Tuesday, February 9, 2010
PTSD and the Great War
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is the main reason why most veterans returning home commit suicide or homicide, have substance abuse problems, or suffer from depression. During a war, veterans need to be on constant alert and have probably witnessed many of their fellow veterans dying or being severely injured. These experiences is similar to that of the trenches in World War One, and is why many of the soldiers suffered from PTSD (which was then called shell shock, because it was believed to be caused by the heavy artillery.) The soldiers were on constant alert. They couldn't see their enemy, but they knew the enemy was there and could shoot at them at any given moment. This is most likely why one of the symptoms or PTSD is being very jumpy, hating crowds, and startling easily. Reasons why someone could be scarred for life are probably relatively the same during wars. All wars have death, violence, harsh conditions and fear. In WWI however, the cases of PTSD, even if they were unknown at the time, were probably a lot greater than the number of cases now. One could argue that this is not the case, because our technology of weapons are more powerful. However, WWI was a lot bigger and involving more countries, there were more casualties, and more innocent people were hurt or killed. In any case, PTSD is problem in all wars and should be diagnosed and treated quickly, because the person with PTSD could be contemplating suicide or homicide and should be stopped.
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Another possible reason for the decrease in frequency of PTSD between world war one and now may be due to the media. We watch movies and shows with tons of graphic violence every day now, and our generation may simply be more used to the ugly images that come with war. Images of war during world war one would almost always glorified posters of men marching off to battle, so many people might not have been prepared for what met them in the trenches.
ReplyDeleteI somewhat agree with Emily. There are so many new violent video games, that people might be a little more accustomed to violence. But these are just games. Real human beings actually don't die right next to you. And when you die, i think you just start over.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I think that many people might not be admitting that they have symptoms of PTSD nowadays, because they might be embarrassed of feel silly.