PTSD and My Father
April 28, 2010
Unlike the war I came home from my father came home from a war in which people not only were against the war, but many of them were against the troops. When he got off the plane he was greeted by people protesting him and those with him.
He first discovered that he was different when he found that his girlfriend had another man coming around. He took the man aside and explained to him that if he saw him again he would kill him. He knew that he meant it which made him realize he would never be the same again.
The Department of Veterans Affair’s National Center for PTSD says that 30 percent of Vietnam veterans will have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in their lives.
The 10 percent difference between veterans from today’s wars and Vietnam veterans is largely due in part to the political differences stateside between the wars. People during Vietnam looked down on veterans.
My father said, “I kept it quiet that I was a Vietnam veteran and tried to forget about it. Society did not treat Vietnam veterans well. Girls didn’t even want to date us.”
It is a shame that veterans were treated this way. My father did not even list his service on job applications. Society did not allow him to be proud of his service like they do for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said, “I am culturally alienated and socially disaffected,” which is a problem for me as well, but for different reasons. He was forced to be this way. I am this way because I was raised by him and going to war brought it to the forefront of my mind.
My father was for the most part able to control his PTSD for a long time, but when I went to Iraq, a war which he felt as pointless as Vietnam, he lost himself. He began to drink heavily and get in fights with those who supported the war in Iraq.
He finally let out the anger with which he had been living with since Vietnam. He could no longer control it. He could no longer continue to work and therefore retired before his time.
Up to this point he had never sought help for his disorder, but when I came home from the army he was determined to make sure I got help. In doing so he finally got help for himself.
He is now taking medicine prescribed by his VA psychiatrist. He no longer drinks as heavily and he stays out of bars and bar fights.
The problem is that once it starts it never goes away. He will never be the same man as he was before when he was able to conceal the disorder. He will never again be able to deal with society the way he did when he had to support his family.
He may have made me more susceptible to PTSD by the way he raised me, but against his wishes I joined the army and went to Iraq in turn bringing out the PTSD in him.
I guess we are even.
