Women warriors face battle with stress disorder: Road home from combat a nightmarish one

[babylonsister]

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1003328

Women warriors face battle with stress disorder: Road home from combat a nightmarish one
By Jessica Fargen
Boston Herald Health & Medical Reporter
Sunday, May 27, 2007 - Updated: 10:36 AM EST

Martha Kelly-Chalas has been back from Iraq for nearly two years, but the 44-year-old veteran can’t seem to find her way home.

“When I came back, there was nothing left,” said the Army Reserve master sergeant in an interview at her Quincy home. She wore a beige linen dress, drank hot tea and spoke in a pleasant, soft voice that belied her inner pain.

Kelly-Chalas, a Dominican native, has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She returned from an 11-month tour in Iraq in August 2005, she said, to find her husband “cold” and her former self a distant memory. She and her husband, whom she wed and bought a house with just before she deployed, split four months later.

As with several female veterans interviewed for this story, Kelly-Chalas’ initial symptoms of PTSD - nightmares, shudders at loud noises, anger, irritability and depression - are more muted now than when she first returned.

What lingers is a subtle change in how she lives. “The deployment turned my life upside down,” she said. “I wasted a year of my life.”

more...

[FreakinDJ]

1. Welcome to a man's world

Generations of men have been forced into dealing with these same realities. Society in general has told then to "Buck-up" and quit your sniveling.

[Cerridwen]

2. So, does that make this okay with you?

Perhaps had a few men from those "generations of men" NOT quit their "sniveling" and NOT "bucked-up", then maybe, just maybe war would be less of an option when handling confrontation as the price to a country's people is just too damned high.

[Captain Hilts]

3. No, that's not what FreakinDJ suggests at all.

They're using irony.

[Cerridwen]

4. Thank you. I wasn't sure, so I asked. ...n/t

[hlthe2b]

7. No sarcasm icon. Perhaps we should ask the poster to clarify..

I'm always amazed when others presume to interpret what another poster "meant to say." Perhaps we should let him (FreakinDJ) clarify...

I took his posted comments literally as well, Cerridwen. :shrug:

[Cerridwen]

9. I did ask him to clarify. So far he's silent.

I'll take a moment to give the benefit of the doubt...a moment.

That kind of messed up thinking; if it was intended as something other than irony; is what contributes to such a messed up view of the world. "Suck it up!" "Take it like a man!" Yeah, it's worked so well for us all.

[hlthe2b]

10. agree...

The "silence" itself may be telling... Mookie's presumptive "scolding" of you (for taking the poster's comments literally) seems quite premature.

[FreakinDJ]

13. Take it like a man - has been the mantra for generations

Of course it was sarcastic - and NO I do not know how to use all the fancy little symbols.

But what does surprise me is the number of folks that came looking for an argument. Everyone knows BUCK UP - TAKE IT LIKE A MAN was the mantra behind the selfless sacrifices made in World War II. Does anyone doubt it was a necessary war? Or had not the countless 10s of 1000s of men who gave their life defending the world had not done so Hitler would have had time to develop and perfect the Atom Bomb and missile delivery systems. By now we would all be speaking German saying "Sieg Hail" and what ever happened to that nice Jewish lady down the street.

So why do we all need to pay special attention to a woman when she suffers the same perils 10s of 1000s of men have.

Does she have MORE worth to society then all those men who have suffered the exact same thing?

[hlthe2b]

14. re:

"Does she have MORE worth to society then all those men who have suffered the exact same thing?"

No. There are some (many, in fact)who suggest she has LESS.

Taken at face value, your post was extremely dismissive of this issue with respect to women. Your defensiveness at being misunderstood is understandable, but emoticons are not needed to make a point clear-- they only help. The obligation, however, is on the poster--not on those reading. We can't "read" what is in your heart and mind...:shrug:

[hlthe2b]

6. Geebus, what a response....!

It seems your anger is focused on women 'being allowed' to experience the same pain and hardship as men---rather than the immorality of what is happening and has happened to both men and women deployed under these circumstances and the lack of supports when they return. GEEBUS!

[devilgrrl]

8. Yeah and what a great fucking world that is!

:sarcasm:

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Repukes have no problem with sending women off to combat , while at the same time

wanting to take control of their right to chose. :banghead:

[Captain Hilts]

11. Actually, Repubs don't want women in combat. It empowers them, gives them a voice in issues...

they don't want to hear from women on: war, peace, medical benefits, etc.

[Solly Mack]

12. I've seen Moms come home only to be afraid of being around their children

Overseas military families foster other military children during deployments. When a single parent comes home from deployment - the children don't always go back home immediately - parents aren't ready to be parents again and need time to decompress. They visit their children then go back to their homes. The children don't understand why they can't go home with Mommy - but they also grasp that something isn't quite right about Mommy - she's different now.

I know of one mother who told me it was her children that kept her going - everything about her time while deployed was geared toward getting home to her children - but when she got back - those children were strangers to her and she didn't want to be around them for long periods. Can you imagine that pain? I can't.

Fathers come home only to see their families as strangers - and the deploying spouse no longer feels needed as they see life went on without them.

Spouses become strangers and divorce happens.

Children lose the parent they did have and get this stranger no one knows - not even the soldier.

My own husband is different now and we've had some bitter moments since he's been back...even 3 years later....and we're one of the lucky couples.

[TahitiNut]

15. I fail to see the significance of gender ... since this happens to both sexes.

What's the point of making such an emphasis on "women" warriors? Are we to infer that women are less emotionally resiliant? Or are we to infer women are more emotionally susceptible?

This comes close to describing my own 'homecoming' experience from Viet Nam - when we went and came back individually instead of within units in which we'd formed supportive relationships. Just how long does it take for people to get a clue and do something about this? Dragging the red herring of gender across this problem doesn't get us closer to dealing with it.

[bobbolink]

16. The SIGNIFICANCE is that it's much more prevalent in women coming back from IRAQ.

The numbers are much higher.

That's the significance.

[TahitiNut]

17. Is there a reputable source for that? If true, why is it so?

From an individual perspective, are we to react differently based on the person's gender? What makes it more/less of concern because it's a man/woman? Again, why is it significant?

[bobbolink]

18. What you react to is *your* business. Maybe womens experience is not of importance to you,

I don't know.

It SHOULD matter that we have a larger number of women returning with PTSD than men.

Whether you see it as significant or not, that has GREAT IMPORT to us, as a society.

I read it in a newspaper report, and given your lack of interest, I'm not going to go search it for you.

Believe it or not, care or not, it's up to you.

[TahitiNut]

21. Why the apparent hostility? Are you saying that I'm obliged to feel MORE concerned

... that this is happening to women? Why?

You drag out an insulting straw man that "womens experience is not of importance" to me ... when I've never indicated that AT ALL. It's of importance to me whether it's men or women. What's wrong with that?

Again, just what the hell makes it more or less important based on the gender of the traumatized person? Why isn't it important no matter what the person's gender?

Why the (apparent) anger?

[bobbolink]

22. You decide what's significan to you. I explained the significance, you

brushed it off.

Do what you want with it.

[TahitiNut]

23. If it said "Black Troops Face Battle With Stress Disorder" ....

... and emphasized race as a factor, I would detect an aroma of racism.

I will always question the significance of any emphasis on race or gender where the correlation isn't clear to me. Sorry if that offends some view of the Universe you might have, but the question is valid, I believe.

[bobbolink]

24. I don't recall you questioning the "significance of gender" with all the stories of MEN with PTSD.

[TahitiNut]

25. Show me where gender was made significant and I'll show you me questioning it.

I continue to challenge the specious notion that women are somehow not qualified to serve in the military, as I've challenged it for over 40 years. I find it perplexing (to say the least) that there are outspoken proponents of that specious posture on the (so-called) "left." When there are stories about "men returning from combat" they pass under the radar since we're so accustomed to accepting the notion that women don't serve in combat - yet I steadfastly reject any objective rationale for that practice.

[bobbolink]

26. Oh for goddamned sake.... all this article did was talk about a woman with PTSD

YOU are the one who called it significant.

The other articles were about MEN (because women are still mostly invisible, including at DU), YET that's what you pounced on.

If you can't think of anything significant to the society about a large number of women coming back with PTSD, then I think you are purposely blocking it. And, yes, MORE WOMEN ARE AFFECTED THAN MEN.

[TahitiNut]

27. Oh, really?

"Women warriors face battle with stress disorder..."
"As with several female veterans interviewed for this story, ..."
"The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has diagnosed 4,000 women returning ..."

It seems you're going a bit overboard in ascribing something to me that just doesn't exist ... even to the point of implying that there was no emphasis on gender in the story. That's clearly false.

Why? Why are we supposed to be MORE concerned with PTSD among women than men? Isn't this something that deserves HUMAN compassion?

:eyes:

[Madspirit]

19. k&r...n/t

[bobbolink]

20. I have stated this when talking about homeless issues, that in coming years,

we're going to have a large number of homeless women, because they're coming back from battle with more incidence of PTSD than men.

Even that doesn't seem to rouse people about homelessness.

:shrug: