A hot button topic that is even a hot button for myself personally in
attempt to work on my self-awareness and self-regulation! Post-
traumatic stress disorder among veterans is a topic that affects even
my own household, as my husband has recently finished his career in
the Navy and was soon after diagnosed with PTSD. This is a hot
button topic due to the conflicting views on PTSD and its legitimacy
and/or severity. This topic has three major sides - all in support for
PTSD, all in total disbelief, and those who believe in it but think it is
widely blown out of proportion. The lack of openness, agreeableness,
inclusion, and empathy towards the opposing sides is what turns this
into a "hot button" topic because there is a vast amount room for
feelings to get hurt, emotions to get stirred up, and negative feelings
to be triggered, especially in regard to mental health. This topic truly
affects those who either know someone who or deals with it
themselves because it is an obstacle that these people have to try to
adapt to the trauma, daily triggers, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, and so
much more on a daily basis, however there are people (people who
generally have never struggled with PTSD or other mental disorders)
who argue the legitimacy and severity of the disorder and question
the need for help, support, or treatment. This becomes frustrating
and belittling to the people who do battle the disorder in their lives.
This topic, in addition, affects society because there is an enormous
number of veterans in the world, with a staggering percent of them
struggling and battling PTSD effects whether it be from violence
related trauma on or off the field or sexual trauma. There are many
real possible causes for the very real and well-studied mental
disorder. Society will not truly benefit until we can all work on our
empathy and at better understanding things we do not know or may
not be exposed to often.
Some of the perspectives or concepts that are useful in
understanding this issue are the behavior genetics and social-cultural
perspectives. Through the study of behavior genetics, we can better
understand how stressors (especially when considering PTSD) can
create genetic markers and turn certain factors/genes on and off in
our body at any given time, or perhaps be able to predict the
possibility of PTSD or other mental disorders. In addition, the social-
cultural perspective would certainly allow insight to understanding
the cause and effect of PTSD. This perspective allows a look into how
the extrinsic force of society/culture negatively impacts human
beings intrinsically, which is what people who suffer from PTSD need
- a shared understanding of their trauma and how that situation
changed them mentally and physically.
This hot button topic could easily be applied to all of our
programmatic themes. However, I will focus on how it applies to
Emotional Intelligence and Social Justice. This topic is a hot button
topic because it is one that causes people to take harsh stances
against one another (usually the skeptics of this disorder against
diagnosed veterans or their family/friends/supporters), which is
usually driven from a lack of emotional intelligence - lack of empathy,
social and self-awareness, self-regulation, and ethical judgement in
respects to how they speak of their skepticism. If humans could
collectively work on acceptance and understanding (or awareness)
and make more conscious decisions on how we communicate with
each other to try to remain positive or constructive, I believe we
could come to a common and collective understanding of PTSD
among veterans and at least try to put ourselves in their shoes for
even a minute.
