PTSD And Me

A very interesting article on how to treat soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know of one particular soldier in my own personal life that was showing signs of PTSD when he came home on leave from Afghanistan. His wife, whom I worked with, was concerned about his behavior. She was also concerned about the time that he had back home was very short and that she wanted him to get counseling, but that would take longer then the time they had allowed. She was nervous he might get worse and that she had heard horror stories about soldiers who turn violent against their wives/girlfriends/children and didn't want that to happen to her.

So I came up with a novel approach. I told her to give him the 4 "warms" while he was at home. A warm bed, a warm shower, a warm meal, and a warm woman. All the creature comforts a man could ask for. Let him know what he's missing when he leaves so that he knows that he has something special to come home to. Now this isn't a "fix all" for everyone. There's going to be guy's who need real help, but I offered this solution to her as a temporary fix.

So, when he returned home, he found that he had a new set of comfortable sheets and comforter, the shower had all of the usual comforts, she made him a steak and potato dinner, and then she had sex with him. That was the first time they had any quality time like that together in over a year. I didn't expect her to do all of these things to the letter, but he came into my office the day after and said "What the hell did you tell my wife? She was an angel last night to me and then said you were responsible for it" I let him know that because of the talks I had had with him and her and his possible PTSD, that she should be a bit extra nice and told him of the 4 "warms". He had a smile on his face for the rest of the day.

He did let me know that he did have nightmares from time to time, but everyone does. I told him about how easy it is for things to get ugly if they argue, so take a step back if it ever came to that so things wouldn't get violent. He was extraordinarily happy that someone took the time to make sure that he was ok and that his home life was being looked after while he was gone. He asked me what he could do to repay me. My response: Bring back Bin Laden's head in a box. Capture or kill as many Al-Qaeda as possible. He's already doing more then enough to make sure that my family and I are safe from bad guys, the least I can do is make sure that his life is a happy one as well.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com