Mental Health Awareness & PTSD

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, providing a good time to talk about the effects conflicts have on the mental health of both the soldiers and civilians involved in them. One of the most common disorders associated with fighting is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This mental illness causes afflicted individuals to experience flashbacks to a traumatic event, anxiety, nightmares, irritability, and feelings of isolation and withdrawal.

Uninjured U.S. soldiers returning from places like Afghanistan and Iraq may initially seem healthy upon their return only to soon fall victim to the effects of PTSD. The soldier and his or her entire family suffer as a result. Worse, the stigma sometimes attached to a PTSD diagnosis can prevent affected soldiers from obtaining the professional help they need.



Tragically, some of these untreated soldiers end up taking their own lives. According to a recent New York Times article, the "number of suicides reported by the Army has risen to the highest level since record keeping began three decades ago," with the number of suicides in the first eight months of 2009 outstripping the number of soldiers killed in combat during the same time.

Of course, not all of these suicides are a result of PTSD, but a large number of such soldiers do have a history of the disease. But PTSD does not only affect soldiers directly engaged in combat. Civilian populations exposed to intense violence also suffer from the disorder.

Assign students to read the "Iraqi civilian injuries" section of the Regional Implications category in the Iraq report, taking special note of parts that discuss the mental-health effects of the conflict on civilians and the stigma attached to mental illness in Iraq. With the symptoms Iraqi civilians suffer in mind, have students do further research on the symptoms of PTSD and depression and related treatments.

Have students compile their research in an informational public-health pamphlet. The audience for the pamphlet should be Iraqi citizens who may be suffering from a conflict-related mental health disorder themselves or those who have a family member suffering from such a disorder. Students may use a program such as Microsoft Publisher or Adobe Illustrator, if available, or cut and paste photos and text into a pamphlet form.

Share the finished pamphlets with other members of the class, having them critique each other's work by assessing how informative, audience-appropriate, and visually appealing each pamphlet is.