Women in Combat and PTSD

[MA-Caver]

Women face emotional wounds of war
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061203/ap_on_re_us/wounds_of_war
By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer 2 hours, 43 minutes ago

CHICAGO - The nightmares didn't start until months after Alicia Flores returned home. The images were stark and disturbing: In one dream, a dying Iraqi man desperately grabbed her arm. In another, she was lost in a blinding sandstorm.

Sometimes, Flores awakened to discover her mouth was dust-dry — as if she were really stumbling through the scorching, 120-degree desert.

The nightmares bring Flores back to
Iraq, and her service in the Army's 92nd Chemical Company. She was just 19 when her unit arrived there. Now 23, she's left with memories of women and children being killed, of hauling bodies, of shooting a teenage Iraqi fighter. ("It was him or me," she says.)

"I'm fine with what I did over there ...," Flores says. "In my eyes, I did a good thing. It really doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me is I just want to sleep more."

Flores is one of a new generation of women who have returned from war to cope with emotional stress or physical wounds that linger long after the sounds of mortar and gunfire have faded. Studies of Vietnam and
Gulf War veterans have documented post-traumatic stress in females — with higher rates than men, in some cases.

But the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan has seen a far larger deployment of women — more than 155,000 — with far more females exposed to ambushes, roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and other deadly hazards. And they have been left with an increased risk of combat-like stress.

Flores says she's not alarmed by her diagnosis of post-traumatic stress; she's getting help for her sleeping problems. It wasn't the war, but the adjustment to the civilian world that she found difficult.

"It was OK — now what?" she says. "You have nobody to talk to. Your family can't relate to what you and your soldiers had and it's just really hard. ... I felt lost. ... I didn't know what to do with my time."

That anxiety — along with depression, irritability and feelings of isolation — also are common symptoms for men with post-traumatic stress, but some mental health experts believe there are distinct pressures for women veterans.

Some come from military service itself — where some women feel they need to prove themselves — while others come from the transition from vigilant soldier to caring wife or mother.

"Women are pulled in different directions," says Darrah Westrup, lead psychologist at the Veteran Affairs' Women's Trauma Recovery Program in Menlo Park, Calif. "They want to be a good partner. They want to be a good mother. ... They want to be a good solider."

This I believe has been part of a debate that started long ago. If women can handle the rigors and horrors of day to day combat in their daily life while in service. It's obvious that they can handle it well enough during but afterwards, according to the article, it's harder to make the re-adjustment. Yet studies show that men seem to cope with the PTS better. I've known a few Vietnam vets and some of them ... well, I've had to keep them in sight whenever I was around them. Others have seemed to handled it well enough.
Yet with this study it says that women have a harder time making the re-adjustment or that it's radically different for them. Of that I've no doubts because women... are radically different than men in just about everything! :asian:
It'll be interesting to see this new generation of veterans after this war is over and their long term effects of their experiences.

Though it's too soon to gauge the toll on women veterans, some early studies have offered a few clues.

For example, the VA reports that slightly more than a third of 23,635 women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan evaluated from 2002 to last August had a preliminary diagnosis of a mental disorder.

Those numbers provide just a partial glimpse into the problem: Many women veterans, like men, don't go to VA hospitals or prefer to seek private help.

A second study released early this year also found that of more than 220,000 Iraq veterans, 23.6 percent of women had a mental health concern — compared with 18.6 percent for men (an insignificant difference, according to Col. Dr. Charles Hoge, one of the study's authors).

Mental health experts say one of the biggest contributors to psychological problems for women in uniform is military sexual trauma — a term that covers verbal harassment and physical assault, which is a strong risk factor for PTSD.

This brings to mind the idea of the increased risk of these veterans experiencing Post Partum Stress after returning home from a front-line and marrying and having children. Would it be a higher risk to these women? They shouldn't be denied having a family of course, I'm not ever going to imply that, but PPS is a real concern for women/new-mothers and when you throw PTSD on top of it... how much more dangerous is it for the woman and her child.

Studies conducted by the VA health system vary, but generally about 20 percent of women report a physical assault during their service, Westrup says. "Unfortunately, a huge aspect of that experience is guilt and self-blame and shame on top of stress," she adds.

Likewise the added stress there. Those bastards who think it's okay to assault their (sisters) in arms are causing even more harm when the same (victim) is exposed to combat and brutality before, during and afterwards are having even a harder time dealing with it all.

How are we, those on the homefront going to handle this? How are we going to take care of our daughters, wives, mothers, girlfriends who go to serve their country when they get home? What do we really need to do? Increased mental care and hospitalization?
Whatever it is that we have to do, we need to do it soon.

 

[shesulsa]

Women have been nursing in combat for a long time. When you have a military medical unit near a combat zone, that unit will likely receive fire and get into combat. But their shell shock, battle fatigue and PTSD have been swept under the rug, heavily medicated and ignored for a long time.

Great article, Caver.

 

[Tez3]

Women have been nursing in combat for a long time. When you have a military medical unit near a combat zone, that unit will likely receive fire and get into combat. But their shell shock, battle fatigue and PTSD have been swept under the rug, heavily medicated and ignored for a long time.

Great article, Caver.

This is so true! Also during WW2 women in the UK were firefighters, anti aircraft gunners, air raid wardens etc and also had to cope with daily air raids, being bombed out and 'normal' family life too while the men were away. In the 70's I was in the RAF and worked in a situation that was dangerous and nasty where we lost a lot of people. ( can't say where though you may guess, there are still reprocussions from those days) I and the men were told to get on with it. Many male soldiers have PTSD from those days which the MOD is still trying to sweep under the carpet along with Gulf Syndrome.

 

[Rich Parsons]

While I understand the compassion of women, and could see that on average it might be harder to re-adjust, yet I wonder what the numbers are for other countries that have women in the military and or medical units, to see if there are any cultural issues that help or make it harder to re-adjust.


Nice points in the article thanks for sharing

 

[Tez3]

While I understand the compassion of women, and could see that on average it might be harder to re-adjust, yet I wonder what the numbers are for other countries that have women in the military and or medical units, to see if there are any cultural issues that help or make it harder to re-adjust.


Nice points in the article thanks for sharing

I have a good friend who is an Army pyschiatric nurse, I will ask her what info and stats are around. Before she changed trades she was with an Army infantry unit who spent six months in Iraq a couple of years ago.

 

[Rich Parsons]

I have a good friend who is an Army pyschiatric nurse, I will ask her what info and stats are around. Before she changed trades she was with an Army infantry unit who spent six months in Iraq a couple of years ago.

I have a Friend who is a Chaplain in the Navy, and when I talk to her again I will ask what stats she has as well.