PTSD In Veterans Essay

Hundreds of thousands of United States veterans are not able to leave the horrors of war on the battlefield (“Forever at War: Veterans Everyday Battles with PTSD” 1). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the reason why these courageous military service members cannot live a normal life when they are discharged. One out of every five military service members on combat tours—about 300,000 so far—return home with symptoms of PTSD or major depression. According to the Rand Study, almost half of these cases go untreated because of the disgrace that the military and civil society attach to mental disorders (McGirk 1). The general population of the world has to admit that they have had a nightmare before. Imagine not being able to sleep one

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also known as PTSD is an emotional condition that can develop following a traumatic or terrifying event. PTSD has only been recognized as a diagnosis since 1980. This emotional disorder was brought to public attention after soldiers would return home and often referred to as “shell shock or combat fatigue”.

Today, hundreds of thousands of service men and women and recent military veterans have seen combat. Many have been shot at, seen their buddies killed, or witnessed death up close. These are types of events that can lead to Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder ("Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD: A Growing Epidemic. “) Anyone that has gone through a traumatic event can be diagnosed with PTSD but research shows, military men and women are more susceptible to having PTSD (PTSD: A Growing Epidemic.) And, with little help from the US, many Veterans do not get the help they need or get treated for PTSD. Military men and women begin to

THC is the main ingredient in marijuana, it produces helpful effects for treating many medical conditions for the patients who smoke marijuana. A pretty flower bud with a strong attractive smell doesn't sound too bad does it? There are many names for marijuana depending on how and where you are getting it. People who smoke marijuana might smoke cigars emptied and replaced with torn up or grinded cannabis, some people do the same thing but put it in a cigarette paper called a joint, others may smoke out of a tobacco pipe or a water pipe called a bong. People who choose not to smoke it may make a tea or butter and use it as a butter substitute. There are many pros and cons to smoking marijuana, the government recognized smoking marijuana worse

PTSD is defined as an "anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or happens to you” (United States). In these types of events one can feel that they are not in control of what is going on around them and may feel helpless or in great danger. The Department of Veterans Affairs has listed various life threatening events that can evolve into PTSD. These events include but are not limited to "Combat or Military exposure, child sexual or physical abuse, terrorist attacks, sexual or physical assault, serious accidents, such as a car wreck, natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake” (United States).

Many veterans are still bothered by the painful memories of wartime. In fact, some veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms 50 years after serving in the war. There are many symptoms that people may experience if they have post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of those symptoms include losing interest in activities, being startled easily, nightmares and feeling like one is experiencing the event again.

From the lips of one Susan Pease Banitt, “PTSD is a whole-body tragedy, an integral human event of enormous proportions with massive repercussions.” Posttraumatic stress disorder is a serious mental disorder that is no respecter of persons. PTSD affects, not only the person involved, but also the people who are closely connected to said person. The symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder can vary depending on the severity of the traumatic event and how the sufferer was involved. There are many options available to help treat most symptoms of PTSD, according to the sufferer’s needs and harshness of the person’s symptoms. Though there are many causes and symptoms associated with PTSD, there are also many effective and pending

Military Pathway (2013) concluded “Military life, especially the stress of deployments or mobilizations, can present challenges to service members and their families that are both unique and difficult”. Hence, it is not surprising that soldiers returning from a stressful war environment often suffer from a psychological condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This paper provides a historical perspective of PTSD affecting soldiers, and how this illness has often been ignored. In addition, the this paper examines the cause and diagnosis of the illness, the changes of functional strengths and limitations, the overall effects this disease may have on soldiers and their families, with a conclusion of

To effectively treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD in combat Veterans and service members, therapists use different techniques, which are preceded by addressing any underlying pain associated with the disorder. In their research, Chard et al. (2011) reported significant modifications to the CPT protocol for use with patients in a TBI-PTSD residential treatment facility, including increasing the number of sessions per week, combining group and individual therapy, and augmenting the treatment with cognitive rehabilitation. However, their research was marred with the use of few participants which provides doubts regarding the outcome of the proposed treatment procedures. Moreover, the researchers do not state with certainty as to the

If veterans do struggle with PTSD after they return from combat the Department of Veterans Affairs, a governmental agency that helps struggling veterans recover, offers two treatments. Studies have been done to see if one of the therapies is more effective than the other. There is not yet evidence that one therapy is better than the other. Cognitive processing therapy, CPT, helps by giving the vet a new way to deal with the maladaptive thoughts that come with PTSD. It also comforts them in gaining a new understanding of the traumatic events that happened to them. One of the other benefits of CPT is that it assists the person in learning how these disturbing events change the way they look at everything in life and helps them cope with that (“PTSD: National”). The second newer option of the two is prolonged exposure therapy, which is repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations (“Most PTSD”). This type of therapy is now a central piece in the VA’s war on PTSD. “The problem with prolonged exposure is that it also has made a number of veterans violent, suicidal, and depressed, and it has a dropout rate that some researchers put at more than 50 percent, the highest dropout rate of any PTSD therapy that has been widely studied so far,”(“Trauma Post”). Both of the therapies are proven to reduce the symptoms but both have extremely high drop out rates and low follow through. It

“When I was in serious danger I was almost completely paralysed by fear, I remember sitting with a coffin (a fellow soldier) on the fire-step of a trench during an intense bombardment, when it seemed certain that we must be killed”(The Psychological Effects Of The Vietnam War). Our soldiers that we send to war to protect us against the countries trying to harm us are put into dangerous situations that affect them physically and mentally and leave them with permanent damage to their minds and bodies. The server damage that our military soldiers faced when returning from war is PTSD which stands for post traumatic stress disorder and is the most common disorder that returning soldiers are diagnosed with , but a more tragic diagnosis from war

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a stress disorder that can occur after a traumatizing experience. PTSD is defined in our text as “A trauma -and stressor¬¬- related disorder that develops from directly or indirectly experiencing actual or threatened death, serious injury, or violence” (Real World Psychology).

Marijuana a derivative of the Cannabis sativa plant is familiar for its psychoactive properties. It is taken for a wide range of conditions including HIV/AIDS, cancer, anxiety disorders, PTSD, chronic pain and multiple sclerosis. Despite it having restrictions, many states have approved the use of cannabis for the treatment of medical and psychological illnesses. In some states, PTDS is among the recommended conditions for medical marijuana (Steenkemp, Blessing, Galatazer-Levy, Hollahan & Anderson, 2017). The extended therapeutic effects and support of the biological plausibility of the contents of the drug underscore the need for PTSD military people to use the drug. The available evidence is the link marijuana has to adverse psychiatric

People with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develop their disorder by experiencing traumatic events that can cause an emotional, physical and mental change. “One day [soldiers are] in a brutal fight in Afghanistan, where they saw carnage, death, and three days later they found themselves toting an ice chest at their kid’s soccer game” (Garcia). As described by Hector Garcia this process can only be described as a “mindfuck.” The current treatment processes like having a therapy dog and joining support groups, although unintentional, manage symptoms rather than cure PTSD. PTSD for a long time has been viewed as only a condition that could be managed, not cured. This issue elicits the question, how can PTSD be successfully treated? The

Before 9th grade, I never thought about mental illness and how it affected me. I believed my heart beating out of my chest from a simple social encounter happened to everyone. Last year, I was formally diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, a sprinkle of OCD, and severe depression. There’s a lot more, but I have yet to find a definite answer from a professional. I’m supposed to be taking Prozac and going to therapy but screw that. Contrary to what many people think, PTSD comes from various different traumatic experiences, not just war. Sometimes PTSD stays for a little bit, and other times it’s a lifetime of terror.