Truth and Fiction About the Impact of PTSD on Entire Families
In my PTSD short story SOLOMON’S JUSTICE, I created a seven-year-old boy whose veteran father is suffering from PTSD.
Then this week, on a Department of Defense’s Bloggers Roundtable, I learned about the organization Give An Hour — www.giveanhour.org — that provides clinicians free of charge to military personnel and their loved ones.
While visiting the site, this article headline caught my attention: “How Did a 7-Year-Old Boy Catch His Father’s PTSD?”
I clicked through to the article and read Roxanne Patel Shepelavy’s compelling article on the impact an entire family experienced from the father’s combat-induced PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury.
How ironic, I thought, that my imaginary boy is seven-years-old, and the severe impact described in the article started when the real-life boy was seven.
Click here to read the compelling article about this boy’s family.
Click here to read SOLOMON’S JUSTICE: A PTSD SHORT STORY for free on Wattpad.
Click here to buy the Kindle ebook SOLOMON’S JUSTICE on Amazon.
Check out the links on www.SolomonsJustice.com for more compelling articles about PTSD and TBI.
© 2014 Miller Mosaic LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY.
I can attest to how PTSD effects whole families, Phyllis. My mother’s eldest brother, Martin, went to France during WWI as a kind, generous, funny and very likeable 18 year old kid. After spending 2 years driving ammunition trucks to the front lines, he returned home to Washington State an alcoholic, “shell-shocked” wreck that rode the rails, sailed the seas, and finally settled down and married a young woman with whom he had 3 children. I only knew my Uncle Martin as a drunk. My mother remembered him before France. The effect on his children and his wife was . . . well, it’s no fun living with a man like he’d become.
Yet, when he wasn’t drinking, his old kind, friendly, likeable self returned . . . for the moment. He said nothing about his experiences until, separated from his wife, he told my mother all the gory details. He was 66 years old, and had quit drinking. He died two years later from diabetes and other problems. Sad, isn’t it? Yet our governments continue to engage in wars that kill people and maim the spirits of those that survive. I mourn my uncle and all the others I have met, some of whom I have treated as a mental health counselor. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
George, I very much appreciate your sharing the story of your Uncle Martin here. Veterans from WWI did not have access to the mental health resources that only recently have become widely available for veterans. And yet all the best resources can only do so much.
In the article by Roxanne Patel Shepelavy, the veteran himself was not willing to admit for years that he needed help. (Sounds as if this might have been the case with your uncle.) Only when he was willing to stop lying to a therapist and really try to improve did things become better for his family.