Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Its Impact on Families

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and its impact on families

COM 156

May 5, 2013

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and its impact on families

Military personnel receive extensive training so that they can perform in ways that sometimes go against their moral beliefs while fighting for this country. This leaves many members of the armed forces traumatized by their days on the battlefield long after they return home. This trauma is a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In many instances the soldier’s family also fall victim to this disorder because of its physical and emotional impact on the sufferer.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was not recognized as a legitimate health issue until the 1980s even though it has affected members of the enlisted spanning generations. According to author Carol Shultz-Vento (2011), World War II veterans could keep their sufferings hidden from society. They fought the battle against this disorder in private creating family secrets they never spoke of, most of which many took to their graves. Some could rationalize their actions and process the atrocities they witnessed whereas others remained in turmoil. Countless soldiers suffered in silence unable to pinpoint the cause of their distress, while others became prone to emotional outburst. Plagued by nightmares, what seemed to be irrational fears, and unexplainable emotional problems they would become emotionally withdrawn from family members. As a result many found they no longer provide more than the bare essentials for their families. As this generation of soldiers began aging; dementia slowly unshackled the turmoil in their war-torn brains exposing the long-standing torment they had been holding onto so tightly. Psychiatrist Deirdre Johnston stated it best when she said, “Somehow these men have nobly gotten out of the war and controlled their memories for the most of their life” (Dyhouse, 2000, p. 10). Dementia opened old wounds, and the...