNS Damage not PTSD
The main problem is central nervous system damage caused by mefloquine.
google mefloquine nevin forensic
Note the warning about PTSD misdiagnosis.
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@IN Please bear with me, this is complex and at times confusing.
Let me try again to separate the issue of PTSD from the more serious problem of soldiers who had to take neurotoxic mefloquine and suffered central nervous system damage. Many are substantially and permanently disabled.
PTSD is not disabling.
The PTSD rate for Canadian, American and UK soldiers was under 3%.
(ref Statscan, Matt Kauffman Hartford Courant, The Economist 2003)
Some senior civilian and military officials
concocted the story that the PTSD rate was 20%. (ref CAF Ombudsman Blasts CAF For Bad Treatment of 3000 Soldiers With PTSD front page Toronto Star 7 Feb 2002)
I asked a CAF epidemiologist: "where did
the CAF Ombudsman get his 20% PTSD statistic?" The epidemiologist replied "the CAF Ombudsman made it up."
The NYTimes has a copy of the email.
In short, over 20% of the soldiers were disabled by neurotoxic mefloquine.
Surgeons General concealed the mefloquine problem by concocting the
story that the soldiers had PTSD.
Soldiers deployed in GW1 had to take mefloquine.
The highly respected CAF Surgeon General refused to participate in the cover-up. He resigned in 1993.
Please read "Gulf War Illness: Problems Persist" by Dr Mary Nettleman...the problem was mefloquine impairment,not PTSD. (Congress GW1 Research Advisory Committee 2015)
also
'Why is the US Army still taking mefloquine in Afghanistan?"
(Dr Mark Rowland journal MALARIA 2007)
There is much more and it is more complicated than that.
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