PTSD and Sleep

Less Sleep Helps PTSD? 

  In a new study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health in Tokyo were interested in the relationship between sleep deprivation and fear associated with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a serious disorder where, after some type of traumatic event (combat, natural disaster, abuse, etc) involving the threat of injury or death, the person can suffer from a debilitating anxiety disorder that involves:

a heightened sense of awareness
(insomnia)
reliving the event
(nightmares)
avoidance of things that remind them of the event
(movies, sounds, crowds)

guilt about their survival
(imagining the event to a different outcome)


In this experiment, researchers had two groups of healthy volunteers. Everyone watched a film with traumatic content and then one group was able to go to sleep, while the other was forced to stay awake for 24 hours (total sleep deprivation). Amazingly the group that had to stay awake had less measured fear of the film content than the group that got to sleep.

The researchers hypothesized that a case of sleep deprivation, like acute insomnia after a life threatening trauma, may help people not form the fearful memories of the traumatic event. Not long ago I blogged about sleep and memory. More specifically, we know that rapid eye movement sleep ( aka REM sleep) is when we see a good portion of the mental restoration that goes on in the brain. This is the time when we move information from our short term memory into our long term memory, and organize our thoughts in such a way that they can help us recall information later on. Could it be that with total sleep deprivation the brain is not allowed to form a long term memory of an event? While this may be possible, more research is certainly needed to better understand this complex situation.

 

PTSD: Filing A Claim Without A Diagnosis

If I want to file a claim, do I have to have a diagnosis first before I can file?

  Some service organizations will tell veterans they have to have a written diagnosis from a doctor before they can file a claim for any condition. This is not true. A veteran can file a claim at any time for any condition related to military service. You do not have to prove it before you file, and a service organization cannot refuse to let you open a claim.

  Many service officers seem to be in it for the job and don’t care about helping veterans or they don’t want to make waves with the VA. The VA pays for their office space at the hospitals, and more and more I hear veterans complain that service officers often seem to side with the VA. If a service officer, from any service organization mandated by Congress to help veterans, tells you that you should stop whining and be happy with what you have...or if they tell you that if you file for an increase in PTSD that you risk losing your percentage...then tell them you are going over their head to DC, where most of the home offices are located.

  Don’t let anyone try to make you feel like you are a bother because you want to file a claim for something that happened on active duty. And don’t forget the elected officials. Your Congressman or Senator know that helping veterans through inquiries makes them look good.

  If your claim has been in the system a long time, an official inquiry may help to speed it up. The main thing is to never give up when you have a good claim.

PTSD: Haunted By A Child

For some reason this morning I thought about the war; something that happens each day. But this time, I had been thinking about my three daughters. I remember what they looked like at age two, and that’s when the little Vietnamese girl always comes back to haunt me.

I was with 1/3 and we had just finished an operation in the Street Without Joy in late 1967. We were picked up on some road out in the boonies by trucks from B Company 7^th Motors; an outfit I would be sent to in a few more months.

Someone had a large bright red Russian flag captured during the operation and it was flying like a trophy above the lead vehicle. We slowly passed a village on the left near a sharp bend where a crowd of children came to beg food from us.

We would punch holes in the C-rat cans so they would have to eat it instead of giving it to the VC. I’m talking about many little children of all ages, dirty and starving and dressed in rags. I couldn’t imagine them giving food up to anyone, but we always poked holes in the cans.

Some of the children got so close to the trucks I thought they would get run over. And that’s when I saw the little girl in what looked like a small granny dress with colored flowers. I thought of my little sister. The girl was probably two years old. She had no shoes and very little hair. I kept thinking why a mother would let such a young child come out and beg like that…but that was an American thought process, not a Vietnam reality.

I don’t remember what food can I had in my hand, but I poked a hole in it with the c-rat can opener. We were going slowly enough for me to lean over and drop the can in front of her because she would have never been able to catch it. Others ran toward her and I yelled and startled them so she was able to grab the can. She looked up at me and half-smiled.

That’s when a boy about age thirteen ran over and punched her in the face as hard as he could and grabbed the can away from her. She flew in the air like some broken doll and sat up screaming like all babies do when hurt badly. I went into a rage as the truck sped up. I wanted to shoot that boy and pick up the little girl and hold her and make everything okay again.

In a moment, we were gone and there was nothing I could do. I would never see that village or the little girl again. I realized more than ever that there was nothing I could do about anything in that country. One act of kindness is lost against a background of terror. Reality in Vietnam was horror, and all a person could do was try to survive it.

She would probably be about forty-six if she had lived, but the odds against that were extremely high. I like to imagine she grew up and maybe came to America. That she has children of her own and they don’t have to beg for food. The little girl is always alive in my mind. She represents all the horror in the world and the personal loss I’ve felt since I left Vietnam almost forty-three years ago. Out of all the bad things I saw in country, she affects me more than anything because I could do nothing to save her.