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The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Kindle Edition
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Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts as many as 30 percent of those who have experienced twenty-first-century combat—but it is not confined to soldiers. Countless ordinary Americans also suffer from PTSD, following incidences of abuse, crime, natural disasters, accidents, or other trauma—yet in many cases their symptoms are still shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame.
This “compulsively readable” study takes an in-depth look at the subject (Los Angeles Times). Written by a war correspondent and former Marine with firsthand experience of this disorder, and drawing on interviews with individuals living with PTSD, it forays into the scientific, literary, and cultural history of the illness. Using a rich blend of reporting and memoir, The Evil Hours is a moving work that will speak not only to those with the condition and to their loved ones, but also to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateJanuary 20, 2015
- File size5149 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
From the Inside Flap
Higher in Canada
Just as polio stalked the 1950s, and AIDS overshadowed the 1980s and 90s, post-traumatic stress disorder haunts us in the early years of the twenty-first century. Over a decade into America s global war on terror, PTSD afflicts as many as 30 percent of the conflict s veterans. But the disorder s reach extends far beyond the armed forces. In total, some twenty-seven million Americans are believed to be PTSD survivors. Yet to many of us, the disorder remains shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame.
Drawing on his own battles with post-traumatic stress, David J. Morris a war correspondent and former Marine has written a humane, unforgettable book that will sit beside The Noonday Demon and The Emperor of All Maladies as the essential account of an illness. Through interviews with people living with PTSD; forays into the rich scientific, literary, and cultural history of the condition; and memoir, Morris crafts a moving work that will speak not only to those with PTSD and their loved ones, but to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
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From the Back Cover
“‘Trauma destroys the normal narrative of life,’ Morris explains in this impassioned, well-researched, and beautifully written biography of an illness that we’ve only recently realized is an illness. Though he ‘hates the idea of turning writing into therapy,’ reading his book has helped this fellow sufferer. The Evil Hours is a much needed narrative.” —Ismet Prcic, author of Shards
“Masterful and moving, David Morris’s investigation of this troubling psychiatric disorder asks all the important questions. This book honors suffering while also making room for hope." —Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones
About the Author
David J. Morris is a former Marine infantry officer and war correspondent. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Slate, the Daily Beast, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. In 2008, he was awarded a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Have you ever been blown up before, sir?
Everything was fine until it wasn’t.
Apophenia: finding patterns where there shouldn’t be patterns
These were the words I wrote in my journal on October 9, 2007, the day before I was almost killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. The last line I wrote in the days afterward. Later, I went back and underlined it in a different colored ink, as if to emphasize that I had come back to it in a different state of mind. As if I were leaving a clue for some future version of myself.
I was in Iraq for my third reporting trip and had gone out on a patrol with some soldiers from the First Infantry Division into Saydia, a neighborhood that seemed, at least on the surface, to be relatively peaceful. On our way back inside the wire, one of the soldiers asked nonchalantly if I’d ever been blown up before. I considered the question for a moment, and then, as the silence deepened, I sensed that something was amiss. The words came awkwardly as I explained that while I had spent the summer before in Ramadi, at that point the deadliest city in Iraq, I was still a virgin in that particular area.
It was like my fate had been spoken: I had never been blown up before, but everyone in the Humvee knew that was about to change.
According to the laws of grunt superstition, I was the injured party, but somehow I managed to feel bad for the kid who’d asked the question. As it happened, the soldiers in the Humvee were from all over Latin America — Peru, Mexico, Guatemala — and they began pummeling him in a variety of languages and accents for what he’d done.
At the time, I felt embarrassed more than anything else and just wanted the moment to end. I didn’t like being the topic of conversation, and it took everything I had to avoid thinking about being blown into tiny red pieces. This, in fact, was one of the first head tricks I’d learned in Iraq, to systematically ignore the obvious: you were always just about to die — get over it. I was wasted, too, and my mind wasn’t right. I had been in Iraq for a total of nine months by this point, and even though I had seen people killed by roadside bombs, I’d never been hit myself, and somehow I’d come to feel that I had my luck under control. But in posing the question, it was as if the soldier had stolen that control, thrown me over to the forces of chance that I had worked so hard to insulate myself from.
Later, I interviewed a prominent psychoanalyst, who told me that trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time, you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles, find yourself being sucked backwards into an eddy, or bouncing about like a rubber ball from now to then and back again. August is June, June is December. What time is it? Guess again. In the traumatic universe, the basic laws of matter are suspended: ceiling fans can be helicopters, car exhaust can be mustard gas.
Another odd feature of traumatic time is that it doesn’t just destroy the flow of the present into the future, it corrodes everything that came before, eating at moments and people from your previous life, until you can’t remember why any of them mattered.
What I previously found inconceivable is now inescapable: I have been blown up so many times in my mind that it is impossible to imagine a version of myself that has not been blown up. The man on the other side of the soldier’s question is not me. In fact, he never existed.
The war is gone now, but the event remains, the happening that nearly erased the life to come and thus erased the life that came before. The soldier’s question hangs in the air the way it always has. The way it always will.
Have you ever been blown up before, sir?
Introduction
Over the past four decades, post-traumatic stress disorder has permeated every corner of our culture. A condition that went unacknowledged for millennia, and began its public life with a handful of disgruntled Vietnam veterans “rapping” in the offices of an antiwar group in midtown Manhattan in December 1970, has spread to every nation on the globe, becoming in the words of one medical anthropologist a kind of “psychiatric Esperanto.” A species of pain that went unnamed for most of human history, PTSD is now the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the United States. According to the latest estimates, nearly 8 percent of all Americans — twenty-eight million people — will suffer from post-traumatic stress at some point in their lives. According to the Veterans Administration, which spends more annually on PTSD research and treatment than any organization in the world, PTSD is the number one health concern of American military veterans, regardless of when they served. In 2012, the federal government spent three billion dollars on PTSD treatment for veterans, a figure that doesn’t include the billions in PTSD disability payments made every year to former servicemembers.
Since the attacks of 9/11, when public awareness of the disorder gained momentum, PTSD (a condition characterized by hyperarousal, emotional numbness, and recurring flashbacks) has, to the dismay of some international aid experts, supplanted hunger as the primary Western public health concern when a war or other humanitarian crisis hits the news. PTSD is one of the newest major psychiatric disorders to be recognized, and yet today it has entered the public lexicon to the degree that it is not uncommon to hear journalists describing entire countries as being stricken with it and writing lengthy articles debating whether or not Batman might be suffering from it. Consumers who are so inclined can now go online and purchase a commemorative patch for $5.99 that reads P.T.S.D.: NOT ALL WOUNDS ARE VISIBLE. As any trauma researcher will tell you, PTSD is everywhere today.
And yet, like many mental health disorders, there is broad disagreement about what exactly PTSD is, who gets it, and how best to treat it. There remains a small but vocal cadre of researchers who argue that PTSD is a social fiction, a relic of the Vietnam War era foisted upon the global community by well-meaning but misguided clinicians, and that by, in essence, encouraging people to be traumatized, we undermine their recovery. A condition born of strife, PTSD is dominated by conflict in its scientific life as well. There is, however, little disagreement that survivors of rape, war, natural disasters, and torture — the events that are generally recognized to lead to PTSD — experience profound, even existential, pain in the aftermath of such events. This brand of suffering has become so widely recognized that it has in fact permanently altered the moral compass of the Western world and changed our understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to feel pain.
Pierre Janet, a French neurologist writing in 1925, observed that emotional reactions to traumatic events can be so intense as to “have a disintegrating effect on the entire psychological system.” This book is about that effect and what it looks and feels like from the inside. Over time, PTSD has changed not only the way humans understand loss but also how humans understand themselves generally; I am interested in it both as a mental condition and as a metaphor. How people respond to horrific events has always been determined by a complex web of social, political, and technological forces. For most of human history, interpreting trauma has been the preserve of artists, poets, and shamans. The ways in which a nation deals with trauma are as revealing as its politics and language. The ancient Greeks staged plays that were written and performed by war veterans as a communal method for achieving catharsis. Today, for better or worse, we deal with trauma and horror almost exclusively through a complex, seemingly arbitrary cluster of symptoms known as post-traumatic stress disorder. In the classical world, the ancients in the wake of trauma might look for answers in epic poetry, such as The Iliad or The Odyssey. Today, we turn to the most current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This fact alone is worthy of further exploration: most of us no longer turn to poetry, our families, or the clergy for solace post-horror. Instead, we turn to psychiatrists. This is, historically speaking, an unusual state of affairs.
Product details
- ASIN : B00HK3EXR6
- Publisher : Mariner Books; 1st edition (January 20, 2015)
- Publication date : January 20, 2015
- Language : English
- File size : 5149 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 354 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #383,433 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
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Customers find the book informative and well-written. They appreciate the author's clear explanations of PTSD and its causes. The pacing is described as powerful and intense, with a comprehensive history that satisfies the mind and heart. Readers are provided with current information about PTSD symptoms, disorders, and phobias.
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Customers find the book engaging and informative. They describe it as a valuable educational resource for health professionals and an insightful tribute to those affected by PTSD. The book is described as well-researched and well-written, providing an objective account of the topic. Readers mention it's a must-read for combat veterans and rape victims.
"...I think this is a must read for every active combat person, rape victim and anyone who has experienced sever distress in a situation beyond ones..." Read more
"...Folks this is a great book, Morris talks about the Civil Rights struggle, he mentions Dr. ML King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, child soldiers fighting..." Read more
"This is a great book written from the perspective of someone who has experienced PTSD first hand...." Read more
"This is a very interesting book. It is a biography/educational book on PTSD...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and well-written. They describe it as an excellent introduction to the history, treatment, and societal underpinnings of PTSD. The book provides an interesting account of the history of PTSD through personal stories. It is an excellent overview of the current state of the topic, with plenty of references.
"...The subject of PTSD is an incredible wide ranging topic with plenty of rooms for diverse opinions and comments. OK—I’m done...." Read more
"...I can tell Morris is a very intelligent, educated man with a wealth of knowledge to share. He often refers to past literature books as a reference...." Read more
"...His bibliography and notes are a treasure trove of further reading, though sticking just to Evil Hours provides a reader with a thorough and..." Read more
"Mr. Morris provides journalistic eloquence, personal intimacy, an excellent history and an honest overview of the complex features, treatments and..." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and informative. They appreciate the author's clear explanation of PTSD and its history. The writing style is easy to read, engaging, and open, not overly academic or simplistic. The book is annotated with references and provides an easy-to-understand explanation of why some feel what they do.
"Evil Hours by David J Morris is a well written, and well researched book...." Read more
"...think it makes readers feel a little less alone and provides an easy to understand explanation of why some feel what they feel after traumatic..." Read more
"...ability to relay the emotions one goes through with PTSD and is very honest and open about his story...." Read more
"The beginning chapters was an excellent introduction to the feel and source of PTSD...." Read more
Customers find the book's pacing engaging. They appreciate the author's ability to provide insight into trauma and its effect on people. The book provides a comprehensive history that satisfies the mind and heart, with a keen ability to relay the emotions one goes through with PTSD. Readers describe it as an intense journey, difficult to sit with at times, but ultimately eye-opening.
"...Trauma is survivable, ones resilience, and ones determination to try what feels right for you seems to be the best course, but determination to find..." Read more
"...Simply said, I think it makes readers feel a little less alone and provides an easy to understand explanation of why some feel what they feel after..." Read more
"...He has a keen ability to relay the emotions one goes through with PTSD and is very honest and open about his story...." Read more
"...Iraq or Afghanistan soldier suffering from PTSD, this was an eye opening read for me in understanding the changes in a family member...." Read more
Customers find the book informative about PTSD. They appreciate the current information on symptoms, disorders, and phobias. Readers mention it's the best treatment they've read for PTSD.
"...beginning chapters was an excellent introduction to the feel and source of PTSD...." Read more
"...voice is honest, pragmatic and will validate as well as educate readers with active symptoms...." Read more
"...The Evil Hours is the best treatment of PTS I have read...." Read more
"...one on what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is, the various symptoms that people can experience and the multitude of causes of PTSD...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2015The best book I have read on PSTD. David Morris, a journalist who ended up with symptoms that fall under the PSTD label did extensive research on the meaning and treatment of what now falls under the diagnosis of PSTD. This disorder appears to be different for everyone who has been through a traumatic event, or in case of war, a series of traumatic events.
The VA is probably the biggest research group studying and treating patients with PSTD...and somehow it remains an enigma, with treatments working for some and not others....and the types of treatments available, that claim efficacy are numerous. I wish this book had been around when I was younger as it would have given me many paths to explore. I highly recommend this to anyone who is experiencing any of the many symptoms of this disorder, as it opens possible ways of treating the symptoms that might work better for a veteran that the current course someone might be undertaking.
Having grown up with WWII vets who experienced combat, lost crew and those they had come to love and depend on, I can see why they all avoided treatment, as the flavor of the month at that time was lobotomy. They handled themselves for the most part quite differently than today's warriors...but then they fought the 'good' war, they were hardened by the depression, where often to eat meant quitting school and going to work at 15 or 16...and this made them more mature, maturity and age seems to have a profound effect on the level of symptoms. Also the home front was different, people here while free from bombardment, still were on rations, did without and sacrificed for those they loved, followed the war daily, fretted over military setbacks, and supported the families who got that infamous telegraph or ring of the doorbell. Civilians weren't disconnected from the fact that we were at war during that period. In our last wars, Korea (which was a conflict not a war), Vietnam, and Iraq and Afghanistan, the general population, I can tell you didn't even think of us as being at war...they didn't talk about it, they didn't want to know about it, and most were sure that it had ended years before...but mostly the average American didn't know anyone who went to war.
I was glad that Morris looked hard at the cultural component, as I am sure that it has a lot to do with post war perceptions by a combatant. A soldier has but one duty and that is to die...so surviving is a bonus, even if it is fraught with nightmares, hyper-vigilance, and unplaced anger and guilt.
I think of my father who didn't return when the war was over, like so many WWII vets who had to stay and keep the peace, supply civilians, do administrative tasks for months before returning home. It created a space for them to transition from combat to peace time. Today you are in a combat theater and a few days later you are back home in a world where the average person isn't even aware there is a war going on. It seems hard to fathom that rapid a transition working in anyone's favor.
My son served in the Iraq-Afghanistan theater as a medical officer and noted that the percentage of soldiers with concussive brain damage was very high, probably higher than in any previous war. Many soldiers were not aware of their symptoms because their buddies covered for them, and they adjusted to a new normal, it always made me wonder if this neurological damage might exasperate PSTD symptoms. I have not heard of any studies on this.
I was most interested in some of the alternative therapies, especially those that demand a focus intense enough to zone out and reconnect to the body.
It is good to finally have a study of the history, the cultural, historic and current treatments, there pros and cons, and information of the controversy as to whether PSTD is a diagnosable mental disorder. I think this is a must read for every active combat person, rape victim and anyone who has experienced sever distress in a situation beyond ones control. There are probably as many ways to approach the symptoms of PSDT as one can imagine, and since there is no magic bullet...it is probably best to walk away from a treatment that isn't working and be open to trying one that may work, whether it is covered by the VA or not.
Trauma is survivable, ones resilience, and ones determination to try what feels right for you seems to be the best course, but determination to find relief is not an easy one to muster. I choose disassociation, knowing that I wasn't strong enough to deal with 'it'. This of course has a price, but each of us knows our limitations, and when I found myself strong and in a safe place I opened that closet door and took 'it' out and examined it...If doing that made me physically ill and overwhelmed, I just stuck 'it' back in that closet for another day. I would have gone sheer looney bins if a practitioner made be debrief weekly, in a Prolonged Exposure protocol.
My father and uncles made their way back to a new normal, though they rarely talked about it, my son is making his way back, though there is an anger residual...there has to be a way home and that way will never be easy. Kudos to Morris for making that clear.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2015Nearly fifty years ago I was an Army Medic (MOS_91_C) who served over two years in what is now called a 20 bed trauma intensive care unit located in Camp Zama Japan ... the US Army Central Command location. This trauma unit was always full ... there were rarely empty beds. The patients arriving were unstable wounded soldiers being evacuated out of Vietnam; all types of wounds which could be expected in combat except for burns were treated in our unit. The high esprit d'corps experienced by all of our staff ... top to bottom ... was of the type hinted at in the TV series MASH. At the end of my enlistment I consciously strived to place my part in creating what was being done to the Vietnamese people as far as possible from my mind and my hoped-for post war life. I did not expect gratitude; nor did I experience any American gratitude. My biggest lifetime error of bio-psychic-social existence was my presupposition that I had not been wounded i.e. traumatized by my US Army service. I spend nearly 5000 hours in a river of human trauma and I never saw that I had become one of them ... my service buddies. I still cry when I recall the death of Clyde Wenrick, a young warrior who had been shot in the gut and had lived with and been cared for by us for months ... on and off the verge of death. I was sucking his recently eaten breakfast of eggs and bacon out of his abdomen ... he was holding the hands of one of the women corpmen and looking at her face. He said: I love you Mommy; and he quietly died.
It was only after having read "The Evil Hours" that I find that I can hold and tolerate the FACT that I too had been wounded and traumatized in my work to care for others. My life, my mind and my body had been altered without my permission. And I've lived with that without understanding and without compassion for myself. These realities contaminated my ability to be present in relationships and to comprehend what my body was saying to me in situations which required a full appreciation of what others are asking of me. The term "at ease" was a command the military used frequently in training and group actions. Well, I now find that I am "at ease" in my own skin and can be kinder and more considerate for those who have led similar lives and who might not quite grasp with any clarity what has happened to them ... and by that I mean whether or not their distress had any active service roots.
Top reviews from other countries
- shannonReviewed in Australia on July 20, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Great service
Great book. Arrived on time even with a pandemic going on
- Carole YeamanReviewed in Canada on December 29, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should have this information. Stress builds, & Wham!
In depth descriptions of all neurological factors involved in PTSD discovered up to now. As well as the bizarre concepts & treatments of the past. Excellent detailed follow-through of many different sorts of victims: post-war and women's rape and many other triggering events. He writes not merely of the theoretical, but most importantly intimate & lengthy profiles of most sufferers .
Overwhelming, destroying stress can arise from almost anywhere in the spectrum of a life.
Read this great book. Arm yourself with Moriss' encyclopedic knowledge. Brilliant
- The Krav Ice cream kidReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars This was a brilliantly written and very well researched book by David J
This was a brilliantly written and very well researched book by David J. Morris. The book gives a history of PTSD and also the author's experience with it. I doubt there is a single book or journal out there that has more knowledge on PTSD than this one. Brilliant
- jim 24Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars I recommend it!!!
I recommend it!!!