http://surftofind.com/cops

It sounds like a terrible, mental illness.

I did a lot of reading on PTSD just in preparation when my son deployed, so I could anticipate and short-circuit any problems he might have (because it turns out PTSD actually benefits from early detection and attention). I’m glad I did. He had a lousy first deployment in Anbar. It felt like that weekly the little online group of battalion moms and wives (and dads) we were getting emails that began, “The moderators are saddened to announce”.

So he came home, and after his 10 day decompression period on base (whatever they call it — I’ve forgotten now) he came home and met us at the boat dock as we were just heading out. He hopped on the boat, pulled me to the side, and with a stricken look on his face announced that he had PTSD, based on some generalized post-deployment briefing they’d all gotten on the signs and symptoms.

I was able to tell him that 1) he might indeed have PTSD, but he wouldn’t know for another six months or so, if his problems persisted. 2) That I had already investigated the best courses of treatment, talked to other battalion mothers about what sorts of attention had helped their sons and what hadn’t. 3) That I was fully prepared to utterly skip the lag time of the VA and fund whatever he needed, IF he needed, and 4) That he needed to realize that what he was going through right at that time was a _normal_ response to abnormal circumstances.

Those young men were in high alert all the time. They lost people close to them, in terrible ways. They narrowly avoided the same thing themselves. They lived in MREs and the cans of ravioli and jerkey I sent. And when tragedy struck, they didn’t have the luxury the rest of us do of the normal mourning period. They had, at best, a few hours stolen from sleep time to talk and cry and commiserate — and they they had to return their focus to the task at hand, trying not to get blown up themselves.

Which has to mean that when they come home, they’ve got all that unresolved stuff yet to go through. Mourning isn’t ever comfortable or easy, and when it’s months removed from the event(s) you’re mourning, it has to feel really strange. But anger, nightmares, trouble sleeping — all those are normal when you’ve lost someone close to you.

My own belief, at least at present, is that the instances which leave the real, lasting problems are those which trigger that intense fear/fight/flight instinct. Given human empathy, I believe that can be simply a sight of something horrible, even if there’s no immediate threat — if people faint at the sight of blood because their own physiology sees someone else’s blood and forces them go get prone to protect blood flow to the brain, it certainly seems possible that the sight of someone else’s death has the potential to invoke some preservation instincts in someone else as well. Anyhow, what seems to happen, at least in some cases, is that that traumatic event isn’t ever mentally processed the way most traumatic events are. Somehow, it gets stuck in a feedback loop, where even subconscious cues reminding of the event are enough to suddenly invoke those horrible feelings of panic. There’s an interesting — and apparently really effective — treatment involving flashing lights and revisiting whatever event in a counselor setting. Somehow, following the lights changes the mental patterns, and starts helping that event move out of a feedback loop and start being processed normally. Remembering the experience eventually becomes less intense over time, until it becomes what traumatic events usually are for all of us — an experience remembered with sadness, perhaps, but not something that drives us to our knees for the rest of our lives.

I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language…For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap.

In the First World War, that condition was called Shell Shock. Simple. Honest, direct language. Two syllables, Shell Shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was 70 years ago.

Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and very same combat condition was called Battle Fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell Shock! Battle Fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called Operational Exhaustion. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about 16 or 17 years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I’ll bet you if we’d've still been calling it Shell Shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.