PTSD And Thee

Myke Cole talks about What PTSD is:
I’ve talked before about genre writers who have been very open about per­sonal trials, par­tic­u­larly the kind of depression/anxiety con­di­tions that I feel are a nat­ural part of the uneven ter­rain all authors have to walk. I’ve always appre­ci­ated their will­ing­ness to go public with these issues, as the first (and false) thing that most people suf­fering from these sorts of things think is a.) that they’re alone and b.) the problem is unique to them...
... I’d seen the ads on AFN, showing young men with gun­powder still on their hands, often fresh off the bat­tle­field, having trem­bling flash­backs of a fire­fight where their best friend went down right next to them. THAT was PTSD.
Except, it wasn’t.
Go, RTWT.

My comment last night was that going by this view, for most of human existence, PTSD has been the norm.  It makes me wonder how we might change out foreign policy interactions - say, in Afghanistan - if we were to recognize that for many populations in the world, this is still the norm.

I also hesitate to say it, but... traditionally, the military has been a conservative institution (and I'm using "conservative" in the "civilization vs. barbarian" meaning of the term).  I wonder how much of that is exactly because it is made up of individuals with a very different world view than then general populace; individuals with an understanding at a very visceral, personal level that the world is not a safe place.

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