Study says Risk of PTSD Linked to Genes, Environment

In keeping with the mission of Wounded Times Blog, providing information, I am posting this but I do not agree with this at all. After reading it, there are too many other reports in disagreement to this study. I'm living proof of some of them. A lifetime of exposure to traumatic events did not cause PTSD in me, but that is not the reason I doubt this report.

One of my brothers was in mental health and worked with inner city youth trying to get them what they needed so that they would find reason to continue with their education. Before he passed away, we argued over the cause of PTSD. He understood how kids growing up surrounded by violence would end up with PTSD but could not understand how his own brother-in-law did from Vietnam. The thing with PTSD is that it is so complicated that no matter what answer researchers are looking for, that's what they'll find with PTSD.

It comes from an outside force and is caused by traumatic events. That is the only way to get PTSD but if they look for any mental illness, they will find symptoms of it even though it came after traumatic events. There are some people with mental illness also exposed to traumatic events just as there are some using drugs and alcohol to self-medicate but are also dealing with the addiction itself.

That's my opinion but here is what this article said.

Risk of PTSD Linked to Genes, Environment

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 3, 2009
Childhood adversity and trauma during adulthood appear to predispose individuals to post-traumatic stress disorders.

Researchers found the combination of insults were more predictive of PTSD than exposure to only one type of disturbance.

Furthermore, the risk was additionally accentuated among individuals with a certain genetic mutation.

The report is found in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Although 40 percent to 70 percent of Americans have experienced traumatic events, only about 8 percent develop PTSD during their lifetimes, according to background information in the article.

PTSD is a complex anxiety disorder that involves re-experiencing, avoidance and increased arousal following exposure to a life-threatening event.
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Risk of PTSD Linked to Genes, Environment

Officer Remains Remarkably Calm After Being Shot

Radio Recording Reveals Wounded Officer Remains Remarkably Calm As He Calls For Help
Jared Broyles Reporter
November 2, 2009
FORT SMITH - From the radio transmission between a wounded Fort Smith police officer and the dispatcher he called for help reveal his state of mind at the time.

Officer Parsons was surprisingly calm and impressively professional, although you could clearly hear the urgency in his voice. These were his first words: "Station, shots fired...I need help...I've been shot...I'm on Cliff Drive...I've been hit." Within seconds you hear the concerned voice of his supervisor Sgt. Dewey Young asking the station where he's at. A short time later, Parsons radios again: "I've been hit pretty good...I need an ambulance out here."

The suspect, 25-year-old Tristan Honey fled to New Mexico and later turned himself in to officials at this port of entry in San Jon. Parsons was shot four times; once in the center of his chest, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Chief Kevin Lindsey says the shot could have been fatal. Lindsey has visited parsons in the hospital and says he's doing well and will likely be released tomorrow.
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Officer Remains Remarkably Calm

Vietnam:Taking of Dong-Ha Bridge

Submitted By: LeatherNecker on April 29, 2009
Col. John W. Ripley, USMC (Ret.) 1:34 Ripley relates his heroic feat of singlehandedly stopping the enemy during a major offensive on Easter Sunday in 1972. His "tiny force" of South Vietnamese marines was poised on one side of the Dong-Ha Bridge to take on the "enormous force" of North Vietnamese troops ready to attack from the other side. Undaunted, the determined Captain Ripley decided to take the situation in his own hands to bring down the bridge. Lugging explosives on his back and under heavy enemy fire, he precariously crawled under the bridge, set the explosives and blew up the massive structure. Submitted by: LeatherNecker Three Keywords: John Ripley USMC Marines Vietnam

Col. John W. Ripley, USMC (Ret.)

Posted to Great Americans by LeatherNecker on April 29, 2009

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Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army Is Strained

There is no amount of money they can spend on PTSD unless they start to understand what is already known and begin to ask the right questions.

They research books, study someone an hour or so here and there. We study PTSD but above all, we live with them. We've watched them change over the years. We knew them before they went and soon discovered we met a stranger at the welcome home ceremony. We hear their voices when the nightmares come. We see them sitting in the room but being thousands of miles away, even years away from where they sit. They are not numbers to us. They are people we love.

Ask Vietnam veterans' wives what is needed to save their lives and chances are, they had to ask themselves the same question years ago when research was new, help was scarce and hope was dissolving. Some of us walked away because we didn't understand. Others stayed, living miserable lives because they were fighting the wrong battles and looking for impossible resolution. Most of us decided to learn and fight as hard as they did to stay alive in Vietnam. This was not a research project to us. Nothing we could close at the end of the day to return to our own "normal" lives. This was and is our life.

Why isn't anyone asking the wives of Vietnam veterans what they did to save the lives of their veterans? Why isn't anyone asking us to help the newer spouses learn how to do what we had to learn on our own? Why isn't the government asking us what cannot be learned from pages in books or treating a veteran that is less than truthful to them?

If they really want to save the lives of the troops and our veterans, they are asking the wrong questions to the wrong people and believing the wrong answers. It's not that we can replace psychologists or psychiatrists. We need more of them to help our families. But what we can do is help them do their jobs better because we know them better. We live with them and this is our life.

Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army Is Strained

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Sixteen American soldiers killed themselves in October in the U.S. and on duty overseas, an unusually high monthly toll that is fueling concerns about the mental health of the nation's military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.

The Army's top generals worry that surging tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan could increase the strain felt by many military personnel after years of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The October suicide figures mean that at least 134 active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year, putting the Army on pace to break last year's record of 140 active-duty suicides. The number of Army suicides has risen 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the U.S. population for the first time.

Army officials say the strain of repeated deployments with minimal time back in the U.S. is one of the biggest factors fueling the rise in military suicides.

The Army hit a grim milestone last year when the suicide rate exceeded that of the general population for the first time: 20.2 per 100,000 people in the military, compared with the civilian rate of 19.5 per 100,000. The Army's suicide rate was 12.7 per 100,000 in 2005, 15.3 in 2006 and 16.8 in 2007.

In response, the Army has launched a broad push to better understand military suicide and develop new ways of preventing it. In August, the Army and the National Institute of Mental Health said they would conduct a five-year, $50 million effort to better identify the factors that cause some soldiers to take their own lives.

Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army Is Strained

FBI think nun was murdered on Navajo reservation

Death of nun investigated as a murder
November 2, 2009 8:07 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Body of Sister Marguerite Bartz, 64, found Sunday on Navajo reservation in New Mexico
Her home had been broken into and her car stolen
FBI looking for her beige 2005 HONDA CR-V with N.J. plate NF24821
Diocese: She was known to be a woman always passionate for justice, peace

(CNN) -- Federal officials said Monday they are seeking information about the killing of a 64-year-old nun whose body was found Sunday on the Navajo reservation in northwest New Mexico.

Sister Marguerite Bartz's body was found in her convent in Navajo, New Mexico, in a remote area of the Four Corners region, said Lee Lamb, communications director for the diocese. Her home had been broken into and her car stolen, Lamb said.

According to the FBI, which has jurisdiction, Bartz was killed between Halloween night and Sunday morning. When she did not appear at Sunday Mass, a colleague checked on her and found her body.
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/02/new.mexico.dead.nun/index.html