Re: how to help someone?

hi there,

Thank your for your response. It was very kind of you to respond.

I think that you have made some very good points and provided me with great advice. I think that certain people, like him, are more easily traumatized and affected by certain events than others and that is why you can have one vet who is perfectly well after their service and another who gets PTSD. I think it is the same with life in general--certain people are more sensitive.

As I mentioned, we do have some Depression issues that run in the family (us kids anyways). So, with that taken into consideration, we must address those as well along with the PTSD and I think you already said they must be separated.

Addiction also runs in my family and thankfully I am not addicted to anything besides a little bit of coffee. I really would like to get to the root of addiction and Depression as they seem to run together. Many addicts on the street are really suffering from mental health problems and the drugs the doctors offer do not cure anything and have never cured anything. You mentioned that medication could play a part in PTSD and I think you are right but there are also various treatment methods that may or may not use drugs. The problems is, the research has been evaluated by people such as Robert Whitaker in his book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" and he argues that based on the evidence, these drugs are actually causing and increase in mental health problems. You can see the suffering on such sites as paxilprogress.org where people get on these drugs and have horrible side effects and long term damage. That doesnt happen to everyone, but it appears that the majority of long term users (>10) experience very big problems and iatrogenic diseases.

I just hope we are able to help him because it is very stressful dealing with all this and I am not sleeping well at all.