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Should post-traumatic stress include the word “disorder”?
Yes. Doctors consider it a disorder, as does the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
58% (498 votes)
Yes. You can’t service connect symptoms and PTSD as a diagnosable condition.
6% (51 votes)
No. “Disorder” by definition means confusion, malady, dysfunction, destroy, derange, and all those words imply negativity.
15% (124 votes)
No. It's not the disease or injury that's disabling. It's the symptoms the disease or injury causes that create the disability.
21% (180 votes)
Total votes: 853
Comments
PTSD
The longer it goes undiagnosed, it grows into a Disorder.
PTSD
A disorder does not imply that there is a fundamental problem with the person. The disorder is created as a result of the experiences that the person endured that creates a conflict with the person's normal state of mind.
Everyone experiences PTSD to some degree or another during their life -- that's how a number of phobias get created. It's the extreme situations that occur during battle, accidents, or other such events that create the most profound PTSD in a person. It is certainly not something to be ashamed of, feared, or ridiculed. Compassion, understanding, and support in addition to therapy is most needed by these individuals.
Sanitize = Marginalize
Removing the words that show the importance of a situation in the name of not offending the people in that situation always results in a lack of support over time as people lose the memory that something is not a trivial thing.
If I had my way, it would be "PTYSMITHSGMOND". Post-traumatic-you-sent-me-into-this-h*ll-so-get-me-out-now-disorder.
I have never met someone truly diagnosed with PTSD who wasn't "disordered".
It took me 10 years to get over being trained as an "every-little-detail-you see-and especially-those-you-don't-matters" Naval Reactor Operator who had to be perfect and every civilian around me had to be perfect too. That experience doesn't even make the book as *possible* PTSD, much less compare to what a true military PTSD-inducing event entails.
If everyone used the proper words to describe the things around them, they would realize how important some issues really are - and what they owe this country's veterans.
PTSD a Disorder?
I was not aware there was any question about PTSD being a bona fide medical problem; "disorder" if you will. If it is not a disorder, or the symptoms of a disorder, then what is it? I'm old enough to remember when mental problems were not recognized as being legitimate in qualifying a sufferer for medically compensated benefits. But then, I also held the left leg of patients receiving electro-shock therapy. No woolly mammoths or saber-toothed tigers, but still it has been awhile ago. Certainly it is a disorder and needs to be treated and compensated as such. Good grief! Who comes up with these questions?
Ron Kriel
CAPT USN (Ret.)
PTSD
It does account for many of the reasons vets don't get hired. In response to the above comment no one sent you anywhere you volunteered and that's the way this country shows it's appreciation for your sacrifice and I don't mean that in a bad way. Vietnam will be known for Agent Orange, Gulf War for unexplained illnesses, Korea die for a tie, and The War on Global Terrorism for IEDs and PTSD. It's taken 20yrs. and $400 million to finally admit the inoculations/vaccines/shots/ and any other word our great leaders call it is slowly killing us, thxs for nothing!
Having gone through this
Having gone through this after coming back from Vietnam, it is the symptoms that caused me all of my problems. Violent dreams and unknowingly striking my wife while fighting VC with Karate. God and God alone delivered me many years ago after listening to another veteran's testimony, talking to him the next morning after another bad dream, reading scripture and then praying for deliverance. God is able and faithful to do ALL things and His gift to me that day is something that I will ALWAYS be thankful for.