Thursday, April 16, 2015

Help in is finally here! How to help family members with PTSD!

I wanted to share my book review of "Love Our Vets" by Welby O'Brien

 Please visit the family support website http://www.loveourvets.org/

The book "Love Our Vets" was such a wonderful reference for me when I wanted to understand what my father went through. He had PTSD from the Vietnam War. All my childhood I felt my father didn't love me because he didn't seem to engage the family in activities and would isolate himself if there was any signs of conflict. He would scream an...d spank us with out of control anger. He had flashbacks and his past in Vietnam became his present reality as my mom, me and three sisters would be terrified as we hid in closets waiting for his PTSD episode to end and for my loving dad to reappear.

As an adult I asked him why he would watch the history channel about Vietnam War. His response was to see if there was anything there to give him the reason why he fought because to him it was a lot of young men getting killed because they had blind trust.

I have PTSD and I am a civilian and it is just as terrifying for my family when I had these symptoms. This book gives us all hope because even my husband was able to read this book and know how he could help me, a civilian with PTSD. I had childhood trauma and severe child neglect because my parents were unable to cope and raise children.

Since I received help to overcome a lot of trauma or at least find ways of coping so I don't affect my family as my parents affected me. We need to break all our silence and begin to understand people and stop the mental health stigma
Leslie Raddatz

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