According to the article "What Is Combat PTSD?”, Diagnosing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be hard because soldiers view reporting their symptoms as a sign of weakness (What, 1). This makes it difficult to get an accurate idea of exactly how many men and women return from war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Those who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder often relive the horrendous events they have experienced in combat. Behaviors of this disorder can take on many forms. Sufferers may have a hard time relaxing, experience anxiety, and they often battle depression.
Statistics exist regarding the divorce rate among military families, surveys involving how soldiers feel before and after deployment in regards to their families, and firsthand accounts by therapists who have treated these individuals. These all point to the need for a better transition program for soldiers that are reunited with their families after combat deployments. Introduction Combat deployments can be extremely difficult for a soldier for a variety of reason. The damage done during deployment can be external and internal as well. This damage can continue to adversely affect the individual long after they return home, and even after they leave the armed forces.
Yet following the war, many British soldiers had suffered from psychological consequences, including their shell-shock that had greatly impacted their ability to participate in the post-war economy. Returning veterans, ill or healthy, were met with feelings of estrangement as a consequence of their time spent away, and were often left confused by unfamiliar surroundings. These factors resulted in a difficult home-coming from a war that stunned many soldiers, left serious psychological impacts and drastically changed the lives of the soldiers and their immediate families. On August 7th of 1914, an attempt to increase the number of British soldiers was made. Much preparing for the front was needed.
Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder . Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their anxiety . Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental distress when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley very precisely portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his novel ‘The Wars.’ Findley suggests that war can change a person’s behaviour negatively. Robert Ross, the protagonist of his novel, shows symptoms of what is today known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Throughout history, many soldiers faced life-threatening or traumatic events during war, as it took heavy tolls on them. Some events would cause them to relive these experiences through either nightmares or flashbacks. Tim O’Brien, a veteran who has received a Purple Heart, knows how traumatic events can affect soldiers as it makes them do things “brand-new and profound” which, in his story, “How To Tell A True War Story”, shows his characters “a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it”(293). There are many terms used to describe this behavior, as war has always had an impact on people, but the most common is called Post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD. It was the new name for an old story, and thanks to the Vietnam War, this disorder has been examined more closely.
The BPS mode of analysis provides the tools necessary to evaluate and find solutions to the many problems veterans encounter when they return home after being deployed. The anxiety that these men and women feel builds for months prior to returning home. As their anticipation escalates, so does the uncertainty about what they are going to find and how are they going feel when they are back with their families. Many veterans experience an anticlimax followed by feelings of alienation. Stringer “It is difficult to understand why people often suffer deep-seated feelings of frustration.
Symptoms and problems of PTSD PTSD is a popular anxiety disorder. This is where people who encounter a very traumatic experience, does not recover. The disorder is triggered after traumatic events such as violent personal assaults such as mugging or rape, or to family, natural disasters such as earthquakes, accidents such as car crashes, human disasters such as 9/11 and after military combat such as the soldiers who fought in WWII. According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – 4th Edition (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), there are three broad clusters of symptoms that are important in making a diagnosis of PTSD. First, the traumatized individual must re-experience the event in various intrusive and distressing ways, such as nightmares.
The effects of war left a lasting impression on several members of the armed forces. These effects continue to echo for those who have recently retired or resigned from service. Several individuals suffered emotionally traumatic experiences while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others experienced such severe disruptions in their family life due to being deployed that it is difficult for them to reconnect with their loved ones upon returning home. Many veterans reported that normal life felt “alien” due to being disconnected from family, lack of support from institutions, lack of structure and purpose once returning home (Ahern et al,
Many of the results of physical pain were due to the oppressed environment and the very nature of war. The emotional injuries were encountered through the soldier’s constant struggle for survival. Soldiers were sent home after their tour of duty but many experienced post traumatic war syndrome; mentally and psychologically scarring these soldiers. In a war it is evident that wounds always remain for those who have experienced it. Physical pain is a primary ‘stereotypical’ effect of war which most people understand of being the broad result of war.
After a traumatic experience, children file away that information and are usually unable to access it later in life. This is called repressed memories. The soldiers in Steinbeck’s story have also suffered from repressed memories, much like children who have experienced abuse. Many soldiers cannot remember much of what happened on the battle field. An excerpt from “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk” says "They did not and do not remember-and the worse the battle was, the less they remember.