Page 264 - Total War on PTSD

The Isolating Burden of PTSD
Findings indicate that having PTSD may implicate survivors’ loneliness (van der Velden, Pijnappel, & van der Meulen, 2018). Developing PTSD may be isolating in multiple manners. First, there is the matter of identity. PTSD is the case wherein past experiences remain pathologically and unrelentingly present in one’s conciseness. It is, as patients often stress, not so much the case wherein one cannot let go of the past, but rather it is the past that does not let go of the person. PTSD, therefore, strengthens three interrelated identities: a) the “Veteran” or “warrior” identity, b) the “trauma survivor” identity, and c) the identity of a person whose mental-health has been compromised.
Above, I discussed the manner in which the “Veteran” identity may sever the person from society. Reliving the war repeatedly, drives that identity deeper and adds to it the torment and strife associated with mental injury. When one sustains an injury on the battlefield, its presence serves as a reminder of the battle wherein it was sustained. The same process occurs with combat stress injuries but more forcefully, because the unrelenting memory and reliving of the experience is inherent to the injury. Moreover, being mentally-ill is an identity in its own right (e.g., Cruwys & Gunaseelan, 2016). Having PTSD then nourishes two additional identities, that of a trauma victim or survivor and that of a mentally-ill person. Both identities may be accompanied by self- stigmatization, shame and guilt (J. P. Wilson, Drozdek, & Turkovic, 2006), and thus increase one’s inclination to withdraw from social interaction. Such withdrawal amplifies the discrepancy between what is experienced within and what is outwardly visible. This ultimately increases one’s isolation and loneliness and drives him or her further away from necessary professional help and social support Michalopoulou, Welsh, Perkins, & Ormsby, 2017).
Furthermore, PTSD adds to this loneliness by the virtue of its constituting symptoms: intrusive re-experiencing, avoidance, alterations in mood and cognition, and hyper- arousal and hyper-vigilance (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). At first, Veterans face the challenge of figuring out what it is that they are experiencing. Indeed,
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