PTSD

For John, BLUF:  PTSD isn't just about folks who saw combat down range.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

On Post Traumatic Stress, marriages, and two truly awesome books

From the Blog On a Wing and a Whim, by Aviator Dorothy Grant, 24 February 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

I was sitting in the living room with my Calmer Half, enjoying a cup of coffee and the mutual exhausted silence, when he opened his eyes, looked around, and focused on Jen Satterly's book lying blamelessly on the coffee table.  It's Arsenal of Hope:  Tactics for Taking on PTSD, Together, and it's the... well, last year her husband, retired Delta CSM Tom Satterly wrote All Secure:  A Special Operations Soldier's Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront, in which he details the effect that training and operational tempo, combat and losing friends and the resulting PTSD had not only on him, but on his marriages, on his kid, and on his ability to adapt to civilian life.  And how he's fought his way back from the blackest depths to healthy and happy, and is trying to show others the trail he's blazed, and that it's possible and there's hope.

Jen's book is the other half, on what living with someone with PTSD is like, and the toll it takes from the dependent's view.  It's also exactly what is says - an arsenal of many different treatments, therapies, approaches, and the cheerful, rueful note that none of them are a silver bullet.  Some don't work at any given time but work well later, some work and then lose their effectiveness, some will never work for any particular case.  It's an honest, raw look at all the ways that things get messed up between spouses, and that there's been a lot of pain, and depression on her end, as living with rampant PTSD is depressing!  About how to treat yourself, and the importance of putting your own oxygen mask on first, and helping yourself so you can be a help to your partner.

If I had to distill them down to quips, Tom's book is "This shit hits even the toughest of us. You're not weak, you're injured, and there's hope to heal."  And Jen's?  "Here's how, for both of you."

Perhaps the best definition of PTSD in the Blog Post:

It's the right set of responses to the wrong environment.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff