VETERANS AND THEIR MENTAL HEALTH
The writing doesn’t aim to generalize any mental health towards veterans but it initiates to tap the problem left alone by the cloak of ‘Be a man’ in the military environment. It aims to find problems created through the harsh and unfair environment in the regime. The study focuses mainly on PTSD alone. It is a study to particularly pinpoint the reason for the unusual behavior of veterans with civilians. Thus this is an attempt to articulate this behavior from the lens of psychology.
Veterans or people who serve in the military in any form differ in many aspects from a civilian’s lifestyle. Luxury is a far-fetched word for them rather they are trained to face any hardships that come ahead. They are taught in every possible way to survive on the battlefield. The unstable and harsh environment leaves a footprint on the mental health of veterans which is externalized in different manners in daily life. We see unusual behavior as anger or depression symptoms in them due to brutalities they faced. Their exposure to such brutality increases the chance of developing PTSD. People with PTSD are more prone to suicide and self-harm. ( BMJ 2015;351:h6161). PTSD had been named or recognized in different manners but was present since the ancient Greeks (Carlstedt, 2009). The increase of World War studies developed terms such as ‘shell shock’ and ‘combat neurosis’ which were synonymous with PTSD (Judith, 2015). The term ‘PTSD’ emerged after the Vietnam war instilled mental diseases into the war veterans and was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980 (Fiedman, 2013). Although, PTSD didn’t exist in DSM-I but ‘Gross Stress Reaction’ did contain similarities (Andreasen, 2010).
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
The most commonly and easily sighted problem of all found in Veterans is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder develops usually after a very devastating incident. That devastating incident’s remembrance becomes a trigger for distress, fear, angry outbursts, guilt, or loss of interest in activities etc. PTSD doesn’t develop through only dangerous events but one of the possibilities could be a dangerous event encountered where the reflexes signaled ‘fight or flight’
Signs and Symptoms
To determine PTSD, the individual must face distress from an incident for a month or somehow negatively influence his daily operations. The course of recovery or time of recovery isn’t solidly determined yet. It is quite subjective. However, there are 4 parameters through which PTSD is determined. The individual should face these for a month then only he would be classified as experiencing PTSD. The symptoms are re-experiencing the incident, avoidance symptom, arousals and reactivity symptom, cognition and mood symptoms (NIMH, 2016) The avoidance symptom is identified if an individual brings a change in its routine or daily life. For example, if a person got into an accident in the kitchen that injured or affected him in any way such as sexual assault. And the individual avoids approaching in that area, then it does term as an avoidance symptom. The temperance symptom comes out in the form of bad dreams or frightening thoughts. The individual is mostly on the edge as that memory subconsciously affects his daily life in the form of deprivation of sleep, anger outbursts, or a tainted self-perception.
However, a traumatic event wouldn’t always end with this particular disorder. There are other factors in play as well. The traumatic events would aggravate if the individual is deprived of any help or might have a positive coping strategy that might have enabled him to get through. A previous history of mental illness might support further worsening of the individual’s condition