There’s a lot of myth surrounding anxiety disorders like PTSD. One of the most pervasive is that those who suffer it have a difficult time organizing their thoughts and pose a risk to others. This is at the heart of the alienation suffers have had to live with for centuries.
Whether we’re talking about Revolutionary War Veterans, called ‘Wandering Lillies’ if this alienation prevented them from settling down, or anyone else affected by it since, the problem is misunderstanding. We earn degrees while suffering, undergraduate and advanced, so there’s no reason to believe PTSD affects cognition.
My great grandfather, a World War I Veteran, suffered prior to his death. He told stories about those experiences, as he suffered to contend with them before “His” final judgment was made. He was treated as senile for doing so, even though we all know this is perfectly understandable.
Sometimes our bias gets in the way. Sometimes it’s our fear of experiencing second hand what these people suffer with. It is never the disorder itself that disables these people. It is the response to it.
Jamie Beaulieu
Farmington, Maine
