Soldiers Take Psychiatric Medications for Stress

[Pete]

Soldiers Take Psychiatric Medications for Stress

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/american-so...ry?id=10193849

".........Some have unfortunately committed suicide, but ABC News has been told that an increasing number -- at least 8 percent of the force -- are now using pills to treat themselves. Some are turning to antidepressants, such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, which are prescribed right on the front lines............."

With the Health Care bill now passed, electric records coming on line with no security and the anti gun attitude of this administration wonder why a number of CC Licenses are going to be regected or pulled? Pistol permit? Sorry, No.

[Mike]

Jeez, what a bunch of weak motherfuckers.

What ever happened to basic survival instinct.

Maybe this suicide trend is mother nature's way of cleaning out the gene pool.

[TOMAHAWK9521]

Why not let the boys tie one on after serious action and let them sleep it off? Better to have them hung-over and penitent for a short period rather than suicidal. It's not the best idea but it I would think it beats committing them to a lifetime of therapy and psychiatric drugs.

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by Mike

Jeez, what a bunch of weak motherfuckers.

What ever happened to basic survival instinct.

Maybe this suicide trend is mother nature's way of cleaning out the gene pool.

I agree with Mike 100%,he's right on target................

Big Teddy

[Go Devil]

To quote a door that I had the honor of walking through:

"Hard times don't last, but hard men do."

I have endured very difficlt situations and many of you have as well.

As a young man, it was suggested that chemicals (prescribed and not) would help my situation, but fortunately I looked inside of myself and understood that these substances would only prolong the duration of time between the experiences and the acceptance.

I chose to knuckle-up and deal with the s**t, with a clear mind.

Was it easy, no.

Someday everyone has to deal with misfortune, misdeeds, or just plan horror;
forwarding that day only stunts your growth.

In my opinion, the best pill is the one you don't take.

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by Mike

Jeez, what a bunch of weak motherfuckers.
What ever happened to basic survival instinct.
Maybe this suicide trend is mother nature's way of cleaning out the gene pool.

Oh boy, here we go.

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

I agree with Mike 100%,he's right on target................
Big Teddy

Someone run by Teddy's house. Check the basement for pods.

Originally Posted by Go Devil

To quote a door that I had the honor of walking through: "Hard times don't last, but hard men do."

I have endured very difficlt situations and many of you have as well. As a young man, it was suggested that chemicals (prescribed and not) would help my situation, but fortunately I looked inside of myself and understood that these substances would only prolong the duration of time between the experiences and the acceptance.

I chose to knuckle-up and deal with the s**t, with a clear mind. Was it easy, no. Someday everyone has to deal with misfortune, misdeeds, or just plan horror; forwarding that day only stunts your growth. In my opinion, the best pill is the one you don't take.

As the Coast Guardsmen run to the rescue boats at the mouth of the Columbia they run under a sign that reads, "You have to go out, you don't have to come back".
Most probably don't plan to drown.

[Utah Bob]

at least 8 percent of the force -- are now using pills to treat themselves.

Well Duh! Some troops will take pills to "treat themselves" no matter what.

[Gypsy]

Originally Posted by NORMAL550GIRL

.
, but in the civ world, very few people have to take them forever. The brain chemicals go wacky-woohoo and the meds put them back in line, and then you get off them.

Hmm. Well guess what. Many people have to take treatment drugs for life or they DO go back to being...ahh..."wacky-woohoo". You don't just pop some pills and then miraculously get "back in line" and get to go off them. There are no simple/quick cures for mental illness, or just being on a pill "for a while".

You can't compare this with the stresses of combat, they're obviously two entirely different worlds.

[AngelsSix]

Interesting opinions from all sides. I have another, less popular point of view. Has anyone realized that these weak ass kids are coming into the military already screwed in the head from a variety of issues to begin with?

Personal experience:

I am on patrol one night and go to the desk to clear some paperwork. Whence I hear the female at the desk state that "so and so's wife just called here looking for him, he got off post several hours ago and she was concerned because he is supposed to be taking some sort of anti psychotic meds and he hasn't gotten home to take them yet." SCHRREEEEECHHHH!! "WHAT?? Are we talking about one of our members?!" "Yup, I know he's in the parking lot, talking it up with so-and so (a SGT., who had no business messing with an E-2, but that's a whole other issue), but I didn't want a domestic on my hands, so I didn't tell her he was here."

Turns out this kid went nuts, completely unhinged not long after that. I had two questions. How did he get in the military with that kind of a medical issue, and what the hell was he doing carrying a LOADED WEAPON on base?

I almost turned my shit in right then. I still cannot fathom how it is that people are being given these drugs, are obviously unstable and are being allowed to carry firearms. I am not going to blame anyone in particular, but if the med folks on base were aware of this kids issues... why wasn't his Commander notified? He could have done some SERIOUS harm. I am glad that he never seriously hurt someone (he assaulted his wife off base and was arrested), but this could have definitely ended in disaster.

The thing that bothers me the most....people knew and covered it up. Not because he was a stellar troop, because he was far from it....but they did. I still don't know why. I quit shortly after this and a string of other incidents that kept occurring with regard to people's out of control behavior. I wasn't going to hang around for the next shoe to drop.....

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by NORMAL550GIRL

With respect, that's like saying you can be strong enough to overcome diabetes without insulin or cancer without chemotherapy. Just "knuckle-up" and you won't have breast cancer anymore!

Don't confuse serious depression or other mental illnesses with whininess, sadness or being weak. The brain is an organ. It can go wrong just like any other organ. And there are times when no amount of "tough-talking" to yourself is going to help.

If you have never experienced that, that's great. But if there is a person who has a mental illness, I quite frankly, would rather they take a pill for awhile than take out me and a couple of my friends and then commit suicide.

BTDT.

Had some issues when I was 19.
Shrink initially thought it was bi-polar, prescribed lithium, and everyone assumed I would be stuck that way for life.
(he later recanted the initial diagnosis when circumstances changed)

Eventually I decided that whatever the issues were, I would overcome them.
Told the shrink that there was nothing wrong with me, and I would not take the meds.

Later discovered the symptoms were consistent with dysexecutive syndrome -- frontal lobe damage.
This is not suprising given the amount of sparring done without headgear prior to the onset of symptoms.

I had a capable brain prior to these problems, but had difficulty using it thereafter.
My brain is indeed an organ, but I am a living soul.

I conditioned my concentration (my brain) through practice -- things such as putting dots in the center of each box in page after page of graph paper.
No, this was not a manifestation of OCD, it was deliberate practice. It's not easy.
I conditioned my will through hard training in the weight room.
I held myself to high standards of personal behavior.
I beseeched help from the Almighty.

Frequently, I failed (and still do).
Just dusted off and started again (and still do).

I cannot say where a bad attitude ends and brain injury begins.
Ultimately, it was irrelevant.

I was either willing to excercise what will and disclipline I still had,
or I would let atrophy and excuses take their course.

There are only two states of nature: growth and decay.
Each person has to make their own choice, and live with the consequences.

[Richard]

Yeah...what is it with these kids today - we didn't need any drugs - all we ever needed to deal with stress was a drink or two...

And so it goes...

Richard's jaded $.02

[Sigaba]

FWIW, Michael Doubler found that in 1941, the army was unprepared to define "combat exhaustion," much less treat it. The army's chief neuropsychiatrist described the symptoms as follows.

Typically he appeared as a dejected, dirty, weary man. His facial expression was one of depression, sometimes tearfulness. Frequently his hands were trembling or jerky. Occasionally, he would display varying degrees of confusion perhaps to the point of being mute or staring into space. Very occasionally he might present classically hysterical symptoms.

During the Second World War, the army found that "combat exhaustion" was most likely to affect two types of soldiers. The first group consisted of new soldiers in their first few days of combat. The second group was made up of experienced veterans who either had been fighting continuously for four months or longer or had experienced more than 200 days of fighting overall.*

Doubler further found that between 1944 and 1945, seventeen infantry divisions and four armored divisions crossed the 200 day threshold. Between 1944 and 1945, the army experienced about 151,920 cases of combat exhaustion. It was not until 1944 that the army found an effective treatment program.**
_______________________________________________
* Michael Doubler, Closing with the Enemy: How the GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945, Modern War Studies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 242-247.
** Ibid., 236-239.

[afchic]

Originally Posted by Go Devil

To quote a door that I had the honor of walking through:

"Hard times don't last, but hard men do."

I have endured very difficlt situations and many of you have as well.

As a young man, it was suggested that chemicals (prescribed and not) would help my situation, but fortunately I looked inside of myself and understood that these substances would only prolong the duration of time between the experiences and the acceptance.

I chose to knuckle-up and deal with the s**t, with a clear mind.

Was it easy, no.

Someday everyone has to deal with misfortune, misdeeds, or just plan horror;
forwarding that day only stunts your growth.

In my opinion, the best pill is the one you don't take.

Unless that pill is the one that will save your life or the life of loved one. I am sure your experience with this is far different than mine. And I applaude you if you were able to make it through a dark period in your life without prescription drugs.

But thanks to antidepressants I have a happy and healthy 21 year old son. Were it not for the antidepressants, and change of environment, he may not be here now.

He was on them for 2 years, and was able to get off of them, with alot of work. But had you come to me when he was 15 and told me that he was sitting on top of a bell tower with a rifle, taking out folks with a rifle as they walked by, and then thrown himself off, I would not have been surprised.

Thankfully that part of his life is past, and he has a bright future to look forward to.

Not every person deals with things such as depression in the same manner. Have any of you men had a wife with post partum depression so severe that she was unable to take care of herself, let alone an infant?

Let's not knock those who deal with things differently than we do, without first walking a mile in their shoes.

[BrainStorm]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

FWIW, Michael Doubler found that in 1941, the army was unprepared to define "combat exhaustion," much less treat it. The army's chief neuropsychiatrist described the symptoms as follows.During the Second World War, the army found that "combat exhaustion" was most likely to affect two types of soldiers. The first group consisted of new soldiers in their first few days of combat. The second group was made up of experienced veterans who either had been fighting continuously for four months or longer or had experienced more than 200 days of fighting overall.*

Doubler further found that between 1944 and 1945, seventeen infantry divisions and four armored divisions crossed the 200 day threshold. Between 1944 and 1945, the army experienced about 151,920 cases of combat exhaustion. It was not until 1944 that the army found an effective treatment program.**
_______________________________________________
* Michael Doubler, Closing with the Enemy: How the GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-1945, Modern War Studies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 242-247.
** Ibid., 236-239.

I would add as another useful reference "Psychological Effects of Combat" By Dave Grossman and Bruce K. Siddle

[Go Devil]

AFChick & 550Girl,



I am not knocking those that deal with depression or PTSD; I am personally aware that the soul and chemical imbalances in the brain have an amazing ability to make an indiviual NMC and also that these issues are seldom a one time occurrence.

What I am knocking is the practitioner (out of fear of malpractice accusations) who is so quickly willing to subscribe a course of medication.

Below are people that my wife and I cousel with. All of these people arrive from unbelievable situations, are racked with grief and have been fed a steady diet of artifitial chemicals to treat the symptoms of their illness, but have not received or acquired the tools to treat themselves
Always lots of kids in there.

You have to wrestle that beast behind the door; he will not be prescribes away.

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