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PTSD

Atsali knows some ...Castela has been told some ... not sure either really realises what they've helped/are helping Katherine survive.

It's been ten years - i wouldn't have bet on her surviving this long otherwise, strong as she's shown herself to be notwithstanding...

Given how Castela reacted when she found out how Atsali's parents died, I'm not sure I'd want her to know the full backstory to Katherine's former life...

Hugs are always nice, though...

How is Kath going to be when Castela leaves for college? Atsali has already left. Oscar the betta apparently died years ago.

Kath may find herself alone in that big, empty factory building they've called Home.

Assassinating squirrels may not be fulfilling enough a vocation for the rest of a lifetime.

Do we know if Katherine ever got any therapy, for her PTSD? This looks like some serious flashbacks, to when she saw her friends get blown to bits.

ziggy78eog wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:15 am Do we know if Katherine ever got any therapy, for her PTSD? This looks like some serious flashbacks, to when she saw her friends get blown to bits.

Stuff like this never really goes away. She needs help to cope with the memories.

Speaking as someone who was a victim of violence and has been first or among the first on scene at several fatal wrecks and other wrecks involving dismemberments, you never get over it. You might learn to live with it because there's no other option, but you never get over it.

Opus the Poet wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:59 pm Speaking as someone who was a victim of violence and has been first or among the first on scene at several fatal wrecks and other wrecks involving dismemberments, you never get over it. You might learn to live with it because there's no other option, but you never get over it.

Something i quoted online after 9-11, a line from one of David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" SF war novels, Rolling Hot, comes to mind.

A scratch group of armored cars and tanks {fusion-powered hovercraft with energy weapons} put together from vehicles in a maintenance depot, and manned by the only troopers available, mostly on medical stand-down, some just this side of a Section 8, make a desperate hell-ride to attempt to relieve a provincial capital.

A local civilian reporter, who has personal reasons for getting to the capital {his sister is married to the Governor} manages to ride along,. fighting and nearly dying more than once.

And here come the point - halfway or more through the book - he asks one of the experienced mercenaries "Does it ever get any better?"

And the answer, which i've found applicable more than once is "Naw - but it gets over."

Drake was there . . . 1st Cav, IIRC.

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote: ↑Tue Jun 22, 2021 4:06 am Drake was there . . . 1st Cav, IIRC.

--FreeFlier

Yep. Bit it was the 11th Cav. I think he was trained as an interrogator.

His Amazon page bio says:

The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn't run fast enough to get away.

The Slammers books are inspired by/based on that experience - Rolling Hot, which i mentioned was basically spun off from the Tet Offensive.

He started writing to help him deal with PTSD; it was with Redliners that he felt he had finally managed to accomplish that.

He says in the forward to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition that writing it is what finally allowed him to exorcise the ghosts of his year in hell; that after he wrote it, he was finally able to stop fearing what he might do if something triggered the anger he had within him.

I was going from memory, so that's not too bad . . . I did think I remembered it being the blackhorse, but wasn't sure enough to say it.

--FreeFlier

Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse 5 partly to deal with PTSD from Dresden, though he didn't characterize it as that. Not sure that he ever did really come to grips with it.

I know my dad's buddies who went to Korea, the older they got, the more it showed how much it had fucked them up. (Dad was rejected twice by the draft board because he had nonstandard feet and shins. He was indifferent about the draft, but later was glad he missed it.)