The injury and trauma of shell shock have been termed many things since 2700 BC
Some physicians and psychiatrists who have extensively studied the physical and mental effects of combat among men and women have narrowed down these terms as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders. Veterans and families of U.S. War Veterans have known about what became known as PTSD even before our Revolutionary War. American Indian slaughters by the white armies produced their own PTSD victims. Even Daniel Boone, hero of adventure novels, survived the Braddocks Massacre and retreated to the woods to hide his shame and misery of what man can do to other men. Many American soldiers who fought against the plains Indians during the Custer Era- 1865-1876 and the post-Custer Indian fighters, stayed away from treatment centers and became "mountain men." Isolation and solitude became their PTSD treatment.
Soldier's Heart
Homesickness
Railroad Spine
Cowardice
Battle Fatigue
Barbed Wire Disease
The American Civil War saw the first in-depth investigations into the
psychological effects of war on soldiers
2.2 million Union men enlisted
140,414 Union men killed between
1.05 million Confederate men conscripted
74,524 Confederate men killed
Over 3.1 million men fought in this terrible struggle over state's rights and slavery, suffering on average of 1 in 4 being wounded or killed in this bloody conflict. The severe trauma from the battles caused a massive spike in mental fatigue and injury. Military medical professionals in response to the many symptoms of PTSD initially equated the emotionally disabling effects of both the mental and physical strains to the stress and fears of the soldiers in combat. Soldiers who demonstrated psychological or physical fatigue were diagnosed as having "Soldier's Heart."
War sparked a revolution of poetry and verse
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Most of the poetry was mainly anti-war, with discussions on what a tremendous waste that war was in general, not only in men and machines but to government treasuries and its lands and valleys
Vietnam and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Vietnam Vet Bob Cagle, who has traveled back to Vietnam twice, objects to the expression of “post traumatic stress disorder”:
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When I first heard the term PTSD, it sounded like one designed to describe what my wife experiences when she sees a spider and then calls me at the top of her lungs, to come and kill it. This is not a reasonable diagnosis for something so en-compassing that it can and will engulf a person’s life, ruin any chance for intimacy, keep horrid scenes in ones’ mind for thirty-six years or for life. To be angry at the world, jump at the slightest sound or movement, and live within one’s own mind because you know that no one would understand or try to help us with this hell.
Picture Courtesy Of: Kampher Lin
