The Cost to Misdiagnosing PTSD is Death

Since attention was first drawn to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, many have been scrambling to define and treat it.  What seems to be lost on those chasing this mythical beast is a plain and simple truth that when clearly understood will lead to a much better life for all concerned.

Experts would have you believe that PTSD is only a condition suffered by those who are combat veterans and nothing could be farther from the truth.  To get to the truth one only has to close that hole below their nose and open the two on opposite sides of their heads.  In other words, shut up and listen.  Do not think that a piece of paper depicting your years of study or a degree gives your insight into this disorder because it does not.  What gives you insight is the memory of any event in your life that caused you to re-think your entire existence and question your reason to live on.  That people is PTSD and it affects everyone at one time or another in their lives.  Granted it has a greater and most often a more devastating effect on military veterans but it exists within us all.

As a former U. S. Marine and a sufferer of this disorder, let me attempt to educate you on how it really works and why the misdiagnosing of it may lead in death.  When anyone makes that decision to enlist in any one of our branches of the military, they have at that time decided to lay down their lives for those who stay home.  They have made a conscientious decision to make that ultimate sacrifice because they believe in what this nation and her people stand for.  They are willing to dispense justice and fairness wherever it is needed and be this nation’s ambassadors.  That decision alone begins to wear on them long before ever stepping foot into basic training.

Now while in basic training, they learn more about why they are there and they learn more about those that came before them.  They begin to see the vision of a free and just nation and how important it is to keep this shining city on a hill beacon burning brightly.  They throw themselves into their training because it is all that will keep them alive if the situation ever arises.  All the while there is a quiet doubt lurking within their minds if they will truly stand and fight or run away.

To see combat is one thing but image training all those years and not being able to deploy.  Image the guilt you feel every time you hear about a conflict, war or battle, knowing that you lost many brothers in arms but was not there to lend your gun.  You see them coming home in body bags, flagged draped coffins or physically damaged.  These same people you stood side by side with in training must now have help to stand and here you are with all your working parts.  This is stress unimagined and unknown by anyone who do not live it.  This is the life of those non-combat veterans that society and experts say suffers not from PTSD.

If you want to see a very clear example of how wrong and costly these experts opinions are, look no further than and article titled “The Washington Navy Yard gunman who killed 12 people last year conned Veterans Affairs doctors into believing he had no mental health issues before the shootings written for the Associated Press.  In it, it talks about failure of psychiatry doctors to understand what they were dealing with when dealing with Alexis the Navy Yard Shooter.  It reports that “the gunman who killed 12 people in last year's rampage at Washington's Navy Yard lied so convincingly to Veterans Affairs doctors before the shootings that they concluded he had no mental health issues despite serious problems and encounters with police during the same period, according to a review by The Associated Press of his confidential medical files”.

What does this mean; it means that in the experts haste to determine who suffers from PTSD and who doesn’t, they neglected the most blaring reason to consider this disorder for all those who served.  The rational for joining was accepted by those who joined but the coming to terms with what they now carry has not.  Until all veterans comes to terms with the feeling of guilt and so many others cursing through their bodies, no one will ever be whole.  It has been and probably always is about money to those who stayed home but to those who stood tall and presented themselves as ready for action; it is more about filling in the gaps that exist within their souls.

The nightmares may subside and the nervousness may ease but the turmoil that remain constant within shall never stop and if those who say that they care about all veterans really do, it is time you learned that too.  Veterans need to have a support system that really understands them and the last thing they need is someone who meets them for ten seconds telling them who they are or what they are all about.  The Navy Yard shooter shows us what can happen when those expected to provide to us the most needed of services, refuse to educate themselves and rely only on what they are being told or taught in a classroom.