A Brief Note On PTSD In Veterans

Jacob Kinser
Mrs, Wood
English 10
3/27/23
Returning Soldiers and PTSD Do Veterans get adequate health care? Some people may think they do but in my opinion they dont and I will explain why I think so. Around 30, 177 global war terror veterans committed suicide (“PTSD Awareness Day Seeks to Inform, Connect Those Suffering to Treatment”). In my opinion, soldiers do not get the health care they need. This is because the amount of soldiers who commit suicide due to PTSD. Also, What PTSD causes in a person. Furthermore, what PTSD does to the brain and what triggers it.

First of all, 30% of the veterans from the Vietnam war suffer from PTSD, this is a major increase to the 11-20% to operations in Iraqi freedom and enduring freedom (“PTSD

This is why some people who go through a traumatic event can think they are completely fine but then years later their PTSD can trigger. This may be because they weren’t around their trigger for their PTSD. PTSD is different for all ages (National institute of mental health). Two people who go through a traumatic event can create 2 completely different experiences with PTSD. Especially if one is a kid and one is an adult. The adult might just suffer from flashbacks while the kid might go mute or forget the event completely and they might not even do that on purpose; maybe their brain did it to protect them. A common thing for kids with PTSD is to go mute and not talk (National institute of mental health). This is one of the most common things for kids to do after a traumatic event. They could be mute for the rest of their lives or they could be mute for a few years. The time a person takes to develop PTSD symptoms varies depending on the event and the person affected. Only a doctor with experience can diagnose PTSD (National institute of mental health). This is because of how tricky it is to diagnose PTSD. For example, someone could randomly suffer from a nightmare about something they went through and think it could be PTSD. While that is a symptom of PTSD it could just be a normal nightmare and they might not experience another nightmare. But if someone suffer from

This is called the amygdala. This is what normally will keep someone alive in certain situations. Its job is to help a person survive, so when this becomes overly sensitive the brain starts to go into a survival. PTSD can also cause people to lose their memory (uniformed services university of the health sciences). This may happen to block out trauma and try and heal. But then again this could happen strictly because of PTSDs effect on the hippocampus part of the brain. Also PTSD causes the prefrontal cortex to stop working as well (uniformed services university of the health sciences). The prefrontal cortex is what helps people think through emotions and make good decisions. PTSD will cause the prefrontal cortex to stop working as well. And it causes the amygdala to become sensitive. If the alarm system of the brain becomes overly sensitive and the prefrontal cortex stops working that is when really bad PTSD comes from (uniformed services university of the health sciences). This is because if the brain has an overactive amygdala and a prefrontal cortex that doesn’t work as well when the amygdala starts going crazy the prefrontal cortex won't work as well. Therefore, people who experience this issue like people with PTSD won't be able to think through these situations as well due to the prefrontal cortex not working