When PTSD Comes Marching Home

When PTSD Comes Marching Home

www.truthout.org

There is disconnection between everything human and what has to be done in combat. Imagine being in an unimaginable situation and having to do the unthinkable. How can this be done? A detachment between everything human and having to do the inconceivable resounds in combat.

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This article is really eye opening. I myself being friends with a few iraq vet's that have home recently are totally messed up. Heroin addiction and alcoholism are not uncommon. I feel my friends and all other vets that have served in this war. We need to start helping them and not completely ignoring them and giving them #ty health care. They deserve much more for fighting TPTB's wars...

www.truthout.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

I know. It's really that bad. The sandbox is really getting alot of my brothers and sisters too... It's not as much when you're there, you've got a job to do.

When you come home to this economy, this social and political climate, and don't know what to do... It sometimes seems the "easier" way to turn to drink and/or drugs. The roles of prisons and other institutions are filled with combat vets.

I don't know the solution... and I don't think the VA has a clue... not by a long shot.

In my case, I needed a good woman to give me a good swift kick in the pants, but that isn't always enough. I still "snap" sometimes, even though the nightmares and shaking have greatly subsided.

The most noticible difference, however, came when I stopped taking the meds the docs had me on.

Some of these VA docs think that better living through chemistry is the solution. I think that's a copout. I'll NEVER take another pill in my life, not even asparin.

I think a good start would be to stay in close contact with the other troopers that you served with. Talk. Alot. These are the only people that truly comprehend what you've seen and done.

Anybody else that says they "understand" is paying you lip service.

Semper Fi.

There is a major connection to the battlefield and killing. Kill on it, and you're a hero. Kill of it, you're a monster/murderer. It is still murder ether way, but it for some reason, it is ok to kill on the battlefield.

When I first got to my old unit I was chilling with some friends one night and things went bad and somebody pulled a gun on me. This person had been to Iraq before and I wasn't scared because I was thinking why would this person shoot me? Now after coming home from Iraq I think back on that day and realize how close I was to death.

They call it PTSD (Post Dramatic Stress Disorder) but sometimes I wonder what it's really all about. It's not a sickness or a disease. It's just something that effects you mentally but how do you test for it? Is it just another state of mind and hopefully one day you'll snap out of it? Is it something that sticks with you? What's up with the memory loss?

Whether one agrees with the wars or not.....

We the people are being disillusioned, not being told the full story about what the vets go through, especially when they were promised to be 'taken care of'... and then they come home and are not even given full financial benefits they were promised.

Until those VA stories started hitting some mainstream news, we didn't even know that the care they were receiving was anything less than TOP NOTCH, so to speak.

I mean, I know some people now in school... They returned from Iraq or Afghanistan, and the only thing they can do is focus on their studies and pretend that nothing is wrong.

For some, the PTSD proceeds to get worse until it is full-blown Borderline Personality Disorder. I think the Borderlines are even more shunned than those experiencing PTSD.

I feel sad. My cousin turned to drugs after being out of special forces. There are no jobs, so he is dealing drugs, and using, while getting himself through school. The others, I don't know... I can't even comprehend what they are going through.

But after watching friends in the services getting hurt and killed, and being desensitized to shooting kids, they come home to feel betrayed by the country that sent them to war. Wish I knew what could be done to help them.

EDIT: Just to add, Borderline personality disorder makes one more prone to addiction of all sorts, and it destroys any chance of meaningful relationships. One starts to see the world in a different way. For one, seeing all being as either good, or bad. No middle ground here. A single experience with someone can make them BAD in the eyes of the borderline. It is a more advanced form of PTSD.... Not sure how often this happens in vets, but hopefully not often.

[edit on 13-5-2009 by LostNemesis]

Its really hard changing extremes like that. The Civilian world is way different compare to the Military. It just they lose focus, while over there, they are always busy there is always somthing that needs to get done. Its keep their mind from stopping and thinking, WTF? Then when they come home, they have time to think about everything that happen, take it all in, and its just hard, espically going from somthing so structured to somthing as crazy as the Civilian world, the Civilian world sucks, too much crap to worry about and to many cry babies.

-Paveway Out