"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"
Edgar Allan Poe
With the end of first block summer classes, I finished my English class. Many, many times, I thought of my uncle, Preston, during that class. He was an incredible intellectual. My final paper got to be a topic that I chose. I knew I wanted to include him somehow. Not long before his death, Preston wrote a great article, entitled "Dream Cred", which was published in eFiction Magazine. I wanted to base my paper around his article, so I chose the topic of mental illness in America, which encompassed the symptoms of PTSD he wrote about. Below is his picture and a piece of my final paper.
photo credit Preston McConkie, May 2012
Literature
Review: Mental Disorders and U.S. Society
“I
used to think it was a big deal to wake up screaming or swinging. That’s what
the Vietnam vets did. It was a new version of the red badge of courage. I
certainly didn’t expect it to happen to me, and when it did start it was two
years after those 38 days from the Jan. 14 outbreak to the Feb. 25 invasion,
then the six days of combat and the other two days falling back out of Iraq
through Kuwait and at last to King Fahd Air Base and Al-Khobar.
“Two years went by and then, one
day, a roommate touched me when I was asleep and I came awake gasping and
panicked and hit my head on the wall.
“It
pleased me a little at the time because you can’t choose how to wake up, and
this gave me street cred as a real combat vet, and not like what I thought of
myself as: someone who’d been there but hadn’t really seen it, hadn’t really
done it.
“I didn’t regret never having to use
my rifle to kill someone I could see fall and bleed. And helping hand up an
8-inch projo while someone else rammed it and another guy pulled the lanyard
and sent it 20 miles downrange -- well, that was just like practice.”
“…While
the glass was crazing in our windshields and the door windows were blowing
clear out of their frames because we were shooting bigger powder than we’d ever
fired in practice, BANG! … BANG! … BANG! … there came that sound we’d never
heard except far away, but that sounds nothing like a round going out the tube.
Incoming fire.
“There
was no scream of a shell rolling in, and maybe that’s only what you hear when
it’s about to land on top of you. But CRUMP. CRUMP. CRUMPCRUMP. And louder than
it sounds in a word like CRUMP, but that’s the sound it makes.
“And then I knew I was in a real fight and,
standing on top of the ammo, I was on top of the world too, certain I couldn’t
be touched, and I wasn’t a bit afraid because it was impossible to die just
then.
“And
when it was over I set up my cot and went to sleep, and when the howizter went
off a few times in the night I woke up for a second or two and went back to
sleep because it was my first time on a cot in four days.
“But
that’s not trauma. That’s adventure.”
These
are the words of combat veteran, Preston McConkie, who wrote about his
experiences related to Operation Desert Storm, in which he served as a member
of an artillery unit, in his article, “Dream Cred”, both as a narrative of the
actual events and how they affected him much later in life. McConkie developed
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from his involvement in the war, as
evidenced by the symptoms he describes in his article. PTSD is a disorder
caused by uncommon emotional or psychological trauma, usually accompanied by
the threat of physical violence or extreme helplessness on the part of the
individual who witnessed/experienced the trauma (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). As its name
suggests, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a reaction to and processing of the
traumatic event generally after the danger has passed. Most of the symptoms of
PTSD are caused by remembering or trying to avoid remembering the traumatic
event (Merriam-webster.com)
This
paper will address mental disorders such as PTSD and postpartum depression,
stigma regarding mental illness, Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) and the public education system, social support, and the idea that these
disorders are invented and magnified by organizations or individuals who use
them for their own gain. Ultimately, we ask the question: how does social
perception and support affects people suffering from mental disorders? Does the
public understand mental illness?
Historically
in America, as well as in the rest of the world, there has been a divide
between soldiers and civilians in many ways. One of the most vivid examples
from American history is the way the Vietnam veterans were treated upon
returning home from war. Many veterans have in the past and currently do
struggle with the return to everyday life. One of the many elements of the
difficult transition can be altered mental state, due to conditions such as
combat stress, depression, anxiety, and PTSD (maketheconnection.net). That begs
the question- does civilian and military stigma affect the way those who suffer
from mental disorders are able to get help and function on a daily basis?
In
his article, McConkie expressed feeling like he was not a “real” veteran
because he had never fought in close combat (McConkie). This is an example of
how someone can be affected by “self-stigma”. Self-stigma is defined as “harsh
or unjustified beliefs about yourself that lead to feeling worse than your
peers and the avoidance of certain activities or conversations because of these
beliefs” (afterdeployment.org). His
feelings of inadequacy as a veteran are reflective of society’s stereotype of
what a veteran looks like. Common perceptions can be things like soldiers
experience a lot of firsthand violence and are “toughened” by their
experiences, do not need talk about their participation in war, and can always
readjust to civilian life easily and unassisted. Some misconceptions, stigmas,
and pressures actually come from inside the military, as well. Unfortunately,
these misunderstandings are not always true and can prevent a veteran from
receiving the help they need. While experts do not agree on how many returning
soldiers suffer from an altered mental state, approximations range between one
in eight and one in three veterans developing PTSD after deployment (NBC News, dosomething.org).
Over half of soldiers that were a part of a 2007 survey who were found to
potentially need mental health services reported that they felt influenced by
perceived stigma, such as being viewed as weak or being blamed for their problem
(USDoD Task Force on Mental Health 2007).
According
to the National Center for PTSD, sufferers can experience a number of symptoms,
including high levels of alert, trouble sleeping, anger or irritability,
detachment, nightmares of the trauma, physical manifestations of stress such as
rapid heart rate, risk of self-harm or suicide, and self-medication through
drugs or alcohol (ptsd.va.gov).
When
looking at these returning soldiers, what does the public see? Alair MacLean
and Meredith Kleykamp addressed that question in their article, “Social
Problems” (2014). They found that the American public is generally supportive
of their returning troops and treats them honorably for their military service,
however, the public also believes the common stereotype that those troops are
prone to substance abuse, mental illness, and violent behavior. MacLean and
Kleykamp claim this is a paradox- the public both supports and condemns
veterans. They also found that non-military contractors who were exposed to
combat while working with the military were viewed as less favorable or
honorable than soldiers (MacLean & Kleykamp). This exposes some
discrepancies in the way society views one person with PTSD (military) versus
another person with PTSD (civilian).
Enlistment picture, September 1987. Credit Preston McConkie's Facebook page.
To read Preston's full article, visit this link. It's a great read and I would definitely recommend it.
Final Thought
"Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them"
George Eliot
