PTSD

But as for me, afflicted and in pain— may your salvation, God, protect me                                    Psalm 69:29

Violence has been a part of human history since… well since there has been history. Even one of the earliest stories in the Bible is the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Over the millennia, we have become more sophisticated in the ways that we can kill and maim people. Now we even have clinical names for the effects of violence on our psyche and our soul.

Early in the 20^th century as the ravages of a new kind of war (World War I) played out, we came up with the term “shell shocked”. This came about because of the terror that incessant long range artillery bombing had on soldiers under constant stress and duress. A soldier was never safe, and the possibility of imminent death was everywhere at any time.  

When World War II came, we had another word for the terrible psychological effects of war- “combat fatigue”. That seemed like a sanitized word for the horrible effects that battle could bring to bear.

Finally, we named this phenomenon, after the Viet Nam conflict, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Indeed, that has become part of the lexicon of the DSM 5 and other diagnostic criteria manuals. PTSD is now commonly known and diagnosed for those who have experienced trauma of any kind- abuse, exposure to long-term stress, and even to those who have witnessed such traumatic events.

The term and the concept are valid. Truly, I see many clients who have experienced trauma, or been subject to its effects, and it give us a common parlance to discuss such injury. We know also that early trauma actually changes the way that people perceive their environment, and early trauma literally changes brain development.

We will delve more into this in future blogs. In the meantime, we all must become more aware of how trauma informs our life and our world.

Prayer: Lord, you are the healer who can bring about peace in a violent world, Amen.