A Reader Asks: How Can We Understand That PTSD is a Real Issue?
A reader emailed me privately this weekend, raising an important point.
How does PTSD relate to the civilian world? They’re the ones who make the laws and run the country. How can civilians understand that this is a real issue? – Wondering
Good points, Wondering. Thank you for raising them. The short answer is, our troops are particularly vulnerable to PTSD because of the work they do; but the syndrome can descend on any one of us. I’ve encountered it myself in civilian life. Here’s just a sample of what it can do.
On April 16 2007, my editor at People magazine asked me to check out reports of an unusual incident in Blacksburg, Virginia. A gunman had opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus. By the end of the day. the world’s media had converged to cover the deadliest shooting spree on an American school grounds. My part: Investigate the killer.
And did I ever. I spoke to people who knew the shooter in childhood; lived in his neighborhood; and sat in his high school classrooms. After many weeks of this all-killer, all-the-time inquiry, I formed an intense image of his psyche. The image was so intense that I could not shake it – even when I wasn’t writing. The killer began to pop into my head, unbidden, at random times. He shadowed me in the grocery store. He appeared in my rear view mirror, sitting in the back seat of my car. He lurked beneath the basement steps. One night, I dreamt that he was crouched in a secluded corner on my deck, heavily armed and waiting for mychildren to wander within range. I awoke from that dream drenched in sweat, still smelling the cordite from his discharged weapons.
Because I had written so much about combat veterans, and because of my dad and because of another personal experience, I recognized the pop-up images and dreams as symptoms of PTSD. If I had not already been immersed in the world of PTSD recovery, I might have thought I was losing my mind, or was being haunted by the ghost of the Virginia Tech shooter. Instead, I knew to reach for familiar helpful resources, and to take a break from the situation. I needed to get away from murderers for a while. I needed to replace the creepy images with laughter, good times, and the beauty of Gods’ creations. It worked. But not all sufferers have acquired this hard-earned education.
A year after the shootings, an emergency room doctor who treated the Virginia Tech victims wrote an essay for the Washington Post. She wrote that after she worked so intensely to save the lives of grotesquely wounded young people, she could not get them out of her head. She could not sleep because she kept seeing the victims’ eyes. Later, she encountered a pneumonia patient gasping for breath, and instantly sprang into trauma mode because she thought the man had been shot. She wrote that she dreads the wind (the shootings took place on a windy day). And yet, she wrote: “I don’t think I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Oh, really?
Here’s what I think. PTSD is both subtle and overwhelming. It can sneak up on sufferers and take hold, so that even a trained physician can overlook her own compelling symptoms. In my own case, I recognized my symptoms only because I have researched the issue as a journalist, and because I personally have journeyed through that fetid corridor of Hell.
What to make of these observations?
We live in a society in which a significant sub-group is at high risk for PTSD. Our military currently is at war. Our troops are exposed to violence, trauma, and the stress of deployments (and redeployments). Many will return home with PTSD. Many already have it.
We must, must, must continue to educate our troops about the signs and symptoms of this insidious syndrome. We must continue to look for treatments that work. We must establish consistent, humane policy towards those who have PTSD. And it’s not just the troops who are vulnerable. Any one of us can develop the affliction, whether it be from a day’s exposure to violence, or in the aftermath of trauma, such as domestic violence or natural disaster.
But the troops are top priority because, Wondering, there’s a whole lot of combat going on.
