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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSource: National Center for PTSD<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Frank Ochberg has decades of experience with traumatic stress. He is a founding board member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, founder of Gift From Within, author of the Stockholm Syndrome and former Associate Director of the National Institute for health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Dr. Ochberg, increasing the education, awareness and availability of treatment for service members experiencing combat stress should be one of the highest priorities of the Armed Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If this doesn't come from military families, it's not going to get the attention it deserves. And military families are in a powerful political position. They're not powerful in raising concerns that aren't asked for within the military chain of command. But at the ballot box, and in writing articles, and in entering into the national conversation, it's terribly, terribly important. People listen to widows. People listen to the parents of military, who have sacrificed. So we are talking about something that is crucial, and it's relevant, and it's timely. We can do what we're attempting to do here, which is to de-stigmatize, and normalize, symptoms of PTSD. If you are having flashbacks, and you know it, and yet, you are you have a military career, and you want to keep that career, you don't talk about the flashbacks. \n Front-line soldiers face extreme violence in Iraq. According to Department of Defense studies, more than 90 percent said they had been shot at. Nearly 20 percent said they saved someone's life. More than 80 percent of Marines said they saw injured women and children they had been unable to help.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nOf those Iraq veterans surveyed who reported symptoms of mental distress, 40 percent of Army troops and 29 percent of Marines said they had sought professional help. The top reasons given for avoiding such help, from a multiple-choice list provided by the researchers, were, in order: “I would be seen as weak”; “My unit leadership might treat me differently”; “Members of my unit might have less confidence in me”; and “It would harm my career.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A terrible irony exists for these combat veterans experiencing distress. Reporting has an impact on their careers, but reporting ensures timely help at the earliest point of onset and supports a rapid therapeutic process. Self-reporting is also complicated by the veteran’s perception of negative peer judgment, his own feelings of weakness for having distress and his internal struggle with guilt over leaving his unit to receive treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Ochberg stresses that education is the key to removing the negative perceptions of PTSD:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once you've got it, it is a medical disorder, and it's best to consider it as such. Helps to get treatment for it. Helps to get information about it. Helps to have [ongoing] discussions so that family members can be up to speed and realize 'there but for the grace of God go I.' There's nothing morally wrong or physically wrong with the person who gets PTSD... and with a lot of adults who have served in uniform, branches of government, they manage to do their service, despite their feelings. All while they were on duty. But afterward, when you're safe, when you're in an entirely different environment, your body and your mind starts to react. \n War changes a person. Service members train everyday to serve their country, to fight and win America's wars. Prolonged exposure to hazardous environments, daily exposure to violence and death has a deep affect.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nDr. Ochberg’s life work speaks to helping people who have been exposed to trauma to heal. His message is one of hope and support to all service members and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I want to thank our men and women in uniform for their service. That service carries risk. That risk is to the body and to the spirit. Some of the wounds to the spirit take the pattern of PTSD or depression. They can be treated and treatment is good, and hopeful. Post-traumatic stress, depression; even alcoholism and even family discord are all treatable conditions. Sometimes, some of us have gone through hell, and we're never going to be exactly the same. We've seen things that we'd rather not admit exist. So, we may not be 'the same' but not being the same is okay,\" he said. <\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nFrequently Asked Questions about PTSD With Dr. Frank Ochberg
Q. What is PTSD?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A. PTSD is three different things at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first of those three things is “trauma memory”. Trauma memory is different from usual memory. It comes back when you don’t want it to come back. It can wake you up in the middle of the night. It can be very subtle, so you’re not quite sure what it is until you realize, oh, my God, I’m having the feelings that I had when I was raped. That’s what’s going on. Or it can be very, very specific, like a hallucination. ‘I’m smelling what I was smelling when I was raped\u2026I hear his voice, I feel his hand on me’. When it is what I just said, so real, like a hallucination, you don’t have any time sense. That’s very important. You don’t realize that it’s in the past. And it feels like it’s in the present. So it’s called “Re-experiencing” rather than remembering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the things that is most important in working with people, who have a “trauma memory” is to help them develop a time sense, so they are not scared out of their wits. And therapy is all about transforming a trauma memory into an autobiographical memory. You don’t forget about it, but you know it’s in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second cluster of symptoms is almost the opposite. It’s feeling numb. It’s like having emotional anesthesia. And you’re really not the person you once were, and even though that emotional anesthesia may dampen down feelings of terror, they take away feelings of love, and hope, and connection. And there is a tendency of a person who feels numb is to avoid things. They avoid people, often people who might trigger the reminder of the traumatic event. They move into a shell and they’re not the person that they once were. It’s a very sad part of the disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last part of the disorder is being a nervous person. You’re easily startled, you don’t concentrate well, you don’t sleep well, you’re irritable. You can think of it as having a lot of adrenaline, although it doesn’t necessarily mean you do, it means that your threshold for being made anxious has been lowered a lot. That’s why, for a lot of people, PTSD is primarily an anxiety disorder, and they do well when they’re treated with the medication that helps with anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Q. Is PTSD the same as depression?
A. Because of the second cluster, it feels like depression. It technically is not depression. There’s nothing in a PTSD diagnosis that says that you are sad, hopeless, helpless, worthless, and if you are sad, hopeless, helpless, worthless, you have to call it both PTSD and depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For PTSD, there’s a clear precipitating event, and when it happened, you felt very scared, or horrified, or helpless at the time. That’s number one. Number two is you have all three clusters of symptoms and they’re all happening within a period of a month. The last part of the diagnosis is that the symptoms have gone on for at least a month after you were traumatized. You don’t call it PTSD if on the second day after you have symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Q. What is Acute Stress Disorder?
A. Acute Stress Disorder is used to identify the kind of people who are more likely to develop PTSD, based on their behavior, a few days after exposure. It’s almost exactly the same as PTSD, except you look for a little more trance-like symptoms early on, and that’s called, technically, dissociation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we are very, very shocked, traumatized, nervous, we go into a trance. If you think of the first meaning of shellshock, it is the image of the soldier on the battlefield, in a daze, corpses around, and the smell of gunpowder. There were battle scenes and people were thrown into an altered state of consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What’s meant by Acute Stress Disorder is that you have a reaction right away, you’re in a daze, and if that lasts for a while, there’s more of a chance of it becoming PTSD. If it continues for over a month, you no longer call it Acute Stress Disorder, you call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Need to Know
Some service members report feeling upset or “keyed up” even after they return home. Some may continue to think about events that occurred in combat, sometimes even acting as if back in a combat situation. These are common “combat stress reactions” (also called acute stress reactions) that can last for days or weeks and are a normal reaction to combat experiences. When these reactions continue for over a month, the service member may be experiencing PTSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below is a list of common reactions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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