The Hidden Layer of Veteran PTSD Most People Don't Understand | Alex West on Moral Injury

[00:00:00]Yeah, that's that's actually a really good question. And uh I'd love to answer that. So, what what I think happens, not just for me, but for a lot of veterans, especially from that era, veterans in general, there's a lot going on, right?

[00:00:10]So, you have your traumatic brain injury or mild traumatic brain injury. And a lot of those symptoms or symptomatology uh can sound look a lot like depression. It can look like look look a lot like PTSD.

[00:00:20]You know, like mood swings, you know, depressed states, cognitive issues, like I just drove to I found myself in the parking lot of the grocery store. I didn't even know I was going to the grocery store. Those types of things.

[00:00:30]Like so, that is I would say akin to a more um I would say physical because I know when I did the brain scans, they could see scar tissue in my brain. So, I I would imagine somehow that impacts the neuroplasticity or the neural pathways to be able to communicate properly. Uh but what you get with it's like one big like Venn diagram. So, you have like your TBI. And then on the other side, you have your let's say depression, major depressive disorder. And uh you know, what that is like, you know, trouble uh finding motivation to do anything, overeating, under-eating, isolating, just depressed mood, that type of thing, which can look a lot like TBI also. And then you have in there, too, you have you know, PTSD's in there.

[00:01:07]And what each one of these things and and those, you know, like uh classic flashbacks, isolating again. You know, there's a lot of things, too, but the problem is is now they're all sort of overlapping, and it's almost like each one is throwing fuel on each other's fire, right? So, it's like now it's just kind of getting out of control. So, there's a lot of psychological stuff going on there with the PTSD and the major depressive disorder. And then there's like the physical aspect of the brain with maybe some scar tissue. And what starts coming in there, too, with the the PTSD, what's different with a lot of veteran PTSD versus standard PTSD is you're getting a lot of moral injury.

[00:01:41]And what I mean by moral injury, which is different, it's almost like another level. And I don't mean like it's better or worse or whatever. It's just unique oftentimes, not only to veterans, but it's very unique as a like a large population uh for veterans.

[00:01:55]And what I mean by moral injury is man, I can't believe I I I thought that that was combative and I we know when I shot that person it was it was unarmed, you know, teenager.