PTSD - post traumatic stress disorder. This pain is a true horror for many of our troops who return from combat zones all over our world. Cold sweats, hot flash's, terror dreams that make you jump out of bed screaming until you vomit up blood. Flash backs was something that you would think was only in a movie but they are real and devistating to you and the ones that love you. hallucinations that cause some people to freak out so bad that they almost bite off their own tongue. suicide has increased in soldiers that have come back from combat. over 300 soldiers have taken their own life in jus the last year. Panic attacks that suck the air from your lungs, anxioty attacks that cause nervous twitch's that can elevate to horrible shaking.
These are just some of the many horrible things that happen to our troops that return, with out the proper help they are reduced to becoming homeless, or just dead. Yes there are organizations such as the VA hospitals, VFW, Veteran out reach centers, but some soldiers are so out of their head when they return that they don't trust anything that deals with the government. Some become outcast, hermitts that disappear in the woods. Many soldiers that had loving family's lose them in the hurricane of the mental strain from the effects of combat.
Some can't work and when they go to get unemployment they are denied time and time again until they just give up, some try to get social security disability only to be denied over and over again until they are left with no hope for their future or the family's that they love. Some soldiers become criminals just to make ends meet or just to get some kind of food in their stomach's.
These men and women that have fought for our country feel hopeless, their honor crushed and everything they fought for has been taken for granted. When soldiers show signs of PTSD they get kicked out of the army with no help and some get kicked out so fast that they have no where to go, they have no one to give them support. When a soldier gets discharged from the army they are suppose to get a medical board which if given to a soldier with a medical condition can give them a percentage for the rest of there lives that would make things go along allot more smoother. Many soldiers are not given this chance, many soldiers get a honorable discharge a pat on the butt and soulless good luck.
We can't keep doing this to our soldiers, it needs to end some where, some how I say these things not just as a concerned civilian but a Iraq veteran who has gone through the pain and agony of returning with no hope in site, but I was lucky to have a loving wife who never gave up on me even when I was screaming, sweating from head to toe, jumping at the slightest sound or attacking someone for looking at me the wrong way. I was also lucky to have gotten into the system at my VA hospital as soon as I got out but that isn't always how it ends up for many of our troops who return.
I've been admitted to the mental ward at the VA hospital for freaking out on my wife and people around me, I've even gone to prison because the over whelming feeling of the world coming to an end made me lash out in a negative manner. I've done and seen all of the effects of a soldier that has been to hell and back. I'm still going to counseling and I have to take strong medications to ease the daily pains of being a PTSD veteran. Imagine having a constant ringing in your ears that will never go away, or the constant pain of muscle spasms, another pain that I've had to endure is TMJ which is a disorder that causes severe grinding of your teeth. Mine got so bad that my joint actually popped out of the socket, I had to have surgery which was a procedure of cutting my jaw bone in half just to line up my joint properly with my socket.
Imagine jumping off a bridge with a bungee cord wrapped around your ankles, the rush of adrenaline as it courses through your veins the pounding of your heart and then the over whelming fear that your safety line will snap at any moment bringing you to a horrible death ... that's what a panic attack feels like. So when you go about your everyday things, just remember that those people that have fought for your freedom are out there and some of them are standing on the corner homeless begging for change. Or they might even be a friend or loved one that is close to you, talk to them imagine yourself in their shoes and I guarantee that you won't even scratch the surface of the true pain that they go through. But also remember that even the soldiers that come back that say that they don't have anything wrong with them....ask yourself is that true?
So the first step to helping our soldiers is to listen to them ...
Alright thank you for your time.
Just remember they fought for your freedom now fight for them ...
