Women soldiers suffer a silent battle
By: Ivanhoe Broadcast Services
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that results from experiencing a disturbing event, such as a car accident, sexual assault or war.
Those with PTSD may relive their experience through nightmares and flashbacks. They may also have trouble sleeping and feel a sense of detachment to the world and people around them.
Many times symptoms of the condition impair their daily lives.
Sixty percent of men and half of women in the U.S. will experience a traumatic event during their lives. Of those, eight percent of men and 20 percent of women may develop PTSD.
Events like rape have been found to trigger PTSD more so than any other traumatic event and, because women are more likely to be raped, this may explain why more women than men suffer from PTSD.
Many times, PTSD happens in concurrence with other mental problems: 88 percent of men and 79 percent of women with the condition also have another psychiatric disorder.
Almost half have major depression, 16 percent have anxiety disorders and 28 percent have social phobia. Research has shown PTSD affects the brain's biology.
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MRI and PET scans have revealed that it changes the way memories are stored in the brain.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 15 percent of military personnel in Iraq are women.
While the military doesn't let women serve in combat areas, with no front lines in the Iraq war, they still witness the same traumatic things men do.
But many times, PTSD centers around a sexual assault. Studies show 23 to 33 percent of female veterans report that they were victims of military sexual trauma (MST), and in another study of 429 female veterans at the Baltimore VA Medical Center, almost 48 percent had been raped while on active duty.
Research also shows many female veterans who have PTSD have also been victimized sexually.
In a study by Yale University School of Medicine, researchers looked at 327 females treated for PTSD and found 63 percent of them had experienced physical sexual assault during their military service.
Forty-three percent had reported rape or attempted rape.