Did people not suffer from PTSD in historical warfare?

Yes, it's mostly accepted in the field of history that they did. As far as I'm aware the only people who still maintain they didn't are weird fringe theorists like Jason Crawley and Owen Rees.

I think that it probably did exist, but in my largely uneducated opinion, maybe it was to a lesser extent/had less of an affect.

>work in a shitty village eating shitty food being cold and generally poor
>join army
>shit conditions but you're paid now
>come home to equal shit except now only nature is trying to kill you

I guess it might fuck up nobles or richfags, but peasants were probably misreable already.

But it couldnt fire over the horizon.

People are naturally inclined to not kill each other. However, under certain circumstances they can, e.g. if they're personally threatened by someone else. Historical warfare was more personal, which ironically made it easier to kill people. People usually get PTSD from traumatic events where they weren't immediately threatened, e.g. seeing their friends blown to pieces by artillery or having to shoot someone who wasn't an immediate threat to them, like when having to execute innocents or being a sniper who needs to take a shot at a harmless guy minding his own business who is unaware that he's there, etc.; drone pilots for example suffer disproportionally often from PTSD since they follow their targets around for quite some time before having to take the shot.

>and that some actually enjoyed it.
they do so even today

Yes but to lesser extent as historically the only thing close to constant stress in modern war were sieges and that's still quite bold comparison.

PTSD in combat situations is, more often than not a consequence of continuous, days-weeks long stress.

Then again we don't really know because if some serf suffered from it, nobody gave a fuck because "lol plebs".

Imagine having won a battle and you get the order to decapitate the enemy. And they are 80 thousand men. Imagine the state of the field after that. The smell and the amount of blood. I'm sure that would fuck someone's shit up for years.

catapults are nowhere near as scary as howitzers lad

>catapults
i meant cannons lmao

>you're paid now
I'm not so sure the regular cannon fodder peasant soldiers were paid tho.

"Cannon fodder peasant soldiers" is kind of a misconception. They didn't really exist outside of very brief specific contexts.

Well, I work in an office in which the bitches don't open the windows or use the air conditioning, so this summer I got a feel of living in a super smelly and hot environment.

#ptsd #feminism

Some part of the army were professional soldiers, but I think the bulk of the army were recruits form the plebs.
At least in the Medieval kingdoms.

Shakespeare had an account of PSTD or at least effectively described it:

bjp.rcpsych.org/content/198/4/255

Sure thats 1600's but warfare was still pike and shot by then and pretty close to medieval combat.

To be fair shell shock wasn't codified until WWI, but there is a difference between surviving a week long hour artillery bombardment where at any random moment you could die and then fighting in a pitched battle once a year that lasted a few hours.

IMO WWI veterans had it worse than say the battle of hasting (if you survived that is).

It's pretty clear Aeneas has PTSD, and we have Assyrian (I think) records that describe symptoms just like it.

>Did people not suffer from PTSD in historical warfare?
They did. There's been tales of soldiers coming home filled with unshakable terror for as long as there has been written tradition and warfare.
A somewhat common folk belief was that the warriors were being Haunted by the men they had slain. Bit of an interesting notion as it can be interpreted both literally and metaphorically

>It seems like medieval warfare wasn't psychologically damaging at all and that some actually enjoyed it.
While medieval warfare may not have been as stressful as blackpowder -----> industrial warfare, it is still nothing to scoff at.

>Watching your comrades die, especially if it's a slow and painful fashion
>losing a limb
>Surviving a near-fatal injury
>Killing another human

They are all very intense things to grasp. Even the most bloodthirsty soldiers probably suffer some form of damage to their psyche, even if they are not aware of it. It may not necessarily take the form of flashbacks and constant dwelling on the event but they may be prone to anger problems, impulsiveness, difficulty focusing, restlessness and so on

I myself have been in a situation where I had to point a loaded gun and somebody. Thankfully, It didn't end with me pulling the trigger but it was still a nerve-wracking experience and for many years now there hasn't been a single day where I have not thought about it. The combination of a racing heart, adrenaline rush and a Killer Instinct roaring in your mind at max volume is difficult to forget

>Did people not suffer from PTSD in historical warfare?
They most likely did but most pre-modern warfare can't really be compared to modern warfare, especially warfare before the advent of gunpowder. Most deaths or losses were attributed to disease or desertion. Medieval warfare in particular was probably especially bloodless as armour despite modern interpretations actually works really well while large battles and sieges we're the exception and not the rule

>I guess it might fuck up nobles or richfags, but peasants were probably misreable already.
Nobles in many cultures tend to be the ones PREPARING FOR MILITARY LIFE SINCE BIRTH.

There are stories of it just probably was told a lot. There was one if a guy that thought he was gonna get axed to the head and it goes over and hits someone else and he just goes blind.

>implying it is diametrically different from slaughtering animals or seeing family members slowly dying on plague or other disgusting illness aka every other week

Yes, the only people who think otherwise are the same people that claim soldiers intentionally missed their targets before the second world war.

If you are not a psycho, it is totally different from animal slaughter or seen your family die in a natural way.

Yes, but it was somewhat different due to the differences between modern war and earlier forms of warfare.

We have accounts of PTSD as old as rome, user.

People didn't write about it as much because more people experienced violence and understood the mental effects it has, making it unremarkable.

Modern society, meanwhile, is literally full of people who've never so much as punched someone.

Fucking Grossman.

I've read two theoris speculating that PTSD is in part due to head trauma, as a lot of former football players have very similar psychological profiles as modern combat veterans.

I also read that in homogeneous societies PTSD isn't so bad because the closeness you felt with your village/family/neighbors was a great comfort. Even non-combat veterans today have a hard time adjusting to civilian life, because in the military you spend all day every day with your brothers and the bond is incredibly close, whereas civilians don't really get that close, so you come back feeling alienated.

Longer than that. Artillery and the gendarmes are that caused the swiss to enter into neutrality with france.

A lifetime of bullshit and danger makes you MORE likely to get ptsd, not less.

Children in foster homes, for example, have a fairly high PTSD rate. People in thirld world nations get PTSD from traumatic events more consistently than first worlders do.The mind can only handle so much shit before it breaks, and it doesn't get stronger from being stressed.

Grossman was full of shit.

>I think
And you're wrong.

Historically people were raised tougher and warfare was glorified not demonized. PTSD is a side affect of being taken out of your normal mental comfort zone. If something does threaten your life though, people tend to not forget about it. Think fear of water or any other phobia and you will find that it comes from childhood and past experiences. Modern warfare and medieval warfare were also drastically different. In modern warfare combat is prolonged and there are many unknowns. In medieval warfare you would campaign during the summer months (non-stepp peoples) and the fighting was done all in one afternoon and that was it one big pay off. In modern it's not quite like that. It's mostly positioning and jostling for months at a time all while being well aware you could suddenly die at any moment during the entire time, quite a bit more stressful imo. I think humans are not quite used to dealing with prolonged high stress levels rather than one huge amount of stress but very short. If you were to pick which produced more net stress it would undoubtedly be that incurred from modern warfare.

I've only heard interviews with the author, but it's a pretty cool idea comparing things like the mood of soldiers in wars like the Illad with observations of PTSD in soldiers in wars like vietnam.

I don't see why they wouldn't have.

I heard that Henry VII provided his soldiers with pictures of beautiful women painted on the inside because of this.

Probably not true but still

I suffer from PTSD after I play that fucking game

>It is very possible that modern forms of war are more psychologically taxing than what you tended to have in medieval or ancient times.

I don't think you'd be saying that if you ever played Chivalry

>"It was the hunt, not the killing." Hathcock said in a book written about his career as a sniper:
>"I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody. It's my job. If I don't get those bastards, then they're gonna kill a lot of these kids dressed up like Marines. That's the way I look at it."
Doesn't sound like he really enjoyed it

>Grossman was full of shit.
He's wrong about video games, but I'd say his conjecture about humans not liking to kill one another is fairly accurate.

sometimes PTSD makes you enjoy violence and killing more

kinda like a mental phantom limb you feel empty when not fighting and distant to peaceful settings and people.

I guess the major difference is people back them did not have to deal with modern morality. Not to say they were entirely immoral. Is there any case outside of modern history of your own countrymen spitting on you because you went to war?

This post is so fucking ignorant I don't know where to start.