By Christine Leccese
Life in a war zone can be stressful, terrifying, and tenuous, but for many service members, returning home isn’t always a picnic, either. In fact, many people have trouble adjusting to peacetime after they’re been to war.
Service members coming home will often experience post-deployment stress, and some may even see their symptoms progress to PTSD. However, there is a difference between typical post-deployment stress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Military Pathways talked to Rebecca Townsend, LPC, SrLPE, a military family therapist in Clarksville, Tenn, about the difference between the two.
“Sometimes, a service member comes home feeling numb and detached. This can last anywhere from two days to up to a month. It is called acute stress disorder, but it’s not PTSD, just that initial stress,” says Townsend.
Townsend goes on to explain that many people feel stress after a traumatic event, and that stress can affect what they do. After a car accident, a person often has trouble getting back in a car again. He or she does not necessarily have PTSD, but a typical stress reaction as a response to a traumatic event.
Three major challenges when someone comes home from a deployment include:
Physical: A person is coping with time zone differences, body clock differences, and a completely different physical space.
Physiological: When you’ve been hyper vigilant for 9 months (or 15 months for some people) that can change the chemicals in your brain. “Your brain has to get used to not being in a combat zone,” Townsend explains.
Familial: The adjustment back into a person’s family can be a challenge as the family has made a life without him or her. If the family is having problems on top of reuniting, that can make things even more difficult.
So when does post deployment stress become a problem? Townsend explains that once the symptoms have gone on too long –more than a month – perhaps someone can make a PTSD diagnosis.
“If the person is still experiencing stress, which would include distressing thoughts, nightmares, hyper vigilance, flashbacks or other symptoms for longer than a month, then we can start looking at a diagnosis of PTSD,” Townsend points out.
She adds that the most important step that will prevent post-deployment stress from progressing is getting help as quickly as possible. Townsend adds that one of the best therapeutic tools for anxiety following a traumatic event is exposure therapy.
“We expose ourselves over and over by discussing a traumatic event,” Townsend says. For example, she says, think about if you saw a bad car accident on the way to work. You’d likely want to share with everyone at work what happened and what you saw. It’s a natural way of dealing with stress.
Townsend stresses that whatever someone calls his or her stress, it still needs to be treated. “My theory on any type of counseling is that I don’t necessarily need a label to help you find success. Let’s just look at the symptoms and be solution-focused,” Townsend says.
Christine Leccese is the communications and marketing manager at Military Pathways.
