Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

 Everyone has their own story, some fortunate, some less so. Mine is a story of abuse, neglect and mental illness, and the long road back. I offer it for whatever hope and guidance it may provide for others currently suffering. Me, A Victim In 1956 when I was thirteen and starting in middle school, my mother had the first of her several operations for intestinal cancer. She told me that she had “tumors,” but that meant one thing to me— cancer. Around the same time, I, too, began having stomach pains along with constipation like hers. I always had problems getting along with other kids, being teased and harassed, and being nervous, and now I was in great distress. ...

On September 28, US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate titled Veteran Overmedication Prevention Act (S. 3410). This is a companion bill to HR 4640, Veteran Suicide Prevention Act introduced in the House by Congressman David Jolly (R-FL) earlier this year. The objective of both bills is to combat suicide deaths by ensuring that accurate information is available on the relationship between suicides and prescription “medication”. At the present time, 20 US veterans a day are dying by suicide. ...

The basis of my story is rooted in my own, unique experience with medical and psychiatric treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This writing is not intended to convince or influence the necessity or use of mental health professionals. Rather, it is my perspective of what did, is, or will contribute to my personal journey towards a permanently healthier mental state. ...

BACKGROUND I’ve recently read Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, by Ethan Watters (Free Press, 2010). It’s a great book, the theme of which is that western countries, especially America, are exporting the medicalization of human problems to less developed regions of the world. The new “illnesses” are being avidly promoted as if they had the same kind of reality as pneumonia or cancer, and are being foisted on vulnerable populations, with little regard for their impact on the cultures, ideas, sensitivities, and health of the recipients. ...

Every society in every generation makes errors. Some of the errors are minor. Some are major. One of the great errors of the 20th century was this: we accepted the spurious notion that a wide range of life’s problems were in fact illnesses. This spurious notion was initiated with good intentions – to provide shelter and humanitarian care for a relatively small number of individuals whose plight was truly dreadful. But then the concept of mental illness took off, fuelled largely by the efforts of psychiatrists to legitimize their status as “real” doctors. ...

This post was edited and updated on July 7, 2013 in the light of comments from readers. I am grateful for their input. One of the anxiety disorders listed in DSM-IV is posttraumatic stress disorder. The criteria for this condition are listed below: A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present: (1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others (2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Note: in children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior ...