Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I reminded myself today of a great quote I came across during the surge. It was at a point in time when I did not hear from Toy Soldier in a long time — and war was raging. My mom was having major surgery, Damon was home with a leg that couldn’t hold him just yet, and the baby needed feeding. Needless to say the storm was really raging around me during that time. So, I found comfort in remembering the following:

Up at You Served:

Vicarious trauma and secondary PTSD

February 20, 2009 By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family

This is something I am hoping to address more in the future. Secondary PTSD is not unheard of. I know that there are many military families who experience vicarious or “shadow” type symptoms of PTSD. I was shocked to recognize some of the behaviors in me when my son was in Iraq (hyper-vigilance, sleep disturbances, replaying pictures or sounds of war scenes I have watched on shows, etc.) I could not shut some of this stuff out. No matter how hard I tried, and when I got news that he had taken shrapnel, or with each announcement of a fallen friend, the symptoms increased.

A friend posted the following on a board I frequent. It’s a good intro and primer. Secondary PTSD is not officially recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM (insert most recent, but soon to be revised again, and again, and again edition here). There has been, however, a lot of research done regarding this in the field of social work and working with abused children or other populations where intense trauma and stress causes a PTSD type of a syndrome. When I revisit this topic I will also touch on something called “shadow” syndromes. It was something we explored a lot when I worked in mental health.

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