They Don’t Come Back the Same

It is a straightforward axiom that soldiers do not come back the same when returning from war. This has enormous implications for the thousands of men and women fighting for their countries all around the globe; that they may too come home with the disorder becoming more prevalent within today’s society: post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Trauma occurs when a person has experienced, witnessed or been confronted with a terrible event. This occurs most often when soldiers return from war. In World War One this was described as shell shock. World War Two saw it described as battle fatigue. Since then other terms used to de-scribe PTSD include nostalgia, not yet diagnosed nervous, irritable heart, effort syndrome, war neu-rosis, and operational exhaustion. All relate to the same group of symptoms which together form post traumatic stress disorder.

Medically speaking, PTSD is a “dysfunction of the bodies normal defence systems to traumatic expe-riences”. This abnormal function produces symp-toms through forms of re-experiencing the trauma, persistent avoidance and depression.

Individuals can be subjected to distressing recol-lections of the experience through forms of flash-backs or nightmares. It is not uncommon for people while having these flashbacks to return to the frame of mind they were in when the incident took place, forcing the