I have spent the better part of this morning looking for relevant content to share on Courage Beyond’s social media network. It’s part of my job, and I love my job. Today however, I feel a rock in my chest developing. It’s part anger and part fear.
For a while now, I’ve watched the media go down a road when “reporting” – and I use that term very loosely – on PTSD that makes me not just shake my head, but it makes my stomach turn. I’ve read about “PTSD Hot Spots” with an interactive map you could check like you’re looking for sex offenders. And I’ve seen cartoons with a soldier’s head replaced with a grenade. Ticking time bomb, ready to snap, prone to violent outbursts… the list of horrible things I’ve read this morning goes on.
So let’s talk a little truth from a caregiver who has spent the last 6 years loving a veteran with crippling PTSD. I’ve never once been struck. He’s never once been arrested; he’s never once been in a fist-fight; he’s never once attacked anyone. He has however locked himself away from friends and family. He’s suffered from self-doubt about his symptoms. He’s spent days awake. He’s talked about wishing he’d died in Iraq to make it easier on everyone. And he’s considered suicide more than once.
But he’s never been violent. I do not fear him or his PTSD. I do however fear society’s foolish reaction after reading “articles” that have no basis in real facts. They are only numbers strewn together to bring traffic to web pages so quotas are met and jobs are kept from reporters who collected their “facts” through Google and not a real live person who walks every day in the shadow of PTSD.
I hear no ticking from inside my husband’s head and we will continue every day to battle his PTSD. We will also be quiet about his battle because of society’s willingness to believe reporters who do their job like a 6th grader writing a research paper the night before it’s due.