Hello! My story is in a historic setting, beginning of 18th century. One of my characters has PTSD due to fighting in war over several years. People have no word for PTSD, although they know that soldiers will often come back with a similar set of symptoms. There is obviously no medication or therapist available. What could friends do that would actually help the character? Anything they might try to do to help but that would rather do more harm?
People may not have had words for PTSD back then, but the disorder itself has been described as far back as 440 BCE, by Herodotus.
Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the thick of the fray and behaving himself as a brave man should, when suddenly he was stricken with blindness, without blow of sword or dart; and this blindness continued thenceforth during the whole of his afterlife. The following is the account which he himself, as I have heard, gave of the matter: he said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard, which shaded all his shield, stood over against him; but the ghostly semblance passed him by, and slew the man at his side. Such, as I understand, was the tale which Epizelus told.
Lucretius wrote in 50 BCE:
The minds of mortals… often in sleep will do and dare the same… Kings take the towns by storm, succumb to capture, battle on the field, raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut even then and there. And many wrestle on and groan with pains, and fill all regions round with mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed by fangs of panther or of lion fierce.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181586/
WHICH IS JUST TOO GODDAMN COOL, Y’ALL. Sorry, had to share that. :)
The problem with the rest of your question, however, is that people with PTSD are not a monolith. There’s no exact right way to help someone.
I’ve listed two general things characters could do, and beneath each one listed a way it could backfire or be done poorly. It’s up to you to decide how your character would react.
Be supportive, and open to listening to the character’s problems
Force the character to talk even if they’re not ready to
Help identify triggers, and shield the character from encountering them
Excessively protecting the character from everything that could be conceived as triggering them. Patronizing or ‘babying’ the character.
Followers with PTSD, in your experience, what have friends said or done that helped? What made things worse?
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