PTSD A SCAM?

Posted on 01/25/2015 Updated on 03/22/2016

PTSD SCAMMERS

I noted a search phrase suggesting PTSD is just a scam used by vets to get benefits.  While I have no doubt that there are some few who are trying to fake it to get benefits (lots of luck to them, considering the exacting and grueling process), I’m convinced that there is a great deal more PTSD in vets than statistics show.  What I see on Face Book pages dedicated to the war and its veterans bears that out.

A MATTER OF DEGREE

For one thing, including my own case, there can be a sense that one doesn’t/didn’t “deserve” PTSD.  I actually had it comparatively easy in Viet Nam and, knowing what others went through in the bush, pretty much denied it had any impact on me.  I was in a medical unit and, as such, was not involved in offensive operations per the Geneva Convention.  That didn’t stop Charlie from mortaring and rocketing the snot out of our base at Bien Hoa at least 100 times during my tour with the 20th Preventive Medicine Unit, 44th Medical Brigade.

It was regular enough that we actually had a sick pool in 15-minute increments as to what time any given night we’d be mortared.  If we weren’t, it would roll over.  One troop who kept a notebook reckoned we were hit 33 out of his first 36 nights in the unit during the May offensive, ’68.

One major question is what the pre-morbid nature of the individual was; what was his/her temperament prior to exposure to the stressors?  I don’t even remember myself much before Vietnam but have been told I was easy-going and fun loving.  There was a combination of survivor guilt and a reluctance to put myself in the same class as those who spent their tours in the bush.  However, looking back, the symptoms were there in spades — symptoms I kissed off as simply being a screwed up human being.  I must say, though I doubt it alone contributed much to my symptoms, being surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than to kill me was a very odd feeling that stays with me today.  To that I would add the mindset it was necessary to adopt.  One had to have it deep in his mind and soul that he was willing to kill and willing to be killed to have a chance of being an effective soldier.

 It wasn’t until nearly 24 years later that the denial was shattered when I broke into tears at the sight of some vets marching in a 4th of July parade.

YEAH?  WHAT ABOUT WW II VETS’ RELATIVE INFREQUENCY OF PTSD?

Some have suggested that Vietnam vets were somehow more “wussy” than WW II vets.  What they probably don’t know is that (remember, this is an average) the average WW II vet saw around 40 days of actual combat in a year.  Vietnam vets, on average, saw 240 days in a year.  The train wreck was bigger for them on average.

STIGMA

Yes, there is stigma, though that has decreased with an increase in recognition of the problem and individual acceptance of it.  Having PTSD has a tendency to lead one to think he’s less of a man — a self-imposed stigma and one source of denial.  Past military attitudes toward PTSD have no small part in that.  After the Civil War, it was not uncommon for vets with severe PTSD to be put in asylums, and to be treated as if they were mentally ill.  In my other blog about sexual abuse survivors, I’ve likened their PTSD to train wrecks and car crashes; the greater the collision, the more damage.  It takes some pretty hairy denial to look at a car that is even only missing its rear bumper and tail lights and, psychologically speaking:  1) Somehow ignore it; 2) somehow convince one’s self that the car was manufactured that way; or 3) figure that the car was hit by a meteor in the middle of the night or something.

WEIRD EMOTIONS

I recall, some three years after returning, lying in bed and asking God to kill me.  What the Sam Hill was that all about?  I have no recollection of why.  I had a brand new home, two new cars, a loving wife and a decent job.  Still, I wanted to die for no conscious reason other than some vague sense I deserved it.  I was bitter, angry and irritable.  Fast forward to ten years later when I was punching holes in the walls of yet another new home (I ran out of things to hang over the holes); there would be no one around, including my wife, and yet I’d go into a senseless rage.  I was lucky in that I never wanted to, or did, hit her.  I really had no idea why I was so enraged, I just was.  In the end, I spent 7 1/2 years in therapy but, though it was not without value, none of the therapists picked up on, or had any idea about, PTSD.  I blamed my symptoms on my marriage.  In retrospect, that was completely nuts.  There were no more issues than there would have been in any 22-year marriage.  My career was booming and I loved my job.  I lived 1 1/2 blocks from the beach in “Surf City”, California.  I drove a BMW and had a boat and other toys.  Still, I had a fuse which was frightening to me and to others when it hit the explosives.  My own mother told me she was scared when I got angry.  I began drinking more than was healthy.

NIGHTMARES

I had, and still occasionally have (increasingly rare, thank goodness), a recurring nightmare.  I’ve been sent back to Vietnam.  At first I’m confidently okay with that, thinking I’ve been there, done that, and know how to handle myself.  Then there is an alert.  An attack is imminent.  While others grab their gear and rush off to their positions, I can find nothing but my pants and boots.  I end up cornered by an enemy aiming his AK47 at me, usually with bayonet fixed, and either wake up at that point or am killed and wake up.  I wake up fearful and sweating in either case.  My bother, an MP in Nam who ran convoy guard duty, has an uncannily similar dream but is armed with nothing but a stick as he looks down the barrel of an AK47 pointed in his face.

RELATIONSHIP CARNAGE

I had no real marital “situation”, but that’s what I blamed my symptoms on.  Fortunately, it turned out to be the best thing I had ever done for my wife.  Getting the crazy dude out of the home allowed her to blossom in ways that may never have been otherwise.  Foregoing more details, my symptoms ultimately cost me my considerable professional reputation, my marriage and nearly everything I owned.  That’s probably way too much information and self-disclosure but it goes to the point that PTSD is very real, comes in degrees, and wreaks havoc on lives.

Once again, I have little doubt that there are some freeloaders who try to claim PTSD to get V.A. benefits, but I have equally little doubt that there are tens of thousands of Vietnam and other vets out there whose tales are similar to mine.  If they’ve finally made the connection, they would be just as miffed as I that anyone (very, very likely having no personal experience with war) would be looking for freeloaders rather than acknowledging with concern what war does to people.  I myself have not made any attempt at getting benefits for PTSD.  While my life would have gone far more well, I don’t consider my signs and symptoms to have risen to the level of being worthy of compensation.  It’s the same for female sexual abuse survivors.  The “matter of degree” issue applies to those survivors as well.  Not all incidents of sexual abuse are horrific but they do not have to be thus to lead to PTSD.  I was struck by the symptoms of a couple of clients.  One had never been touched but her stepfather kept making sexual allusions and even threats, saying someone had to be the first and it may as well be him.  Though relatively mild, she had a clearly discernible PTSD syndrome.  Another had escaped abuse but she knew her sisters were being abused and she too had some of the syndrome.

INHERENT HUMANITY

I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain sort of personal honor inherent in PTSD.  That one can develop it from what one sees and/or is compelled to do is a testimony to the humanity of the sufferer.  My (albeit anecdotal) observation of the character of fellow vets who have it bears that out.  A sociopath, or one who otherwise has no compassion, would not be blessed with PTSD.

End of rant.

AFTERNOTE

I have noted, in addition, search terms suggesting “PTSD is no excuse” (in addition to information about PTSD “freeloaders”) and feel obliged to comment.  I am acutely aware that there are differences between excuses and reasons.  There are solid reasons for the PTSD symptoms of vets (and survivors) and those symptoms disrupting functioning.

As for excuses, there is a reason the term “survivor” is used for sufferers of childhood sexual abuse rather than victim.  Once a person has PTSD it is true that, though it is no fault of the person, it is that person’s responsibility to battle and overcome the PTSD.  Nobody can do it for the survivor (vet or other) but it is equally true that others need education as to the symptoms and what they do to functioning.  Others are responsible for knowing that as human beings, and for understanding that one cannot simply wish away the PTSD and its effects.  I have since apologized to my ex wife.  It does not seem she accepts my explanation of the reasons for my terrible behavior but I have immersed myself in the process of remembering, and taking responsibility for my bad behavior.

The sufferer is responsible, in effect, for saying “I’m working on it” — and doing so. Once anyone allows any affliction to become a hobby and to ask for constant slack on account of that affliction, that person needs an understanding and loving, yet firm, “Yeah – but what are you doing about it?”; a loving, if you will, boot in the tush.  There is danger in becoming a professional victim and life will, to say the least, not go well — not at all.  I must add that, if Vietnam or any other war service caused PTSD (an injury, after all), disability compensation is not out of order any more than a physical wound.  Deniers have no idea just how horrible the symptoms and suffering can be.