What PTSD Is

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's a brilliant post about the kind of PTSD that builds slowly, a pervasive shift in worldview, rather than the kind that comes from a sudden major shock.  This is how it can form in people who aren't front-line soldiers but rather support crew, or cops, or people living in poverty or neglectful relationships.  

Now look at the part where it talks about society not being a safe place, everyone's out to get each other, no trustworthy connections, no safety net if something goes wrong, nobody to care if you live or die.  That's what we're making our world into every time we cut public services and support.  We're making it more like the place inside a PTSD sufferer's head.  "Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost" isn't a society.  It's madness.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Very succinct. Thanks.

[blitzwing]

It is a great post; my problem though, is with this line:

It is the cur­tain pulled back, the deep and the­matic real­iza­tion that life is fun­gible, that death is capri­cious and sudden. That anyone’s life can be snuffed out or worse, ruined, in the space of a few sec­onds. It is the shaking real­iza­tion that love cannot pro­tect you, and even worse, that you cannot pro­tect those you love. It is the final sur­ren­dering of the myth that, if you are decent enough, eth­ical enough, skilled enough, you’ll be spared.

Isn't that just reality? I mean, I grew up in poverty, so maybe I just grew up with that worldview, so it's not a traumatic realization for me, but I can't see anything (morally) wrong with having that knowledge. It's the truth, and even social programs won't keep it away. Like you said, they can always be cut. Always. Anything that's not inherent can be changed or removed. Social programs are to some extent, what, being able to extend that myth of safety to the poor? Not to knock it, I get what the guy is saying, and what you're saying; it's very difficult to be emotionally/mentally healthy when you're dealing with that kind of reality. But it doesn't change the fact that safety is an illusion.

Not that I'm knocking social programs, lord knows where I'd be without them. It's just that relying on them is to rely on other's good will, and it's sad how often that will disappoint.

[chordatesrock]

There's a difference between knowing those things and having PTSD. Understanding is unpleasant; PTSD is maladaptive, or is adaptive at the time but becomes maladaptive later, or is, basically, what may be referred to sometimes as "broken." It can be many different things... but it is not understanding. That isn't to say that people with PTSD can't know things most other people do not, especially things about trauma, but there are healthy ways to live with that knowledge. That isn't to say that no one is ever overwhelmed by it, of course, but it isn't impossible to know that and not have any mental illnesses.

I take issue with your second paragraph, this line especially: "We're making it more like the place inside a PTSD sufferer's head." It's not true. People with PTSD don't just perceive that there are things wrong with the world, or that people are callous. I would encourage you to look at PTSD elephant and A User's Guide to PTSD. (On rereading, I also see what you did with your last line, which I didn't notice before. I am appalled. "Your political position is unacceptable because it resembles things believed by the mentally ill"-- especially in a context where those mentally ill people may be more likely to know something many don't-- is a bad form of argument.)

Finally, I take some issue with the linked article itself, but I'm cautious about explaining that here in light of the way you have just held it up as an example of a person who is wrong about everything because of mental illness. I don't agree with that, and would direct you to another article, also by a person with PTSD, BADD: Pulling Back Curtains. The article's introduction is most relevant. The article you posted a link to is not wrong, per se, but incomplete.

[cmcmck]

My familiarity with PTSD comes via military history and it goes back a lot further than the acronym.

Shakespeare's Falstaff as the old soldier who's seen one arrow storm too many?

[catsittingstill]

On the one hand, life *is* uncertain, and death inevitable.

On the other hand, a) safety nets--both government safety nets and personal safety nets--can make that somewhat better. and b) I don't know about anyone else, but I think I would find it hard to function if I brooded about that all the time.

And I agree that "everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost" is not a society but a hell--and furthermore shows a great shortsightedness of the part of people who don't want something better purely for their own selfish sake. I mean, I want a world with justice and mercy in part because I am a human who cares about other humans, but I also want it because I personally hope to benefit from it now and then.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That sounds rather familiar indeed...

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Hypervigilance. I had that for years after I graduated high school. Mistrust, cynicism, paranoia - yep, all from bullying. What's worse, every time I end up with a corporate bully for a boss, I end up re-triggered, and stressed.

So I am an iconoclast, the person who questions, who tries to protect others, sometimes by being the one to say "The Emperor has no clothes!" I've already been burned out several times.

Coming close to homelessness, being accosted on the street, starving, just more crap in the mill. That's why I can't even relate to the "Devil take the hindmost" attitude, because I've spent too much time as the hindmost, and I take it very personally.

The only reason suicide has never appealed to me is that it would give the bastards too much of a victory. Some years I kept living out of sheer spite.

My way of dealing with it is seeing making at least one person's life easier, better, happier as I go through my day as a victory. Answer a question, give someone a tool, tell a joke, make a pun, or just listen to their problems counts.

If I didn't have that, I'd be batshit crazy looking for a bell tower.

[aoifes_isle]

*curls up sobbing*

Thank you for the link to that article, Ysabet. I'm going to be bookmarking it for certain people.

I'd still love to know how my colleagues on that team avoided ending up the way i have ... unless too much empathy was to blame, or something similar - I'll take feeling too much over too little.

[baaing-tree.livejournal.com]

Now look at the part where it talks about society not being a safe place, everyone's out to get each other, no trustworthy connections, no safety net if something goes wrong, nobody to care if you live or die.

I admit, I've been having a lot of these thoughts since I fell off the money ladder and entered the disability application process. Like, I'm extremely lucky, in that I have pretty good health insurance and a lot of people who love me, but I'm still living in that damn crawl space, and I'm likely to be there for another six months, at least. (I never imagined my dreams at the age of twenty-five would involve four walls and a window.)

Like, it's bad enough if I'm just spectacularly unlucky, right, but the horrible thought is that I'm LUCKY. I would never, ever want anyone else to go through what I've been going through the past year, and I've never even hit the rock bottom of true homelessness.

And I wonder, was the system always this bad? I haven't been around long enough to know. The world just feels like a cold, vicious place, and I hate the thought that I'm coming out LUCKY on the stack!

--Rogan