WHAT DOES POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER MEAN?
Post is the Latin word for "after".
Trauma is the German word for "nightmare", but in English, it is used for any kind of injury, physical or psychological.
Stress is a force that changes the shape of things (including people).
Disorder refers to things that are a problem in a person's life now.
To understand PTSD, it is necessary to tell two stories.
Once upon a time, several blind men wanted to understand about elephants.
An elephant was brought to them, and they all approached it from different directions.
One felt the tail, and said "an elephant is like a rope"!
Another found a leg, and said, "no, an elephant is like a tree trunk".
A third walked into the side of the elephant, and said, "really, an elephant is like a wall .
Others found the ear, the trunk, a tusk, and each felt his part of the elephant was the real elephant.
Each blind man was right about his part of the elephant, but none of them really understood about elephants.
The story of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is similar.
PTSD was first recognized after the American Civil War. Doctors noticed that some soldiers who had been in heavy combat complained of having attacks of fast heartbeat, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and fear that they were dying or going crazy.
The symptoms were similar to heart attacks. Not having the scientific equipment to investigate further, they assumed the attacks were a form of heart disease. They called it "soldiers' heart".
We now know the attacks are not heart disease. They result from rushes of adrenalin, triggered by bad memories or nightmares.
A few years after the war, most people forgot about the problem, but the part of the elephant they had found was real.
World War I was the first time very large numbers of explosive shells were used in battle.
It was noticed that some combat veterans, afterward, had trouble with feeling somewhat dazed or confused, and with poor concentration and memory.
This seemed similar to what happened in many brain injuries. It was thought that the concussions of the shells caused tiny spots of bleeding in the brain. They called it "shell shock".
Eventually, a lot of autopsies were done on soldiers who had died of other causes, and no such bleeding was found. It was recognized that the symptoms resulted from extreme stress, not brain damage.
It should be remembered that many people with PTSD, especially from child abuse and domestic violence, have had damage from blows to the head. Both symptoms of brain injury and effects of overwhelming stress may be present in the same person.
A few years after the war, the matter was again dropped, but they had found another part of the elephant.
When World War II came, it took until June of 1944 to redevelop the treatment methods used in 1918.
In that war, they learned two important things. The severity of a person's symptoms was directly related to how much stress he or she had undergone, over how much time.
It was calculated that of 100 men in continuous combat, every single one would break down within 189 days. They called it "combat fatigue", or "combat exhaustion".
It also became clear that there is no such thing as a stress-proof person. Certainly some people break before others, but with enough stress and enough time, everybody breaks. They had another part of the elephant.
After World War II, it was assumed (never investigated, just assumed) that symptoms of traumatic stress went away in 6 months or a year, after the war was over. They were greatly mystified at the large number of alcoholics who came out of that war.
Only after the Vietnam War did it become clear that PTSD symptoms could appear at any time, during or after the war. The symptoms could go on, better or worse from time-to-time, all of a person's life.
The severity of the symptoms is influenced by how much emotional support a person has available during and after trauma.
Veterans of an unpopular war, such as Vietnam, were clearly affected by the fact that nobody wanted to talk about it later.
Survivors of child abuse and domestic violence are more severely affected because family or friends, who normally would provide support, are the perpetrators of the violence.
In the late 1970's feminist writers began publicizing the fact that far more child abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic violence were occurring than previously admitted.
Studies began to reveal that domestic violence is a problem in about 25% of all families, regardless of race, religion, income or education. About 16% of all girls and 8% of all boys are sexually abused before the age of 18 years. Rapes reported to the authorities may represent less than 10% of those that actually occur. About 10% of the adult population is alcoholic. Inclusion of other abusable substances may raise the figure to double that.
Very few people are directly involved in wars, but most people have a family.
Unlike in times past, the feminists and Vietnam veterans have not shut up and gone away. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is now an official diagnosis in the diagnostic and statistical manual.
Consciously or unconsciously, the brain remembers everything. Trauma really happens, and it changes who you are. You cannot seriously hurt human beings and expect them to forget it and be alright afterwards.
People who have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder often worry about whether they are "crazy".
The word "psychotic" (or crazy) usually means experiencing or believing things that are not real: being "out of touch with reality".
People with PTSD's have essentially the opposite problem. They are in too much contact with reality, and in contact with realities that most people have the privilege of not knowing about.
It is just as possible to be sick from too much contact with reality, as from not enough.
This is a great article on PTSD from the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation. If you want to read the entire article, then go to:
http://www.prostitutionrecovery.org/ptsd.html
I have done a lot of research on PTSD and this is a good one! It does a lot of comparison to war veterans and survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, etc. as examples of some of the ways that people can have traumatic experiences, resulting in PTSD.
