PTSD and survivors’ testimony
On YouTube there are a series of interviews of survivors of 10/7, done by the USC Shoah Foundation. The interviews are long, and I’ve only watched a few. But – unlike Holocaust survivor interviews, which I’ve also watched – these were not recorded after the passage of great time. They were done less than two months after the massacre, and therefore the interviewees are psychologically raw. PTSD affects people differently, based on the peculiarities of their experiences during the trauma, as well as their own unique personalities. But there are certain patterns that are often exhibited, including intense anxiety and/or emotional shutting-down.
I was struck by the following woman’s story. She exhibited a sort of leadership and strength during part of the time she and some other young people were under fire, making decisions that turned out to be the correct ones for the small group of which she was a part. She had been at the NOVA music festival, and after running and running, she ended up hiding under some brush near trees. She describes having decided, while she was lying there, that she was going to die and yet feeling a sort of strange peace that nature – the nature she was seeing all around her – would go on. So she had accepted her death and yet survived. But now that she’s safe, here’s how she describes her feelings (I’ve cued it up just for this small 5-minute part, but you can go to YouTube and watch the whole thing). Here’s a sample quote: “I mourn my old self because she’s gone, and my new self – I don’t know who I am.”:
The interviews I’ve watched so far are all powerful, difficult, and individual. Here are two more.
NOTE: The way the woman in the first clip describes her thoughts while lying on the ground, accepting her own death and yet loving nature and being glad it would go on, reminded me of this passage from Tolstoy’s War and Peace:
Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it was Napoleon- his hero- but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan which aroused his own pity.
Thank you for pointing us to these videos.
Thank you for having comments open (YouTube has them closed. Correct but sad.)
The number of psychically damaged people from any conflict is quite large. Some manage to deal with it without counseling and help from others. But it ruins or diminishes many lives. It’s an unseen damage of war that is often overlooked. Just another reason why I hate war.
Unfortunately, war isn’t going away anytime soon. There are ways to help people deal with PTSD, and part of that is talking about their feelings. I wish these survivors the best. May they successfully travel the rocky path to being able to live comfortably with who they are now. May they achieve lives that are as free of PTSD as possible.
Too tough for me just now. (But I am going to bookmark this for later consumption. THANKS!)
I just watched all of the videos. Thank you, Neo.
Unlike J.J. I can’t just write it off to “any unseen conflict” about how PTSD and the “unseen damages of war” are about “ways to deal with PTSD”, etc.
For what it’s worth, my son I believe, is suffering from PTSD as a result from his deployment to Afghanistan. However I think that this is way different.
There is an evil here which goes beyond anything we have seen in modern history. We have friends here in Michigan whose kids are posting on Facebook, etc. support for Hamas. Good people I always thought. I can’t understand it, these are what I’ve always thought were good moral people. God help us.
Cr is B., I’m a Vietnam vet. I have PTSD. I got help and learned to live with it. It often seems to have gone away, but some event can trigger it unexpectedly. You need tools to grapple with it. It can ruin a life.
I agree with you that the savagery of Hamas and other jihadi terror groups is evil. But such savagery is not new in human history. Have you not seen what ISIS and the Taliban have done in the last 22 years?
I suggest that you look at the Fox Nation series, “The Battle in the Holy Land” with Pete Hegseth. It reviews the history of Israel and “Palestine” going back to the Bronze Age. It covers the history of events since 1948 when Israel became a nation. All the wars, the treaty negotiations, the suicide bombings, the rocket attacks, and the present war.
It’s a story of the desire of the Jewish people to return to the land where their religion was born, the agreement by the UN that they should have their own nation, and the almost continuous attacks by the Muslims who are opposed them. I recommend it to anyone who wants to know about the issues.
https://nation.foxnews.com/battle-in-the-holy-land/
Yes, there’s an enormous amount of ignorance concerning this. I wish Fox would run this series as part of their regular programming as a public service.
The closest I have come to witnessing PTSD was in Zaire (now Congo) in 1978. A group of irregular troops from several African countries, led by special operations forces from Cuba and other socialist countries, had entered the copper- and cobalt-mining town of Kolwezi and rounded up European technicians working in the mining operations. The Europeans were herded into a building and massacred with rifles and machetes.
A close friend and colleague was vice-consul at the American Consulate in Lubumbashi. He was instructed to go to Kolwezi to check for American citizens who might need consular help. He claimed to me later that he was the first non-African to go into the house where the Europeans (including a handful of Americans) had been slaughtered.
His subsequent descriptions to me of what he had seen there were shocking and he had clearly been traumatized by it. He and his wife were transferred back to the USA within a week, and he stayed with me one night on his way home.
To say he was traumatized was to put it mildly. He stared into space frequently, alternately breaking down or just going silent for long stretches.
I lost track of him soon thereafter as he had resigned from the Foreign Service and disappeared back into his former life. But I will never forget how this experience had shattered him, and I believe totally changed his life.
J.J.- Thank you, I’ll check out the Fox Nation series. You’re right of course, the type of savagery displayed on 10/7 is actually pretty common throughout human history, although I don’t know that it’s ever been this well documented for everyone to see. I’m glad that you were able to get help for your PTSD. I pray that those affected by the butchery on 10/7 will be able to as well.
Thanks for posting these – but I am keeping all this stuff at arm’s length until the war is over.
My impression is that Israel does better by its vets that America, but that may just be because it is a smaller, more tightly connected country socially, and army service is a natural part of life here.
“For what it’s worth, my son I believe, is suffering from PTSD as a result from his deployment to Afghanistan.” – Chris B.
If you can nudge him toward exploring his options, it would be a good thing. I knew I had issues but didn’t realize what was going on. I tried to “suck it up buttercup” for years.
The VA and other veteran organizations like Wounded Warriors now have expertise in helping vets with PTSD. Help is out here and it’s smart to accept that you may need it. I wish your son well. As a vet he deserves the best we can offer.
Thank you for the advice J.J. He seemed alright when he first got back in 2012, but recently he’s been having some issues with depression and I’m wondering if it’s related to his service there. He seems reluctant to discuss it. He was in a cav unit and I know they took casualties. I’ll be seeing him tomorrow for Christmas and I’m going to see if I can talk to him about it. Thanks again for your concern.