Stress Factors

At 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989, two decades after he served as a combat soldier in Vietnam, Lance Johnson felt the tremors of San Francisco’s Loma Prieta Earthquake from his apartment in Marin County. He took his cup of coffee to the couch, switched on the news and saw a live feed of the fire and destruction happening 40 miles south. Suddenly, he was hit with some of the common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As he recalls: Someone tripped a switch in my head, and instantly, I was back in Vietnam. In my mind, the concept of time suddenly meant nothing, and I traveled a wormhole in space from San Francisco to twenty years earlier in Southeast Asia. Panic. I didn’t know what to do.You don’t have to be a combat vet to know that your response to stress—whether a loud noise, dying relative or looming deadline—changes over time. After the first exposure, we are somehow primed for the next, even weeks or years later. And when something in that process goes wrong, the consequences can be tragic.Read more at...The Last Word on Nothing, September 2010.