Let There Be Light (1946) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I get so angry when I think about how soldiers were treated, especially in ww1. Can you imagine being traumatized to the point of going blind or deaf rendering you terrified of everything and being accused of being cowardly because you are too terrified to go back to the front line and then court marshalled and found guilty of abandonment and therefore shot. Then having your medals taken away and stripped of your rank leaving your family in shame and destitute because they no longer qualify for the regular benefits a soldier and family would receive? You fight for your country and then your country kills you. Unbelievable

The sad thing is, society has no interest in returning veterans or what they had to endure. They're basically on their own.

I suffer ptsd through childhood abuse, but I can’t imagine what these guys saw over there. Looks similar to my therapy sessions, the looking down refusing to make eye contact, quiet small response, and the crying/panic attack that comes along with having to relive it. These guys witnessed hell. Much love to them❤❤

The only fixness and PTSD is love kindness understanding and friendship. That's all we want.

44:52 that’s so beautiful. I hope they lived happily ever after. Her love might have been the biggest thing that got him through the war

I pray these beautiful men found peace!🙏💙

How do you wanted be treated? He said the same. We want a home, a life and respect. Not an exception just the same as every other man. Brothers these people don't understand. They never will. We are on our own. Find each other. Love each other. Protect each other like we once did.

Would have loved to meet this Dr. What a loving caring man. Hope his family sees this so I can speak to them. All natural people are born to love. Unaturals control others

These men all have such an eloquent way of speaking. Their vocabulary is really quite extensive by today's standards.

When he asked if he felt changed afterwards we will never be the same never

Really sad what war can do the soul

We love all Vets. May God bless them all

Brothers I love you. Look out for each other. The meek will inherit the earth. Love brothers. Only us few know the true meaning.

Absolutely heartbreaking

The amount of trauma the brain has to go through to get to this point must be intense, its so sad that these men have been persuaded to join the war just for them to lose their sanity in return

I suffered from series of serious panic attack from when I was 21 years old.. Later I found out that something has gone wrong in my jaw/neck and it was affecting my nerve, physically triggering that horrible "attacks".. In no way I'm trying to compare what I suffered to what these war veterans had gone through.. but I can really tell you one thing, that facing the fear of death for multiple times, your body and mind completely surrendering to the absolute fear helplessly, going through that for multiple times(and living while knowing that it will come again), completely changes who you are.. and you just can't relate to anyone else in your life.. You almost grew to uncontrollably hate them since you know that they will not understand what you're going through.. It's not just that you're "scared." It's that.. your everything just alters.. the way you feel, or the sensations you feel, like.. the way you feel from watching certain color, these things changes.. like someone put a gray cellophane paper between your brain and eyes.. Your everything is numbed and just your extreme alert reaction remains.. and your state of mind just keeps staying in that thick bubble.. It feels something like you're going through a bad trip and you don't wake up from it the next morning.. and the next morning.. and life just goes on in that terrible numb state of mind.. You know something has gone wrong but you don't know what to do because it's not that you lost your hands, it's how you perceive things.. how you sense things and how you feel things. The basic fundamental of "you" "perceving world" is changed, you can't do nothing about it, no matter how desperately you want to go back you can't find a clue.. I know what the narrator means when he says "utter isolation" that's what it is.. You can't relate to anybody who doesn't know what it is.. at the same time you don't want this to happen to them.. Just for the sake of the truth, mine was not just a panic attack.. I can't relate to majority of panic attack patient as well.. Mine would haunt me several times a day and lasted for 2,3hours every time it haunted me.. very unusual for regular panic attack patient.. I suffered hundreds of attacks.. and for the first 2 years the pills (xanax) didn't work.. so whenever it doesn't stop I was just.. there alone, losing my ability to physically speak due to the extreme shock from the attack.. pills didn't work, no one could help me and I was just there, miserably failing to convince myself that I'm not gonna die, attack lasting for hours and hours.. the coldness beyond imagine, overbreathing etc.. whole body shakes and muscles malfunctioning.. it was terrible.. terrible terrible days.. My doctor says mine was too severe to call it panic attack, later to find out that it was being triggered by physical reason.. and just living absolutely not understood by the people around me, not just the horror of attack itself, but the altered me because of the fear.. It's miserable. That's when I started to look into these war veterans.. because I couldn't believe that they had to walk into the fear by themselves.. Once you taste the level of scaredness your whole perception about the world is changed.. and you will realize how criminal it is to in any way disrespect war veterans.. It's just inhuman.. Thank God that my "attack" stopped about a year ago, but I still feel a lot of discomfort bc of my spine / nerve.. I almost died when the attack started when I'm driving my car in the middle of highway.. Those memories.. The truth is, a man never wanna be truly alone.. These people just need respect, and a person to really understand them and not judge them..

Great Film, thx for showing it.

As a UK veteran with chronic CPTSD, it’s still the same today. The only service for UK veterans Combat Stress, can no longer make referrals as the government has cut their funding. Where do we go now ? They use you up, send you to see and do things no one should ever see or do, Then they discard you.

An excellent documentary. I am glad that there was such great help for those men back then. It really seemed cutting edge. I just wish that it had been built on, instead of forgotten about by the time of the next war. Hopefully there will be a day that exists in humanity someday where war no longer exists.

Amazing documentary, probably wouldn't be allowed to be filmed today, this was really the beginning of understanding about PTSD and iterations of the treatments are used successfully today. The doctors ask great questions. 31:30 It's a tribute to "my fundamental self." No tribute to the doctors at all. Then a laugh. That's recovery.