A
Anonymous
Guest
National days are nicely celebrated in all countries, but they also correspond to firecracker and fireworks season, which can be hard on a few people who have served in the forces, either in real war situations or in extreme training for those conditions.
Many who have been in the military know the terror of thunderstorms, construction blasts and fireworks, which can bring back painful memories. Although the scheduled fireworks sponsored by municipalities can sound like a firefight, most veterans say that it is the individual firecrackers and noisemakers that are the worst: they sound like gunfire, or sometimes shelling, and -- mostly! -- they're unexpected.
When you're sitting in the garden or somewhere in town with friends and a cold drink in your hand, and you're watching fireworks there's no mistaking where you are, but it can be quite unnerving all the same. Dogs, cats and humans are subject to the startle response and there's no denying that there is something deeper underlying this behaviour in humans. Dr. Larry Lachman, a licensed clinical psychologist who practices cognitive-behavioural therapy for patients with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders) explains that: "A person with post-traumatic stress disorder is exposed to a traumatic event that either involved the threat of death or great bodily injury to another or themselves -- from war, mugging, cancer, car accident. The person's reactions involve fear, helplessness or horror."
PTSD generally involves some various combinations of the following feelings: intrusive recollections, distressing dreams, feeling the trauma is recurring, difficulty falling or staying asleep, irritability and outbursts of anger, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response. Exposure to fireworks/firecrackers that sound like gunshots or shelling can lead to a relapse or exacerbation of those symptoms.
This type of disorder is no more than an exaggerated and sustained enhanced fight-flight survival response that is conditioned to 'stay on' following day-after-day death, destruction, gunshots, bombs and explosions, which require the soldiers to be on constant hypervigilance to survive. This kind of behavioural conditioning won't go away quickly or by itself when returning home, especially if the subject is exposed to cues that trigger the body and mind's conditioned response for survival and fighting/being alert.
All that's left is to rationalise the situation and find some kind of 'displacement activity' that will take the mind away from the response and whatever caused it until it becomes just a 'bad memory'. Extreme cases may need professional help, but anyone with enough willpower can face the situation and realise that, although they may feel threatened, they are perfectly safe and have no need to react as if the threat was real -- because it isn't.
Anybody has any thoughts on this? As Perun would put it: "Discuss".
Many who have been in the military know the terror of thunderstorms, construction blasts and fireworks, which can bring back painful memories. Although the scheduled fireworks sponsored by municipalities can sound like a firefight, most veterans say that it is the individual firecrackers and noisemakers that are the worst: they sound like gunfire, or sometimes shelling, and -- mostly! -- they're unexpected.
When you're sitting in the garden or somewhere in town with friends and a cold drink in your hand, and you're watching fireworks there's no mistaking where you are, but it can be quite unnerving all the same. Dogs, cats and humans are subject to the startle response and there's no denying that there is something deeper underlying this behaviour in humans. Dr. Larry Lachman, a licensed clinical psychologist who practices cognitive-behavioural therapy for patients with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders) explains that: "A person with post-traumatic stress disorder is exposed to a traumatic event that either involved the threat of death or great bodily injury to another or themselves -- from war, mugging, cancer, car accident. The person's reactions involve fear, helplessness or horror."
PTSD generally involves some various combinations of the following feelings: intrusive recollections, distressing dreams, feeling the trauma is recurring, difficulty falling or staying asleep, irritability and outbursts of anger, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response. Exposure to fireworks/firecrackers that sound like gunshots or shelling can lead to a relapse or exacerbation of those symptoms.
This type of disorder is no more than an exaggerated and sustained enhanced fight-flight survival response that is conditioned to 'stay on' following day-after-day death, destruction, gunshots, bombs and explosions, which require the soldiers to be on constant hypervigilance to survive. This kind of behavioural conditioning won't go away quickly or by itself when returning home, especially if the subject is exposed to cues that trigger the body and mind's conditioned response for survival and fighting/being alert.
All that's left is to rationalise the situation and find some kind of 'displacement activity' that will take the mind away from the response and whatever caused it until it becomes just a 'bad memory'. Extreme cases may need professional help, but anyone with enough willpower can face the situation and realise that, although they may feel threatened, they are perfectly safe and have no need to react as if the threat was real -- because it isn't.
Anybody has any thoughts on this? As Perun would put it: "Discuss".
