"I’ve been shot in the leg. I’ve been beat up. But that’s
pretty minor," says a 41, year-old American security contractor who spent four
years in Iraq. "But when you get a vehicle blown out from under you, it does
tend to affect one a little bit." With a broken back, two broken
feet and neurological(神经的) damage, the man, who asked that his name not be used,
spent the next three months in hospitals in Iraq,, Germany and America. But
though he was physically on the mend by the start of this year, he found himself
incapable. "I was having nightmares," he recalls. "I couldn’t do anything.
Mostly, I’d just stay in a room and not leave." Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder (外伤后压性疾病), or PTSD, is the lasting of declining psychological
symptoms. It can include flashbacks and nightmares, increased arousal in the
form of insomnia(失眠), anger and an inability to concentrate, and impaired
personal relationships. Although lasting psychological damage from horrific
experiences has been recognized since time immemorial, it is only since 1980,
when veterans were still experiencing stress from the Vietnam War, that PTSD has
been a formal mental diagnosis. By 2005 72,000 American veterans
were receiving disability payments for PTSD. A study two years later estimated
that 12% of American veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from
PTSD. Thus far, 1.8m Americans have been deployed in those two theatres,
implying 216,000 eventual cases. Yet most PTSD sufferers are not
drawn from the ranks of those for whom wound is an occupational hazard: 5 % of
American men suffer from PTSD at some period in their lives. For American women,
the rate is double that, mostly from exposure to such crimes as domestic
violence and sexual abuse. Two in five rape victims are diagnosable with PTSD
six months after the attack. "It can go on for ever", says Kathleen Brady, a
professor at the Medical University of South Carolina who studies the disorder,
"but even after 30 years, PTSD is treatable." According to the study in 2007, the percentage of American veterans suffering from PTSD is about ______.