Page 270 - Total War on PTSD

Ultimately, however, since Veterans feel isolated and alienated from civilian society, it is society that must accommodate traumatized Veterans’ return and work to minimize their loneliness. In this respect I concur with Nancy Sherman that, “Recovery is a matter of shared moral engagement,” and, therefore, “the afterwar belongs to us all” (Sherman, 2015, p. 3). This may be accomplished both by engaging Veterans to tell their stories and share their experiences and by de-stigmatizing war-induced trauma. As Paula Caplan (2011, p. xvi) notes:
Simply sending frightened, angry soldiers off to therapists conveys disturbing messages: that we don’t want to listen, that we’re afraid we’re not qualified to listen, and that they should talk to someone who gets paid to listen. The implication is that their devastation is abnormal, that it is a mental illness, and this only adds to their burdens. Yet since there’s intense debate even among experts about the definition of mental illness, it’s all the more important for the rest of us to let returnees know that we don’t consider them weak or crazy for having problems.
To overcome the stigma of mental-illness, there have been attempts to change the terminology being used. Rather than speaking of mental disorder or illness, it is becoming increasingly popular to speak of mental injury. As Shay (2007, pp. xvii-xviii, italics in the original) notes:
When a military service member’s arm is shot off, do we say he or she suffers from Missing Arm Disorder? That would be ludicrous, and we do not. I have been agitating for some time to acknowledge that the diagnostic entity we now call Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is an injury, not a malady, disease, sickness, illness, or disorder.
The language we use may do much to remedy the wounds of war and the loneliness they foster. Thus, I join the implorations above, and argue that each and every one of us may do something to ameliorate Veterans’ loneliness and redeem them from their isolation.
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