Quick To Fight, Slow To Heal

The papers all take on the topic of soldier and contractors with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder today. One thing caught my attention:

The problem begins with the burgeoning number of troops suffering from the disorder: perhaps as many as one in four serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The paper reports that even if the Department of Veterans Affairs had enough money to treat all these troops, the department has a backlog of cases that prevents proper diagnosis and timely treatment. If the department caught up on its paperwork, it still wouldn't have enough therapists to treat all the new cases and many of the ones it does have lack experience. Even if all those problems disappeared, the stigma of mental illness still keeps more than half of troops with serious mental problems from seeking treatment.

Before the war, I had an argument with someone advocating war. Despite the sabre rattling, the foe in my discussion hadn't even considered all the "hidden" costs associated with a war. While I was chided for not serving, I reminded this as#@ole that I (a psychotherapist) would be one of the many people helping to clean up the mess in individuals and families for years after. Like Vietnam vets, who I continued to see in my practice with for years until my retirement.

The other thought I had in reading this is the cultural barriers. Frankly most people, and particularly military and GOP government types, just don't believe that PTSD even exists. Consistent with other ideological perspectives, they think that only "weak" individuals have these issues and that mostly it's malingering. Of course, as soon as it happens to one of them, then it's the biggest issue that ever hit society. You can see this bias in how vets are being treated, and as evidenced in this article.