SOLDIER STORIES: Survivor’s Syndrome.
Photo: Master Sgt. James Haskell was an aerial gunner for most of his 21-year career in the U.S. Air Force. Now, he struggles with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and says putting on a happy face to get through a day is like wearing a mask. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Kevin Milliken, 27 APR 2013. Source.)
PTSD: A Soldier’s Perspective | My case for the Syndrome of Survival.
(Blogpost by Joseph Miller, 15 JAN 2014. Source.)
A popular argument to fight the stigma of PTSD is to abandon it as a disorder. There have also been cases for calling PTSD an injury because of damage to the hippocampus, but this is perhaps the worst piece of evidence because this scarring occurs in bi-polar disorder as well as the entire spectrum of anxiety disorders: some caused by trauma, some not. The injury moniker’s most problematic issue is that it seems to create an acceptable male, or females living up to male ideals, non-mental illness. Even rape survivors are said to “have MST” instead of PTSD caused by rape in the military (why there is any effort to sterilize rape in the military continually blows my mind).
The worst thing about injury or trauma titles is their omission of how paradoxical and complicated PTSD, Shell Shock, and Civil War Nostalgia have always been. Injuries are often a lot more simple: rest, ice, compression, elevation does very little to your identity. War alters our identity and what we have is a persistent illness, disorder, or syndrome. Yet, anyone who truly understands post-traumatic stress grasps how it is the persistence of engaged survival skills into non-survival situations. Those survival skills ultimately saved our lives, but their persistence makes the mundane and routine parts of life harder to manage.
Syndromes are often permanent and the damage to our brain was not instant. It takes years of overuse of the limbic system to damage the brain’s declarative memory and create the scarring identified by injury advocates. Moreover, calling it a syndrome of survival also addresses the deep longing and even nostalgic memory of war. We are damaged, but most of us possess some longing to return, and even miss combat or trauma.
When we act like post-traumatic stress is solely an injury, we confuse injuries and disorders, all because of stigma. Assholes will be assholes whatever title is used, but calling post-traumatic stress what it is, with respect to trauma’s paradoxical complexity, helps us accept what war and survival have done to us. It will also help war survivors recognize what they have in common with rape survivors, and that their persistent problems are extremely difficult and life altering, but they ultimately come from a place of strength, not weakness. We are all survivors and we deserve a better title.
I know this is a controversial topic that many well-informed and capable people will disagree about, but as both a historian and combat veteran I’ve never been able to feel comfortable with any of the other popular titles. The syndrome of survival seems to captures all the complexity of survival as well as addressing lasting syndrome. Survival is a universally respected, even celebrated, aspect of the human experience and connecting our troubled lives to this ultimately positive fact will also encourage growth in all of those affected by trauma. We also need a title that people who suffer are more willing to bear publicly, so that the conversation shifts to become broader and more substantive. A title that should come with a stronger sense of corporate pride and empathy from non-survivors. A title that expresses a collective appreciation for what people have survived and the baggage that comes from it.
No other title does that the way one crafted around survival can. Survivor is a moniker encompassing the fact that we are not leaves blown about by circumstance. We survived through merit and resilience, and we can also survive the way that those original experiences have changed us, maybe even let our survival motivate us to be something better than we would’ve without our horrible experiences.
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