Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD as it is commonly referred to, is an anxiety disorder that develops following the experience or the witnessing of a traumatic life-threatening event. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, “the defining characteristic of a traumatic event is, it’s capacity to provoke fear, helplessness, or horror in response to the threat of injury or death.” (Yehuda, 2002) This event could be living through military combat in wartime, surviving a natural disaster, serious accidents, witnessing terrorist attacks, or suffering from some kind of physical or sexual assault sometime in the past either as a child or as an adult. People that suffer from this condition, develop common symptoms despite the different circumstances that might prove to be traumatic to them. Most survivor’s lives will return to normal once the trauma subsides. However, depending on how severe the traumatic event was, some people will suffer from stress reactions that will never go away on their own, or might get worse over time. These people may develop PTSD. The earliest written case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may be written down in the pages of the Old Testament in the Holy Bible. The passages in Deuteronomy 20:1-9, discuss how military leaders were aware that it be necessary that many of their soldiers be removed from the frontline of the battlefield because of nervous breakdowns and other psychological symptoms that we now associate with PTSD victims. (2 Deuteronomy. 20:1-9, New Living Translation) Along with the Epic of Gilgamesh and Shakespeare’s Henry the Eighth, these are just a few of the instances that could be understood as stories where the character’s may suffer from PTSD. In 1917, A well-known German psychiatrist Robert Gaupp reported that after the big artillery battles in December of 1914, the hospitals were filled with a large number of combat soldiers that were unscathed in battle, but presented the attending physicians with many cases of mental disturbances. At first the soldiers were hospitalized with the wounded, but shortly after they realized that they would have to open up psychiatric hospitals especially for these victims. (Ulrich & Ziemann, 1994) After World War I, many soldiers that came back home after the war was over were suffering from a condition deemed “shell-shock.” Shell shock was an umbrella term that was used for patients suffering from various mental disorders associated with combat stress. During World War II, American psychiatrists made great contributions to the field of combat psychiatry. Events like the Nazi Holocaust and the atomic bombs being dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, more Americans were suffering from PTSD than ever before. These traumatic events left permanent imprints in the minds of soldiers, which lead to the development of psychiatric issues in their everyday lives. Modern PTSD cases are relatively new, making their first appearance in the 1980’s. These cases are collectively associated with the veterans that returned from combat during the Vietnam War. According to the American Psychiatric Association, diagnostic criteria for PTSD must include, “a history of exposure to a traumatic event that meets specific stipulations and symptoms from each of four symptom …show more content…
Those suffering from hyper arousal may change the victim’s worldview and may make them remain constantly paranoid. This constant state of readiness affects the victim in many ways. It may be expressed by the victim suffering from sleep deprivation or over consumption of sleep, increased sense of irritability in otherwise calm settings, high levels of anger, outbursts, an extreme difficulty when trying to concentrate, or being unreasonably startled when unexpectedly approached by someone. I chose to write on the condition known as PTSD because the prevalence of this disorder has been on the rise. With soldiers returning from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan many soldiers have to deal with this condition on a daily basis. I think that is important that the general population understand how this disorder affects members of the United States Military and that Americans understand the true cost of our freedom. I have family members that served two or more terms in the middle east during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. Both of my family members in question struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and upon their return had a hard time fitting back in with non-combatant members of