Something that used to drive me crazy (no pun intended, you’ll see) is how everyone all of a sudden claimed to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I think it is possible for people to have PTSD based on traumatic events in their lives/ War comes to mind for some reason. Another? First Responders who probably see the worst of the worst, outside of war, that people are capable of committing on one another.

I was officially diagnosed in early 2006 having returned from the Middle East on what was my last adventure. Therapy actually helped because I became able to talk about at least some of my experiences and I learned to avoid, as best as possible, any situation that might drive an episode. It’s not as if I would immediately jump for cover if. heard something that reminded me. This did occur but I don’t think I was ever one with what’s called a severe case. Moderate may be better used to describe my illness because, without drugs (antidepressants) and help, I was able to somewhat control this illness. I stand on the same place today though where I was: I keep from situations as best I am able but even still, the dark dreams look to penetrate by subconscious only to become too real, again.

I still think though that too many people blame whatever problems they have on PTSD because, unless you go see a professional that’s trained to recognize it, the illness, if it exists at all, may be something totally different. We may have far too many people on these antidepressents sinply because they have been misdiagnosed again and again. I took an antidepressant for a while, but it made me feel awkward and even after adjusting the dose, I was unable to take these probably beneficial for some, drugs.

I became familiar with one of these people that claimed to be afflicted by severe PTSD. She was, at the time, Executive Director of Center for Inquiry (CFI), a skeptic organization based in Washington D.C. As I’ve already said, I think it’s possible for anyone to experience PTSD based on some traumatic event(s) on their lives. The problem with this woman is that she claimed it was Twitter that caused her PTSD and that her “Dr.” had diagnosed her and told her this social media platform was what triggered her episodes. I can see she might have become triggered because she was as dumb as an ox and would, by her tweets out to the universe, say outrageous things aboiut people, men specifically, and whenever anyone pushed back, she would run screaming, “PTSD”!.

It was simple though how she could avoid events: stop tweeting. I mean, she was using her persoinal account and if CFI needed to make announcements opr anything ewlse and wanted to use Twitter, couldn’t they use an organizational account? Again, no exposure, no incidents, right? But no, I think this woman bathed in the expressions of sympathy she received for s lot of people who were completely unaware of what a complete jackass she was.If I or anyone else (and there were a lot) that pushed back on her ridiculous tweets, we would end up being the bad actors until it became known that this woman was legitimately pff her rocker in our minds, just not the way she presented it.