(Marine Corps Times) Backtalk: Answers are few, but treatment is available for PTSD

[unhappycamper]

Answers are few, but treatment is available for PTSD
By Mallon Link

I don’t really talk about why I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I relive those moments in my head enough that I have never felt comfortable saying them out loud.

PTSD, according to the National Institute for Mental Health, is “an anxiety disorder after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.” Anyone can develop it given the right circumstances, but over the past four years it is increasingly found in combat veterans.

I deployed to Iraq in 2003. It was upon my return that I started to experience symptoms of PTSD. I wasn’t diagnosed until 2006.

In most cases left untreated, people can become violent toward themselves or others. In all cases, it is the family members who suffer most.

I started off panicked most of the time, and the panic was, at times, paralyzing. Most people experience some panic in their lifetimes, but my panic was the fear of a child alone, at night, in a room full of monsters. Medical professionals call it “panic” — I call it “terror.”


Rest of article (GOOD READ) at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/community/opinion/marine_backtalk_ptsd_011909a/%2e