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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Fyi, while PTSD is commonly associated with soldiers and the experiances of war, it is far more common in many civilian trades. Top of the list: train drivers. Also, certain types of doctors such as pediatric oncologists. But we never hear about PTSD treatment studies involving anyone other than vets.

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There's a reason for that. If civilian PTSD were more widely acknowledged, insurance would be paying out more and people would want employers to do something about high-stress jobs.

> Top of the list: train drivers.

I rather suspect front-line in Trust and Safety at any major social media outfit is up there, too.

To add to the chorus, I've had multiple kids waking up in the middle of the night screaming "Don't hit me mommy!" for months or more after moving in. I promise those kids will meet any definition you can find in a textbook.

This seems to be missing some context, like if you're a foster parent or similar?

I know someone whose bio family ran a foster home and just being exposed to that 2nd hand was enough to make them seek professional help.

Probably complex PTSD? Honestly I'd be surprised if you can handle that kind of thing without developing it yourself.

Complex PTSD isn’t in the DSM (yet) so treatment for it is obsfucated behind every other diagnoses that carry traits of cPTSD.

I have a loved one with CPTSD and the best therapy she's had was IFS based.

True. It is however finally in ICD-11.

and it continues for decades too

Yes, and it's also worth noting that DSM5 has some pretty loose wording with PTSD diagnostic criteria. Not even saying that as a bad thing, more to say that a lot more people (diagnostically) likely have PTSD without realizing it.

PTSD can be caused by any trauma, like a car crash or abuse. PTSD is actually a fear of a traumatic memory. A person experiences flashbacks (pieces of the traumatic memory) and fears that the traumatic event will reoccur. The most effective treatment is exposure therapy - in a nutshell, you eventually write down the traumatic memory in full (not just pieces of it) and read it until it becomes boring/you understand that for example it wasn't your fault. Here is a recent meta analysis https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

I think it's for society buy-in and relatability - that we can assume, because we see in entertainment (or real-life footage) the horrors that happen during war, but other professions may be harder to relate to.

Also one of the easier groups to target research on, since they are easier to systematically identify and are more likely to have similar underlying experiences.

And they have standardized health insurance provided through an enormous government agency, which is rare amongst workers in the US.

Right. Who has the money to pay for a study to be done? The VA, for all its faults, can. Battered women and abused IT help desk employees can't, so we don't hear stories of big expensive studies being done with them.

healthcare workers during the pandemic come to mind.

It's hard to find good or consistent stats on this but I believe most cases are not from work at all. IIRC the most common causes are sexual assault, car crashes, and child abuse.

And surgeries.

Doesn't even have to be a profession. I've got (actual legit, not "trying to be hip") PTSD from my experiences getting bullied. I'm lucky that my symptoms are fairly mild, but at this point I don't expect them ever to go away. Turns out getting called ugly about a hundred times a day by almost everyone you know does things to a kids psyche.

Do you have any context on train drivers? Is that due to some sort of accidents happening or due to some sort of chronic stress?

Suicide by train, but also a great many more animals that are killed. What makes is especially bad is that drivers see the accident coming many seconds in advance. One you've seen one person throw themselves in front of your train, every time you see another person near the track you relive the scenario.

People commit suicide by train. Accidents between trains and cars happen and are often fatal.

Not only that, but the driver of a train will often see an impending collision, but will have no way to prevent it -- it takes a freight train over a mile to stop. The combination of being in control of the train, but unable to stop an accident, is a recipe for trauma.

All of the early research on. PTSD was done at the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, I believe. The affliction was first seen in this group before being better understood.

If everyone has ptsd then no one has ptsd. It’s too loose as it is. Sorry but people who got bombed and shot at deserve a little more priority in terms of mental health.

When a person tells you they are suffering and in pain, what criteria do you use to determine weather to tell them that their feelings are invalid?

Who said their feelings have to be invalid just because they don’t have “ptsd”

Pretty sure anyone who has been in help desk has some kind of PTSD, especially if you supported attorneys

Without making light of the stress involved in helpdesk work, which is absolutely real, traumatic stress is something else again.

PTSD is generally indicated for people experiencing situations that involve say trauma rather than distressing. However, enough exposure to distressing might be considered trauma.

Anyway, this is all arse backwards: You start off with a diagnosis of PTSD based on symptoms and try to work out causation, through diagnosis. You don't start off with: "I worked on a helpdesk for attorneys and therefore I have PTSD".

To add, it’s worth noting that what gives Person A trauma may not give Person B trauma. The situation is not a prescription for mental trauma. Two combat vets who fought side by side in the same battle can walk away with wildly different effects. Someone working a help desk may feel immense stress, even trauma over time, while another thrives under the same circumstances. Trivializing PTSD to “I worked a shitty help desk job before, I get it” is not a great take.

Emotional abuse can cause more severe PTSD than other forms[1] and help desk (really any call center) occupations deal with far too much of it. Sure you can be pedantic around the phrasing, but do not hand wave how crushing these kinds of jobs are.

1 - https://www.talkspace.com/mental-health/conditions/articles/...

I'm not sure what you consider to be the source(s) of "emotional abuse" for a Help Desk or call center employee, but nobody who works on the phones for customers is required to endure any sort of egregious verbal abuse from them. Such a worker should be free to warn them, and then hang up or refer the to management as appropriate.

It is certainly a good skill to be able to defuse situations where the customer is angry and ranting, but there is hopefully no personal or intimate connection with said customers, and that's really the key to effective emotional abuse. Likewise, the worker is hopefully not enduring emotional abuse from coworkers or management in the course of their jobs, although this is also a possible thing.

It's not kind to say, but one must wonder if after you kill people, rip their bodies asunder, send them into the afterlife... if PTSD doesn't have a spiritual or karmic purpose. We're not meant to be doing this to each other.

I'm as about as big a hippie as you can get, however we live in a cold world and sometimes killing is the right thing to do. Look no further than the war in Ukraine. My family left there from pogroms over 100 years ago and again Russian aggression is causing innocent people to have to kill to defend. We're not meant to do this, you're right. However, sometimes you have to so I don't believe PTSD to be 'karmic'.

Though i do wonder if there's any difference in ptsd between the invading and defending forces. Especially if those invading either actively don't want to, or eventually come to realize they were being used for political squabbles and not the true defense of the empire and way of life.

Was there a spiritual or karmic purpose to my father molesting multiple young girls?

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