How Has Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Affected The Lifestyles Of Soldiers Who Have Returned Home?



How Has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Affected The Lifestyles Of Soldiers Who Have Returned Home?

Introduction

Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is a complex mental disorder which can manifest in a number of symptoms like aggression, depression, irrational anger, sleeplessness, general wariness, anxiety, flashbacks or worse, emotional detachment (Friedman, 2006). According to a study by the Pentagon, recently majority of the veterans who have returned home display symptoms of PTSD like anxiety and in some cases severe depression. The RAND Corporation conducted a study which highlighted that one out of every five soldiers suffer from this disorder, making for almost twenty percent in comparison to them being about four percent of the overall population of America. Many of these veterans try or succeed in committing suicide, and less than half of the affected make an effort to seek treatment. A continuous state of PTSD often results in the affected individuals succumbing to alcoholism or even substance abuse (Carroll, 2006).

PTSD has the ability to hide itself for days, months or even years and when it finally does manifest, it tends to overcome the individual with a fatal viciousness. In early years during the First and Second World War, it was known as 'shell shock,' but during the Vietnam War the medical community finally accepted it as a brutal disorder affecting not only the mental but physical health of the patient and named it as post traumatic stress order. Even in today's medically advanced world, many soldiers are left untreated or medical professionals are unable to deliver the necessary treatments, and several of these veterans are sent back into battle.

The author Braverman in his article titled ''The Tree Is the Enemy Soldier': A Sociolegal Making Of War Landscapes In The Occupied West Bank” discusses in detail how the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine has affected the landscape, sociologically, psychologically and physically (Braverman, 2008). The effect of the damage to the landscape is described as turbulent, impacting the perceptions of the land itself on the people living off it as well as the damage to the soldiers fighting this continuous war. He has outlined that the political climate of Palestine has been affected by a succession of the British, Zionist and Jewish intervention, and how it has been molded by every successive battle and struggle. The soldiers participating in this war are therefore bound to have been greatly affected by the ongoing political, social and economical changes in both the countries, by mental disorders like PTSD.

Effect of PTSD in Social and Familial Settings

PTSD affects soldiers in many ways as mentioned above. It affects their everyday duties, actions and decisions as well as having a negative impact on their families as well as their spouses. Post traumatic stress disorder is not just depression or general anxiety because its symptoms are extremely compelling and vivid. Soldiers who are affected report recurring nightmares, lucid moments of flashbacks when thinking rationally ...