Family Relations and Dynamics: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - Report Example

Family Relations and Dynamics: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of Introduction Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) refers to an anxiety disorder that is very severe which results from exposure to an event that causes psychological disorder. The impacts of this disorder can be as dangerous as causing harm to oneself or a third party and the harm may be physical, sexual or equally psychological (Bayer, Klasen, & Adam, 2007). To a greater extent, this disorder overwhelms an individual ability to cope. Further effects may be of acute negative effects on an individual’s social, occupational and other areas of functioning. The effects by extension cause the victim to create a selected level of approach to the larger social cycle of the individual. Specific causes therefore are evolutionary psychology, psychological trauma, neuroendocrinology, genetics as well as risk factors. This paper seeks to establish the issues of family relations and the PTSD. It is based on the thesis statement that“, desperate individuals suffering from PTSD exhibit adverse actions and the society views them as grotesque. The society however does not realize the dissimulation that comes with a traumatic event. PTSD in war veterans affects the entire social cycle of an individual victim and creates a relatively different approach to all ideas by the victim.” In view of this thesis, the paper will make a review of the experiences of a victim at the place of war, discussion on the symptoms of PTSD in soldiers. It will also make an analytical feature on how the society understands them and the responsibility of the larger educated society, ethics and information technology in creating awareness in the value that should be attached to such people. Experiences of Soldiers at War War has its own laws and the command of the troop leader is always to be obeyed. However, war becomes a tortuous act and lacks credibility if young children are involved. Adam, Fionna and Hubertus (2007) in their journal about trauma among former Ugandan and Congolese soldiers support this issue. Danny, Doron, Cohen, Berman and Klein (2005) further supports the same issue in their article on the trauma that USA soldiers faced and continue to face after serious combat events. In Uganda and the larger great lakes region of east and central Africa, children at an average age of 12 years were forced into joining war. Coup groups like ‘The Lord’s Resistance Army’ in Northern Uganda headed by one dreaded Joseph Kony force children to joining the group. Total submission is expected lack of which would yield deadly consequences (Bayer, Klasen, & Adam, 2007). In the group, the young soldiers are forced to maim, kill, rape, raid and rob mercilessly. From the study of the great lakes region case, it was established that 93% of the children in the army witnessed shooting, 90% saw someone seriously wounded and 84% were seriously beaten. 55% of them admitted to having killed someone and 27% of them were forced to engage in acts of sexual intercourse. The effect found out here was that children with high levels of PTSD had very little openness to reconciling both with the situation and with their perceived enemies (Koren, Norman, Cohen, Berman, & Klein, 2005). In the American case, which is considered a mature war since it all consisted of trained soldiers; the effects were no better since the challenges were equally worse. They experienced acts of injuries from shooting and explosive devices, terrorism, accidents due to plane crashes and capsizing of their water speed boats, burning to death or beyond recognition and being captured by the ‘enemy’. Sgt. Brandon Vilt, a USA sergeant in Kandahar, Pakistan broke his leg from a truck accident and it had to be amputated making him to consider leaving the army pre-maturely (Rollins, 2013). These acts are therefore terrifying and the end results are a very acute traumatic life after the service. Symptoms of PTSD in Soldiers It must be understood from the start that the children who engage in such acts lose their time of being in school and therefore remain illiterate. Those who are forced from school are taken from an elementary level. Their life is adaptive of the primitive strength and warfare (Benyamini & Solomon, 2005). This is important because it will reflect in the way they behave at the reconstruction and social cycle levels. It also dictates how their trauma affects them. One of the symptoms of PTSD in soldiers is exhaustion. This is not only physical exhaustion but also mental exhaustion. There is a total or partial mental shutdown to people. The soldiers prior on were expected not to show any sign of fatigue or fear in the battle ground but the body naturally tires due to natural shock reaction and they are forced to retreat (Branker, 2009). The mental shutdown does not cease to exist even after retirement. In 1945, 10% of the Americans soldiers were hospitalized for mental disturbances and 98% of those who were hospitalized showed chronic symptoms of psychiatric disturbances. This creates alienation in a society where they are not used to. The people around them do not understand them and this causes a much divided society as far as they are concerned. The entire sociological cycle from the family, education centers around, the church, the mass media and total institutions hardly understand them. Another symptom of PTSD is addiction (Burnett & Segoria, 2009). This is perhaps the most common and most dangerous of them all. There is excessive take on alcohol, smoking and other drugs that are available. It is not their wish. It is a method that is used to try and numb the symptoms of the condition. This makes them feel that it’s the only way to fit in the society. Any attempt however that is not professionally propagated is met with a lot of aggression from the victim and may result into excessive violence. It is not however understood that the soldier has no choice over what he is doing and it is a way of alleviating the pains that is experienced. Isolation is a symptom that is highly experienced as a side effect. Isolation comes in two stages and if not taken care of, it can be disastrous. The first stage revolves around the individual slowly pulling out of the society by avoiding social groupings (Ford & Northrup, 2009). They feel uncomfortable in a large group of people and would prefer taking meals alone away from other people. He becomes workaholic and very categorical on the type of people that he wants to be with. In the second stage, the person becomes very depressed and absolutely separated from the society. Such a case, according to UNICEF is being experienced by children who escaped from The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. These children live in a rehabilitation camp in Gulu, Uganda and Goma in Congo. Isolation is very much experienced by over 30% of the children. However, this number keeps reducing with the longevity that the victims stay at the camp. In the USA soldier cases, there is absolute dissociation from people and the public by these victims. The other symptom is a relation to mood swings. There is a memory of the sad cases they experienced and happiness disappears from them. This starts with mild temper tantrums and develops into irritability and could get worse than expected. Much of these mood swings are associated with the desire to revenge the act done against him. In Gulu and Goma in the east African region, the children in the rehabilitation camps (around 40%) admitted to harboring hatred against the perceived enemies during the war. They also swore to revenge if given the chance to do so. Violence, risk taking and excessive aggression becomes normal in the life of this victim to the extent that he cannot keep up with other members of the society (Highfill-McRoy & Booth-Kewley, 2008). Self-Mutilation of pain is very common with victims of PTSD. Common knowledge here amounts to the idea that a victim would inflict pain on himself if he is in great suffering. This can be a cry for help or it can be a way of trying to take the mind off the situation in the name of salvaging his personality. If immediate attention is not reached, then there can be suicidal consequences. Memory lapses and problems are a very sound issue it starts at an early stage with forgetting simple issues like dates, appointments and names of people. Constantly they start losing memory of where they kept little things in their possession and with time, this can be debilitating. Family members are therefore in trouble trying to keep up with such a person and in any case will not endure the actions if not understood. There is even loss of memory when talking and the victim would stop in the middle of a sentence, simply because along the statement, he forgot what he was talking about (Yonkman & Bridgeland, 2009). Hypersensitivity is another symptom of the victims of PTSD. This is a situation in which the victim suddenly or with time starts loathing bright light, loud music, noise, crowds and unfamiliar places. This symptom goes hand in hand with that of isolation. In most cases, it starts slowly and with time, they get to start reflecting on the impacts of the things that have been common all over. The change may trigger a reaction from the members of the social cycle in friends and family members. However, if treatment is not sought earlier, there can be a dramatic panic in hypersensitivity in response to these issues. This response may become worse and mixed with the other vices that crop up; the person may be declared unfit to live in the society with the common people. Insomnia is also a common effect of PTSD. This is a situation in which these people stay for very long without sleeping. The case of the American soldiers come into place in which a captured soldier is denied sleep by the ‘enemy ‘ putting him in a room and very loud music put on to stop the victim from sleeping. With time, sleep evaded him and most of the time, he was lost of sleep. If they do sleep, nightmares become a common phenomenon. They are able to see visions of non-existent things and dreams of the time they were attacked and the time they killed people. In this case, they are bound to kick when sleeping, waking up with a lot of sweat all over their bodies. Irregular sleep cycles set in and the individual is in need of some form of intoxication of the system to be able to sleep. The article by Danny Koren on the American case had all the symptoms exhibited in the context above (Riggs, 2009). All the above issues at a point or the other were experienced in the Ugandan and the American case. Some children in the east African camps refused to cooperate even in the discussions and the research. The American journal also exhibited a sizeable number of the soldiers refusing to participate. One of the assumed reasons was that they do not want to refresh the memories of the happenings at that time. View of the Society It is no doubt that most of the PTSD victims’ exhibit traits that are not in line with the normal whims of the society. From the larger sociological perspective, it is important to note that the whole family is affected. The views and actions therefore affect the family, the church as a whole, the school and the mass media. From the family perspective, there are experiences of anxiety by the family members. This is because they are not aware of the immediate next action that these victims will carry out. Unhappiness is the order of the day since one of the parents affected does not look responsible for the family. Marital problems usually crop in since the parent does not respond to the ideas and demands of the children and their partners. If there is a response, then it is of negative nature and therefore there is always anxiety (Moore & Penk, 2011). PTSD symptoms to say the least is a source of stress for the family and the society at large. Their behaviors at some point in time exhibits the character of being erratic and therefore are upsetting. A society is never built by an individual. Therefore, the actions of a victim of this order in the society will create a position for himself in the same society. Soldiers who are retired and have access to guns may resort one day to shooting g people in a public place. This will absolutely cultivate the nature of the look the society has on that person. The Americans for example have the law that is not prohibitive of ownership of guns. Mutilation and aggression were symptoms of a victim of this trauma. If he has a gun and in public place and starts shooting people, it is quite evidence that the society will take caution to attentively respond to other people with similar traits from the army (Fink, 2010). There is also a societal view that all PTSD are drug users. This is in line with a high percentage of the people in the society. It is just a condition that is brought about by circumstances. This is done to alleviate the conditions and the psychological pain that the victim is going through. The society however is made up of so many stakeholders. The views of the doctors who treat the patient are different from the views of some people at the local market center. Therefore, the close accomplices of the victim usually by extension bear the brunt of the actions of the victim. For instance, if the victim becomes aggressive in a group due to the fact that the group now looks strange to him, it is possible to create a situation where the immediate family members bear the costs of repairing the losses caused by him. They are also seen as people who are withdrawn and do not want to take part in the development projects in their areas of residence. In this case, there will a case of increased isolation from the general public which is not understood. The American soldiers are by far the best example. It has been documented that army retirees take long holidays and sometimes some of them are not seen in public as they used to be (George, 2010). The case in Uganda and Congo has witnessed the children feel safe when they are at the rehabilitation center but are unwilling to go out and mingle with other people. It has almost come to the general public that these traumatized children live a silent life. Without understanding therefore, there are very shrewd views about the victims of the PTSD all over the world. To the family, collective union, understanding and a search for medication are a way that reduces the pangs of the trauma. Responsibility of a Critical Thinkers in Such Cases: How Academic Knowledge Impacts the Social Elements Social elements in the society have been highly shaped by the academic knowledge and discourse that exists in that particular society. This discourse explains and maintains the whole personality of an individual in the world. The knowledge of the society as a whole in dealing with sociological issues is dictated by the level of education that exists in that society in particular. According to the American council on education report (2010), creation of faculties on dealing with people suffering from trauma like PTSD has developed several chances for the people to live again just like the normal American. THE UNESCO Report on the children in Uganda indicate that those children who were recruited into the army without any education are bound to remain primitively aggressive for ,longer periods than those who had basic education. The high percentage of the children who were unwilling to forgive the perceived enemy u The Great Lakes Region of east Africa similarly showed a high percentage of them being totally illiterate. Education and formal knowledge therefore has big impacts both to the veterans and the entire social cycle around them. To the victims, it makes them understand that they are new to disability but that does not create a subjective point of inability. It creates in them the awareness of their rightful position in the society and therefore eligibility to venture into great family projects even in their position. Those victims with newly acquired disabilities will be made to accept the changes that are bound to happen in their lives with the new physical and psychological bearing. The family and society is therefore able to accept them as they are and move on. In schools and colleges, the PTSD victims are usually older, married members of the institutions and therefore all cooperation is needed to integrate them into a program with younger children. Therefore, critical thinkers had the best choice of starting up institutions that would equalize the society again with these victims in mind. In America therefore, they are integrated into the school systems and in east Africa, they receive special education at rehabilitation centers. Impact of Active Citizenship in the Next 5-10 Years Active citizenship refers to the idea of taking an active role in the community especially in the neighborhood watch. This is in view of keeping the community safe and active in matters of development. When the active citizenship comes to place, they are aware of the dangers that the veterans can cause as victims of PTSD. Having been members of the disciplined forces, they can become a security threat. Therefore, the active citizenship program would necessitate counseling for the victims (Fink, 2010). In The Great Lakes Region for instance, the active citizens usually make sure that the victims are taken to rehabilitation centers when they come back to the society. In this way, they are kept from the dangers of free life as well as given enough security from reprisals. In America, they are taken to hospitals in which case there is psychotherapy that might take the form related to all the victims’ hiccups. There is a link to medical treatment as well as support groups to keep the victim safely into the society. Special learning centers are also made available in American colleges and universities to take care of the PTSD victims. All these are made to continue successfully by active citizen groups. In the next 5 to 10 years, all the victims are supposed to receive the correct treatment both in developing and developed nations so that they can live a normal life back in the society. Importance of Ethics, Moral Reasoning and Information Technology The society is a mix-up of different individuals with different understanding levels. Ethical values such as self-responsibility, discipline and charity are core to understanding the value that lies in the victims of PTSD. Reasoning morally elevates the conscience of the society, both directly and indirectly affected to the level of participation in active citizenship. Information technology is useful in that it can help the whole society to acclimatize with the experiences of the victims’ while still at work (Highfill-McRoy & Booth-Kewley, 2008). Films, documentaries, movies and public shows are important in development of truth and understanding about the real situation and experiences of these PTSD victims in the name of returning soldiers. Conclusion Families create a home for victims of different circumstances (Riggs, 2009). PTSD is a chronic condition w2hich should be treated with acute attention. The condition gets worse if not treated on time and would be suicidal to all the victims and the society around him. This paper has analytically viewed the aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with special references to journals referring to victims in The Great Lakes Region and American soldiers in different parts of the world. In view of this it has analyzed the experiences of the victims while still in the war. It has gone ahead to analytically look at the symptoms of the victims of PTSD in the society that they live in as well as how the society views them. Thinkers are very important in creation of effective environment for habitation of both victims and the other members of the society. This was also discussed. Therefore, PTSD is a societal issue and is relevant in the development of a trauma free and cohesive society. References Bayer, h. P., Klasen, F., & Adam, H. (2007). Association of Trauma and PTSD Symptoms With Openness to Reconciliation and Feelings of Revenge Among Former Ugandan and Congolese Child Soldiers. Journal of the American Medical Association, 298(5), 1-7. Benyamini, Y., & Solomon, Z. (2005). Combat stress reactions, posttraumatic stress disorder, cumulative live stress, and physical health among Israeli veterans twenty years after exposure to combat. New York: American centre of Social Science & Medicine publishers. Branker, C. (2009). Deserving design: The new generation of student veterans. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 22(1), 59-66. Burnett, S., & Segoria, J. (2009). Collaboration for military transition students from combat to college: It takes a community. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 22(1), 53-58. Fink, G. (2010). Stress of War, Conflict and Disaster. Alabama: Academic Press. Ford, D., & Northrup, P. (2009). Connections, partnerships, opportunitiesand programs to enhance success for military students. New Directions for Student Services, 26, 61-69. George, F. (2010). Stress Consequences: Mental, Neuropsychological and Socioeconomic. Alabama: Academic Press. Highfill-McRoy, L., & Booth-Kewley, S. (2008). Psychiatric diagnoses in historic and contemporary military cohorts: Combat deployment and the healthy warrior effect. American Journal of Epidemiology, 1269–1276., 167. Koren, D., Norman, D., Cohen, A., Berman, J., & Klein, E. M. (2005). Increased PTSD Risk With Combat-Related Injury: A Matched Comparison Study of Injured and Uninjured Soldiers Experiencing the Same Combat Events. American Journal of Psychiatry, 276. Moore, B., & Penk, W. E. ( 2011). Treating PTSD in Military Personnel: A Clinical Handbook. Ontario: Guilford Press. Riggs, D. (2009, 10 15). Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Retrieved 3 15, 2013, from Mental Health America: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/ptsd Rollins, S. L. (2013, 2 22). Amputee Soldier Returns to Battlefield. Retrieved 3 15, 2013, from Military .com: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/02/22/amputee-soldier-returns-to-battlefield.html Yonkman, N., & Bridgeland, J. (2009). All volunteer force: From military to civilianservice. Washington. Washington, DC: Civic Enterprises. Read More