PTSD Paradox: Fighting Stigma on Two Fronts

Image courtesy of the VA Research on PTSD.

The paradox of PTSD for military personnel: “The outside world assumes vets are broken. Yet while they are in the military, they feel they are under pressure to hide their problems,” according to a National Public Radio story on the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Raising Awareness

The public needs to become better educated on PTSD to prevent furthering its stigma. One place to start is with Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and a column in the Huffington Post where he debunks misinformation surrounding Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ case.

Dispelling Assumptions

“There’s no good data linking PTSD to acts of extreme violence like the kinds that have been in the news,” Lisa Jaycox, behavioral scientist at Rand Corporation, told NPR.

The case of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier charged with killing 17 Afghan villagers, has led the Army to review how troops are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder. The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs say they have invested heavily in the treatment of PTSD to deal with a growing caseload.

But the stigma associated with the disorder continues to complicate efforts to treat it. It has also fueled serious misconceptions about its effects — such as the notion that PTSD causes acts of extreme violence.

You can read the full NPR story and listen to it HERE.

IAVA Founder Calls Out Media for Stereotyping in Bales’ Case

Paul Rieckhoff (Photo courtesy of Charlie Rose Show)

My thanks to Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, for his insightful and straight talk about some media reports surrounding the Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians.

Here’s a taste of what he wrote for The Huffington Post – The Blog – about coverage on HLN:

For 20 minutes, Dr. Drew continued to push the narrative of Bales as a victim, a baseless one that many in the media have latched onto this past week. This does Bales a ton of good for his defense, but it does 2.4 million troops who have served honorably, and not gone on murderous rampages, a total disservice. It’s also pretty damn dismissive of the real victims, the 16 Afghan civilians killed.

Of course, the segment got worse. Next, Dr. Drew brought on Dr. Paul Ragan. Ragan, an associate professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, suggested “a combination of Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD” was responsible for the Kandahar shooting.

You sure about that one, Doc? Were you there?

His ignorant, irresponsible comment reveals the scary underbelly of raising awareness of invisible wounds. Because as former Army officer and current national security consultant Jason Fritz recently wrote for Ink Spots, “Between 1 and 2 million service members have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, well over 100,000 of them have deployed three or more times, and 300,000 to 600,000 are suffering from PTSD. So far only one person in that large population went out and killed 16 civilians.”