Take Me To Post Comment Form Coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Frontline recently printed an articled entitled, "Spousal support key in post traumatic stress disorder" in its most recent issue dated May 29, 2008. The statement, "PTSD may interfere with relationships and change Family life, but with knowledge and understanding, the spouse of a service member suffering from PTSD can help him or her recover" is the understatement of the century!! Being the spouse of a 100% disabled Veteran who suffers from PTSD and being a suffer of the condition myself, the child of a Vietnam War Veteran; there is no such thing in my opinion as "recovery" with or without family support. The current treatment is basically a "hit and miss" approach using psychotherapy techniques, eye desensitization method or just plain tranquilizers to quiet the brain. When the medical community has a sure fire method to treat and cure "PTSD" then I will be impressed! These vague statements printed to placate the family members thrown into caretaking roles for a service member with this mental condition in which they have no adequate skills or professional training to deal with and are told that spousal support is the "KEY" to so-called recovery is simply misleading and further, infuriatingly maddening! When your spouse is in the throws of a flashback to a combat situation… What is a spouse supposed to support? The mission in the soldiers’ mind? What if the soldier, as in my case, actually misunderstands that you are identified erroneously as amongst the unfriendly or decides that you are in fact the target in a rash of paranoia? How is the spouse supposed to be "supportive?" The Frontline article advises the spouse to "take a walk, go for a bike ride, or do some other physical activity together. Exercise is important for health and helps clear the mind." Great advice to offer the wife of a soldier while he has a sniper's weapon pointed at your face!! The Veteran’s Administration should be the experts in this combat form of PTSD, after all they have treated all of our veterans from multiple wars. What have they learned? My experience in the Mental Health Division of the VA is medicate, medicate, medicate until the soldier is practical spending his whole life asleep under the influence of psychotropic drugs. My research has found that the current treatments are mired down in theories while the condition continues to erode interpersonal relationships. I just came across a University study conducted in Buffalo NY reported recently by the BBC news entitled, "Bottling it up 'can ease trauma'" in which it describes suffers that choose not to discuss their traumatic events would fare better than those who choose therapy! Now that goes against anything I have ever heard from the medical establishment giving advice on the methods of coping with PTSD. Now with many more combat veterans coming home with the condition… what toll will it take on their families? The wives are now on the frontlines with the children as onlookers!! The cycle continues as the new victims of PTSD will be those who care for those who suffer from PTSD 24/7 without professional training or skills to fall back on besides the U.S. Army's guidance "Be Supportive!" The Army, in my obstinate opinion, absolutely falls below negligent in assuming that when discharging a soldier with PTSD, the veteran becomes a "family issue" now. As an outpatient, the Veteran's Administration will continue to diagnose and write their scripts as the family continues to wage a war with the unseen enemy! What is the Army's policy on soldiers unfit for duty? "Use them, abuse them, and then throw them away!" Words not from my mouth but from a disabled veteran who did seek help and found none!! He exists, barely! No wonder there are so many despondent and homeless Vets!!