The 24-Hour News Cycle and PTSD
Sean came into the office discussing how he struggles with getting out of his house due to his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I have been working with Sean for a couple of months, but he continues to struggle to leave his house even to get groceries. Because of his severe paranoia and deep seeded trust issues Sean struggles to leave his house and doesn’t have any type of relationships. He was married once, before he went to Iraq, but once he returned his lack of trust and paranoia drove his wife away. He disclosed that every time he leaves the house, he has a panic attack for fear of something bad happening. Sean said that there is so much “evil “out there that he does not want to leave his house fearing something bad will happen. I see a lot of paranoia and trust issues with people who have PTSD. But what is the reason for the irrational fear. I have a theory.
My theory is the 24-hour news cycle causes a lot of stress on people who have PTSD and feeds into their trust and paranoia issues. The 24-hour news networks have opened the floodgates of hostility in the world to everyone. Before the 24-hour news cycle we were sheltered and only saw what the media decided to show. Now we can see the horrors happening in real time where we never saw or heard about it in the past. It has not been until recently, the last 30 years or so, that we have seen such an issue with PTSD and its symptoms. It has always been around and written about as far back as medieval times, but PTSD issues have exploded in the last 40 years or so. People have always had PTSD, but it was not classified as a mental issue until 1980. Simultaneously the 24-hour news cycle started. It is an interesting coincidence that the advent of PTSD as a mental disorder and CNN starting to have news 24 hours a day started in the same year. It looks like they grew up together and affected the way we see things and the way we live our lives.
Before the 24-hour news cycle the television, stations went off the air around 2 am, depending on where you lived. We did not have access to the news like we do now. There were only 3 or 4 stations, news was not their main concern. Now we have stations who have news 24 hours a day and watch terrible events happening live. If someone can’t sleep because of their nightmares they can turn on the news and feed into the negative energy that woke them up. What happens on the East coast can be seen in real time on the West coast and gets played over and over in a loop to cover the 24-hours. The 24-hour news cycle feeds the PTSD in some people making them have disproportionate paranoia because everything looks so bad. But the statistics show that crime is down, it’s not as bad as it looks.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice the national crime rate is about half of its peak in 1991. Since then violent crime has fallen 51 percent and property crime has fallen by 43 percent.The 2013 violent crime rate was the lowest it has been since 1970. Since 1993 the violent crime rate has dropped from 79.8 percent to 23.2 percent per 1,000 residents of the United States. With the violent crime rate at such a low level those with PTSD should be struggling less with their PTSD symptoms because of the lower crime rate, they should feel safer. So, what is causing the increase of PTSD disabilities?
The only thing I can think of is the access to news through the 24-hour news cycle. Before the 24-hour cycle most cities and areas would get about a half an hour of local news and weather and another half an hour of national news. News organizations did not have 24 hours to program for their news. Then came CNN who was able to make money with having 24 hours of headline and “breaking” news. So many kidnappings and murders were not seen on the TV in the past. They could not fit in the half an hour of news. The 24-hour news cycle made us aware of all the “evil”out there. I truly believe the 24-hour news cycle and the 24-hour news channels has played a part in the uptick of people’s PTSD symptoms. This is making it harder for them to live their lives because they fear the “evil” they see on TV. Of course, that is not all that has caused the increased in PTSD symptoms but that’s for another column.
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