You see, my father had severe PTSD from his time as a Green Beret during the Vietnam War. It is probably at least partially because he refused to seek treatment for it that I ended up suffering the same thing to a lesser degree.That's good, because none is forthcoming from this station. That charge is a pretty vicious one to lay down at his father's feet, based on things he could only barely remember: engagements between the ages of five and seven, as subsequently explained to him by the other adult who decided she wanted rid of his father and whatever his challenges might have been.
My father’s PTSD transformed him into an erratic, explosive, psychologically abusive man who instilled paranoid fantasies in me about everyone, including my own mother, starting when I was at the tender age of five. To make sure I never questioned these ideas, he punished any signs of critical thinking with almost Maoist tactics of repression. He also sweetened his psychological poison pill by alternating his rages and interrogations with grandiose flattery designed to make me even more dependent on his fantasies. Thankfully, my mother kicked him out when I was seven, but to this day I find it difficult to fully trust many people because of the pure paranoia I was forced to experience and embrace at an early age.
I don’t bring this up for pity.
Well, I wasn't there. Maybe it was as it was painted for him later.
5 comments:
Though his parents split when he was 7, it would be jumping to another sort of conclusion to think this was the last time he dealt with his father. It's akin to his assumption that his father's problems were PTSD, when it's just as likely that the man was mentally ill and would have acted the same even if he'd never been in a war zone.
My problem with the article is that he seems to be advocating for what he's criticizing Yale for doing. Or perhaps he's only criticizing Yale's reason for doing it.
Personally, I think trigger warnings are harmful in a college setting. I don't have a problem with news websites that put a warning on videos that depict certain things -- beatings or horrible car wreck injuries, or surgeries, or Kardashians... The warning I like best is "sponsored link".
But in a college setting... no. Unless, the warning is something like "Caution: this material has been approved by non-cisgender social justice warriors." That one, I'd appreciate and heed.
The kiddies are carrying what they have been taught in high school to their college professors, and the professors are throwing BS flags.
We should pay attention. Somebody is deliberately trying to impair our students' ability to think critically.
Valerie
Though his parents split when he was 7, it would be jumping to another sort of conclusion to think this was the last time he dealt with his father.
Fair enough. As I said, I wasn't there: it could be it happened just that way. Still, it rubs me the wrong way to see a son describe his Green Beret father like this in public. My sensibilities of filial piety don't embrace airing dirty laundry in public, even if it were a just description. And, of course, we don't know that it is a fair description any more than we do know that it is.
It's akin to his assumption that his father's problems were PTSD, when it's just as likely that the man was mentally ill and would have acted the same even if he'd never been in a war zone.
A fair point. That happens from time to time: the PTSD may really exist, and gets the blame, but it turns out to be the case that the 'crazy veteran' was just as crazy the day he signed up.
That's the case more often then we like to admit. I saw several instances of someone snapping after being deployed, but during the investigation it came out that several people in their families suffered from mental illness, too. And they hadn't been to war.
Saw this particularly with suicides.
PTSD is real, but I can assure you from personal experience that in the VN era, the armed services did not screen out people with problems as well as they do now (and they could do even better), and so got stuck paying lifelong service-connected disability to guys who had already demonstrated problems before entering service.
I agree with Grim that this writer is drawing large conclusions from sparse data and may be making terrible unjust accusations.
Loved Donna B's trigger warning, though.
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