Editor, Gazette-Journal:
It was presumed that only war survivors experience PTSD, but it has become clear that anyone who survives a traumatic event can be affected by this disorder. It is a mental illness and, as with any mental diagnosis, no two people will present exactly the same. Just because you know a person with a diagnosis doesn’t mean another person with that diagnosis is the same.
My first full memory was JFK’s assassination; I was 3. The next two were of a visit to Dachau concentration camp and of me being raped; not sure which order. I have survived: Stranger rape, been raped by someone I knew (not family), domestic violence, beatings by strangers either while being raped or just because they wanted to, homelessness, misuse of authority, drug overdoses and suicide attempts, etc. I have had a knife to my throat and guns to my head, then I had to survive my son being raped and stabbed 16 times in the back at the age of 15, then shot later in his life.
He’s ...