There is no doubt that soldiers in combat endure traumatizing experiences. But the phenomenon of post-traumatic stress disorder is starting to smell like something you wouldn’t want to step in. PTSD may have jumped the shark with this revelation:

Zitat

---

Although drone operators may be far from the battlefield, they can still develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study shows.

About 1,000 United States Air Force drone operators took part in the study, and researchers found that 4.3 percent of them experienced moderate to severe PTSD. In comparison, between 10 and 18 percent of military personnel returning from deployment typically are diagnosed with PTSD, the researchers wrote.

“I would say that, even though the percentage is small, it is still a very important number, and something that we would want to take seriously so that we make sure that the folks that are performing their job are effectively screened for this condition and get the help that they [may] need,” said study author Wayne Chappelle, a clinical psychologist who consults for the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. …

The researchers also found that “there are really no substantive differences” between symptoms of PTSD in drone operators and other military personnel, Chappelle told Live Science.

---

Or maybe blowing up terrorists by remote control actually improves mental health by relieving stress:

Zitat

---

The percentage of drone operators in the study who had PTSD was lower than the percentage of people in the U.S. general population who have the condition, which is 8.7 percent, according to the 2013 data from the American Psychiatric Association cited in the study.

---

Malaria and Ebola are real diseases that you can see under a microscope. Like depression (which admittedly can be incapacitating in extreme cases), PTSD is not real in this sense; it is an abstract concept. Abstract concepts have a way of getting stretched and exploited, as when people who choose to be victims for a living rather than work are qualified as “disabled” because they have “mood disorders.”

If current trends continue, eventually 100% of the population will qualify as suffering from one disorder or another. When at last all of us are victims, the dream of equality will finally be achieved.

http://moonbattery.com/?p=49548