TexasCHLforum.com

baldeagle wrote:

pcgizzmo wrote:24 years ago when I was in the Army we had just gotten to our first duty post out of basic. A guy I went to basic with wigged out and tried to jump out a 3rd story windows. He went crazy. He was labeled with PTSD

PTSD stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What was his stressor?

I believe I have personally experienced a mild case of PTSD. I had just begun reading Helter Skelter (the story of the Charles Manson murders) when I got an album of Christian music in the mail that I had been eagerly anticipating. I played the album repeatedly while reading the book. By the time I finished the book, I could no longer listen to the album. Every time I heard the songs it brought back memories of the horrific murders described in the book. I never played the album again.

I once met a woman who had been a contractor in Iraq. She drove a semi. When she returned to America, she found it really hard to drive a truck at night. She kept having flashbacks of an attack in which her co-driver was hit by an RPG and literally exploded all over her. The truck she was driving after returning was the same make and model as the one she drove in Iraq (so the interior was very familiar). The familiar environment took her right back to Iraq. In Iraq all her trips were at night. Hence the flashbacks when driving at night. She was literally a nervous wreck. I believe that's what PTSD is. It's caused by a really traumatic event (or a series of them) and manifests itself when the affected person is placed in a familiar setting that reminds them of the event or events that originally caused the stress. The more familiar the setting, the more pronounced the reaction will be.

So a person suffering from PTSD can appear perfectly normal for days, weeks, months or even years. They may not even realize they have it. But put them in an environment that brings back the memories of the trauma, and it's next to impossible to predict how they will react, except to say it won't be normal behavior. Mind you, I'm not saying this cop suffered from PTSD, but if he did, his behavior would be understandable while not excusable in that context.

I'm inclined to think that counseling will have little effect on a PTSD sufferer. It's more likely that introducing elements of the familiar setting along with positive reinforcement (music, comedy, happy events in their life) will help alter the memories and make them less stressful. I doubt seriously that a true PTSD sufferer ever truly gets over the event, especially the types of trauma experienced in combat.