- an emotional illness that is usually classified as an anxiety disorder
- developes after a traumatic indicdent or any extremely unsafe experience like war or murder....
- there are three types of PTSD: chronic, acute, and delayed-onset
- PTSD can develop years after the event
Symptoms
- people often re-experience the incident or incidents that caused the person to develop PTSD ("flashbacks")
- activly try to avoid anything that reminds them of the incident including people, place, and activities
- extremely sensitive to "normal life experiences"
- feeling distant from others
- feeling on "guard"
- being "jumpy"
- haveing difficulty remebering important parts of the experience
PTSD & Vietnam
- about 19% of the 3 million troops who fought in Vietnam returned home with PTSD
- in an older study though, it was found that about one in every three soldiers developed PTSD and among those about 15% still suffer from it
- 28% of soldiers with the most combat exposure developed PTSD
As well as PTSD many returning vets developed other problems with either society or themselves (this doesn't that they developed PTSD though)...
- marital problems (40% of men have had one divorce and about 10% have had two or more divorces)
- parent problems (about 23% claim to have parent problems)
- breaking the law (about half the vets have been to jail once)
- alcoholism (about 39% became an alcoholic after the war but now alholism is down to about 11%)
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