Retirement is supposed to be a time of reward after a lifetime of working. But for an increasing number of Vietnam vets, the opposite is true, as the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder rear their heads for the first time.
A report from NPR on southwest Florida's WGCU says that among the many boomer retirees to Florida, many are Vietnam veterans. And among those vets, a "significant number" are showing the signs of PTSD when they never experienced them before.
Florida already boasts nearly half a million Vietnam vets, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, and while many of them have been able to keep PTSD symptoms at bay for decades, the onset of retirement has brought the problem out into the open.
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The report quotes clinical psychologist Dr. Lynn Bernstein, who runs therapy groups specifically for Vietnam vets and family members in Englewood, Florida, saying that most veterans have actually had the problem since their combat days, although they've been able to control or hide it. But with retirement, their ability to keep it under control is failing.
Bernstein says in the report, "They make believe [PTSD] doesn't exist, and it comes out after retirement. But it doesn't start then."
Why would PTSD surface when a vet is finally free to pursue interests that have probably lain dormant for years? According to Bernstein and other therapists, PTSD "occurs or reoccurs in retirement because it's a time in life with less structure." Veterans may have been using work to push away the symptoms, even self-medicating as workaholics.
But when the job and its preoccupations are gone, they have more time to think and their coping mechanism is gone.
And suddenly retirement can turn into a nightmare—when triggers can materialize out of the most ordinary things, even eating at an Asian restaurant, therapists say, despite the fact that the vet may have gone there frequently over the course of years while still working.
In the report, Dr. Paula Schnurr, executive director of the VA's National Center for PTSD, is quoted saying, "It ruins quality of life. It can impair a person's ability to function, and even if an individual is not working, it can affect functioning with children, with spouses, with friends."
Veterans faced with PTSD in retirement don't have to face it alone or in civilian settings. They can turn to the VA for help, the report says, at its clinics and at walk-in Vet Centers. A veteran does not have to apply for or be receiving disability payments, it adds, to get help for PTSD. More information is at www.ptsd.va.gov.
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