Shell Shock

LeEnfield 2 said:
The problem with PTSD is it may affect you while you are in the Forces and at times it can emerge from the place that you had hidden it many, many years later. The problem is that not every can recognise it, so some people try drown out these memories by hitting the bottle.
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I was watching a History Channel special and it was being narrated by veterans of a WWII battle, I forget which one, but one of the vets said "we were all having nightmares and waking up screaming and in a cold sweat. We had PTSD and didn't know it for 40 years."Poor guys, suffering for that long but back then, you had to put up a barrier to block it out because they had families to support. This sometimes resulted in alcoholism and even suicides.
 
Missileer said:
LeEnfield 2 said:
The problem with PTSD is it may affect you while you are in the Forces and at times it can emerge from the place that you had hidden it many, many years later. The problem is that not every can recognise it, so some people try drown out these memories by hitting the bottle.
Click to expand...

I was watching a History Channel special and it was being narrated by veterans of a WWII battle, I forget which one, but one of the vets said "we were all having nightmares and waking up screaming and in a cold sweat. We had PTSD and didn't know it for 40 years."Poor guys, suffering for that long but back then, you had to put up a barrier to block it out because they had families to support. This sometimes resulted in alcoholism and even suicides.
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Wow, that's crazy.
 
Back in the 80's I went to a reunion with my Grandpa for his WWII unit. There were numerous stories like that. They just had to tough it out or self-medicate like you said LeEnfield. My Grandpa dealt with it through really black humour but from his unit in the 20 years after the war there were numerous suicides and many premature deaths from alcohol related illnesses.

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't it not until after the Vietnam vets started returning home that the VA and others started taking PTSD seriously and treating it and looking for it in combat vets?
 
Interestingly enough, a head shrinking (read: psychiatrist) wife of a Vietnam Veteran actually helped coin the term PTSD and along with her co-workers did the leg work to have it recognised as a true mental disorder listed in the DSM.

It has been given its due rite in the civilan world for some time, and now, finally, the military is also beginning to look closer at not only PTSD as an after affect, but also at general mental health for current serving soldiers.

Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.
 
There were big advances in treating shell shock in WW2. During WW2 there so many other injuries to worry about that shell shock was far down the list. Also when you where discharged you were so busy with your family and getting a job it may not surface for a long time. May be a film or a story even a book may make your mind go back to those days and unleash the demons that you had hidden for so long. I think as each conflict comes and goes there are small advances made in this field.
 
I heard about how many troops are facing this problem in Iraq due to the IED's, can someone confirm this (sorry i didnt read all the other posts)
 
Le, there was a very good film, though extremely unpopular made about that very subject. "Johnny Got His Gun". When I was 16 and started really asking my Grandpa about the war he made me watch this first before he started answering my questions. It was highly praised by most vets of WWII I met later and asked them about their thoughts. They said the film represented what the majority of guys returning home had to cope with. Imagine being a B17 bomber captain with all that entails only to return home and be qualified to do nothing more than being a soda jerk... hence the GI Bill.

I have read many stories of late where even the Marines were sending in mental health techs to debrief the soldiers post-Fallujah and that commanders are being very well prepped on what to look for in the early signs of shell shock or ptsd.

The key in the diagnosis with PTSD is that the symptoms must begin 6 months or later after the trauma. Prior to that it is considered an Acute Trauma Stress Disorder.
 
bulldogg said:
The key in the diagnosis with PTSD is that the symptoms must begin 6 months or later after the trauma. Prior to that it is considered an Acute Trauma Stress Disorder.
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Incorrect.

Straight from the DSM:

Acute Stress Disorder is distinguished from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because the symptom pattern in Acute Stress Disorder must occur within 4 weeks of the traumatic event and resolve within that 4-week period. If the symptoms persist for more than 1 month and meet criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, the diagnosis is changed from Acute Stress Disorder to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
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I found this fact about Battle Fatigue/CSR/Shell Shock during World War 2 and thought it was interesting.

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The US Army suffered a total of 929,307 cases of 'Battle Fatigue' during the war. In June alone, in Normandy, an alarming 10,000 men were treated for some form of battle fatigue. Between June and November, 1944, this amounted to a staggering 26% of all US casualties.
 
my 5th grade history teacher's husband was in nam, and she says if a car back fires in the middle of the night he throws her to the floor.
 
FULLMETALJACKET said:
my 5th grade history teacher's husband was in nam, and she says if a car back fires in the middle of the night he throws her to the floor.
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Wow, that's actually kind of scary. :eek: :?
 
Its like post traumatic stress disorder, which in civilian life can range from being the victim of crime/violence, being involved in physical tramua of some sort, ie car/plane crash, or even just witnessing something like a car crash, or the death of someone close.

The potential causes of ptsd are to numerous to mention, but in a combat situation I'm sure you can see work out what could cause it.

Also the extreme fatigue that can be invovled with prolonged operations could cause pyschological problems, but Id like to think nowadays its a bit different from the past and service personal get rotated out to the rear more frequently.

There are still familys fighthing for there relatives that were shot in ww1 as cowards to be pardoned, as now with hindsight they attribute there 'cowardness' to shellshock, spending months in a muddy cold trench at Paschendale must of been stressful enough without going over the top.
 
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