Dr. John A. King argues that PTSD sufferers are withdrawing from public conversation when they need to speak most. He warns against the stereotype that people with PTSD will "go postal," and says his book The Deal with It has helped more veterans than the VA in some cases.
Hey, this is my favourite going out in public t-shirt. You can get this from the website. Let's tick some people off. What happened in California was horrible. The lives lost, the young man who, a veteran who felt he couldn't get help or didn't have help. And we get reports from this all the time, how The Deal with It book is helping more people than the VA has been able to. Unfortunately, what I'm finding is that people with post-traumatic stress are now pulling back from the conversation. Whereas this is when we need to push into the conversation. We're not all gonna go postal. And if we are going to hide and suppress a conversation about mental illness and something like post-traumatic stress with the amount of veterans that are coming back and the amount of trauma people in our communities, we're gonna have more issues, not less. I believe we need to get on our front foot and take the shame and stigma away from dealing with something that is mental illness and having brave, open, and honest conversations so that people know we're not crazy. We just manage something on a daily basis that they don't.
