Grrl Power #747 – Physical Training Snooze… Don’t
Sydney doesn’t frequent psychologists, but she’s been around them a few times in her life. Notably when she was younger and got diagnosed with ADHD, and a few follow-ups to tweak her meds. She’s being progressive about asking for help when it’s needed instead of letting this fester because she’s hoping there’s a pill she can take for it. For a lack of a better term, let’s say she’s got a touch of PTSD. There might be a better diagnosis – she’s not to the point where she’s having panic attacks or waking flashbacks, at least not yet. Just nightmares bad enough to give her insomnia.
In case you’re wondering, Sydney taped her orbs to her hands, as she has done in the past a few times, because dropping her shield orb while she’s sleeping and letting the monsters in would be bad. Falling asleep in her airtight bubble would be actually bad, so – tape. It’s a pretty secure way to sleep actually. Except that her shield doesn’t keep out light or noise. Well, it keeps out lasers, so maybe it keeps out dangerously loud sounds. It just doesn’t keep out the usual annoying noises when you’re trying to sleep. Dogs barking, your neighbor’s party or TV. Incidentally, her room is next to Dabbler’s, but fortunately the resident succubus had extra soundproofing done. Well, not physical soundproofing. It’s like a ward.
I can’t imagine trying to exercise while sleep deprived. It seems I can barely motivate myself to do it when I’m feeling 100% these days. Doing it while exhausted? I think you’d probably plod along in misery for a few minutes, then you’d get some sort of adrenaline reaction that could carry you 10-15 minutes, then after that you’d start feeling like you’re having an insulin crash or something. I imagine the military, especially in boot camp, is probably not reeeeeal sympathetic to complaints of insomnia and the like. In fact, I can’t help but think there’s probably a perverse delight in running NCOs into the ground. Cause, you know, making people literally pass out from exhaustion is ‘hardcore’ or whatever.
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Seems like Sidney needs some “Mindful Education” and maybe a few rounds of “Here come’s a Thought” https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x56f5kw
Taping the bubble and air orbs to her hands will be useful if she ever gets stuck in orbit.
Trying to power through a major shock like the Kaiju fight would come back to bite her. Good thing she agreed with Peggy that words need to be had.
I suspect after what she went through, she would not be in training the very next day, she would be in debriefings for a few days, including psych evaluations, and probably have some time off before being returned to training.
Yeah I think ‘Accidentally Abandoned on a hellscape alien world and forced to murder for the first time’ is a pretty fair excuse for a few days mental r&r.
From a military perspective, that wasn’t murder, it was combat. The military has to distinguish, since the job does sometimes involve killing.
“Murder” is *unlawful* killing…
From a civilian her whole life, only been in a few life is on the line conflicts, all of which had super assistance; and being stranded in an apocalyptic hellscape forced to not just kill but kill by dismemberment building sized enemies and dealing with the possibility all those fighters might just have been piloted; yeah, I’d say the transition from comic books to reality might be starting to get to her; so any technicality in terminology can leap off a bridge into the dark waters beyond Hell as far as her psyche is concerned.
Killing in self defense is in no way akin to murder. Most people understand the difference, let’s hope Sydney understands too.
On a legal, moral, rational level sure; everyone knows self defense is a justification. But on an emotional and psychological level? That’s something different entirely.
On an emotional and psychological level, only those who have seldom been subjected to violence do not instinctively believe self defense is justified.
Being beaten or smothered or burned or held under water or seeing those happen to others clears up any questions.
Your wide generalisation is rather debatable, especially some traumas can have an adverse efffect, but that’s another question.
If you actually took the time to read what scarf wrote, what they mean is that while on a purely rational level self-defense is justified, it can be hard to justify it on a psychological level, that is to justify it to yourself.
And if after such an act you aren’t at least a bit fazed, and don’t have any problems coming to terms with the murder of another being, no matter how much it was indeed justified and necessary, then you might have a few problems.
Wide generalization…well you know “everyone” is a far, far wider generalization. And I was pointing out that there are people outside of that generalization.
I did actually read what scarf wrote. But:
1. You don’t continue to agonize whether or not you have a right to live after you have survived the issue a while. You think about it, agonize over it, and it becomes resolved.
2. Murder of another human being. Self defense isn’t murder.
3. You might have a few problems. Yes. Someone subjected to protracted trauma might have some problems. They do not have to be permanent because they can be worked through, and they are not caused by the person who was subjected to the violence.
Despite your initial protestations to the contrary, it is, in fact, *QUITE* common for people who have been forced to kill (or otherwise enact violence) in self-defense to suffer psychological and emotional trauma as a result of those actions. Up to, and including, full blown PTSD.
Some can resolve those issues on their own.
Some can only do so with assistance.
Others simply cannot do so at all.
+3
Honestly, the problem is not that you killed. It’s that you survived.
By surviving you realize that you are fragile.
By surviving you realize that you might have to do it again.
Worse is knowing that you are good at it.
Even worse is knowing that you actually kind of enjoyed it.
Somewhere you know , deep down you are human and killing is bad, but you did it, you felt it, you were good at it, and you keep going.
And when you realize that you feel a sense of accomplishment, when you realize you won, the idea that you did a good thing crosses a path with everything you believed was good and right.
So, does that make you the bad guy?
I would like to point out a selection bias in the statement that only those who have seldom been subjected to violence do not instinctively believe self-defense is justified.
Of those who have been subjected to frequent violence, only those who believe self-defense is justified are still there to form your statistical sample.
Wrong, I believe in self defense. It is the only justification for killing others, comes from living in a state, where self-defense is accepted. In NH, if someone breaks into your house and you believe they are a danger to you, you have the right to Self-defense if you believe you are in danger, you have the right to shoot. This State is New Hampshire, where gun violence is rare.
I am not sure, but I think that has almost nothing to do with what I said.
FWIW, you said nothing I doubt or disagree with.
A minor quibble. If a hypothetical ‘rational person’ in your position would believe you are at risk of grievous physical harm or death, you can use lethal force in self defense. Not just ‘in danger’.
Bear, You ain’t Rambo.
Violence is a rare thing in most people’s lives, and yet we consider self-defense to almost be a sacred duty in our country.
It is however intellectual knowledge is not always easily or quickly integrated into our psychological or moral self assessment. Moral injury is real.
They shot nukes at her. You wouldn’t call that Self Defense? Weird.
The appropriate legal terminology doesn’t matter, until such time as the squids come to Earth and file a court action.
What matters for Sydney is how her mind sees it. Some of that will be reasonable and understood they shot first with power that would’ve killed her but for her shield, and some of it won’t be. I’ve never had to kill people, but I’d imagine people who found themselves unexpectedly on the front lines before they’d gotten a week into basic training would have to struggle with the distinction between killing in self defense and murder.
I guess she COULD consider “they were enemies of the Alari, but I was too, but they’re mechas, and the orbs hate mechas, so I had to kill them to level up to escape, or die alone, starving, afraid, asphixiating, and forgotten on an alien world”. But one death would be better than however many she killed, in a non-biased way of looking at it. Just math.
Like executing prisoners by beheading in order to test a katana’s sharpness.
I am unable to find a point concealed within that incoherent meandering babble.
I find the same value in your response.
Wait, you are saying it would have been better for her to die than for her to kill to survive? o_O
“By the math,” I see how you could make that argument. But you forgot the most important factor of not just violence but of any kind of moral decision, which is the *PURPOSE* of the parties involved. If you were to see four grown men set upon a teenage girl in an alley, can you honestly say she wouldn’t be justified in shooting them? Same thing happened here.
By the math, four lives are worth more than one. But if you would say the math is the end-all judge of morality, you would scare me.
False dichotomy.
Lt. Col. David Grossman, a psychologist and former US Army Ranger, specializes in researching violence:
How do we make sane people violent on command?
How do we keep their violence constrained by rules of engagement?
Et cetera.
He is of the opinion that more than half of PTSD in soldiers coming back from the front is a result not of seeing violence, but in being violent themselves. Even necessary and expected violence is extremely disturbing to sane people. this is why many police departments have a mandatory down time and visit with a department psychologist after a shooting.
The reason so many modern soldiers are developing PTSD is because of the nature the fighting has become: up until WWII the ‘enemy’ were distinct, the combatants wore uniforms and it was generally not accepted to kill those not in uniform, then you got Korea and Vietnam where many of the combatants didn’t have uniform and would hide amongst the ‘civilian’ population, which meant the soldiers ended up being on almost constant edge not knowing if that guy and his wife in the field were farmers, or the enemy
Then you get to the 2000’s, and not only do the enemy combatants not have uniforms (or wear basically the same camouflaged gear you are wearing, with just a patch on the shoulder slash upper arm to tell you what country they are from), the population you are attempting to help have been brought up and taught to hate you because you are from the ‘decadent West’ and are out to enslave the world and willingly strap explosives to themselves or their babies in an attempt kill you
The World War Two veterans had every bit as much PTSD. there just wasn’t a diagnosis nor was there help offered.
I have coffee with two of them five days a week at the VFW.
It was just called “shell-shock” or “Malingering” And was either ignored or punished. I remember my professor in one of my psych courses using WWI and WWII as an example of how [not] to treat trauma.
You don’t just “get over it” or “work through it” (in general), and there’s a bit of dehumanization that occurs no matter how “Well adjusted” you are.
In World War I (or the “War to End All Wars,” as it was optimistically called), it was often called Trench Eyes, the Thousand Yard Stare, or Shell-Shock. In World War II, it was usually referred to as Battle Fatigue (although Shell-Shock was still used sometimes). It was ASD and/or PTSD, it just wasn’t psychologically defined as such until later, when we’d sent enough people to war and seen enough similar symptoms to realize it was a definable psychological condition.
Tragically, there seems to be two contradictory causes: stress caused by being subjected to or witnessing violence without recourse to response or escape (i.e. being intermittently shelled, gassed, etc. while stuck in a trench in some muddy French field, or seeing a kid run out into the middle of a crossfire) and enacting violence (whether it’s withing the rules of engagement not necessarily withstanding . . . what your subconscious thinks of as justified may not be what you consciously accept as justified).
Which is another way of saying “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
As an addendum: PTSD is far older than WWI or WWII, too.
The Epic of Gilgamesh from 2100 BCE describes Gilgamesh having recurring nightmares after losing his close friend Enkidu in battle, and the depression and obsession with mortality and death that follow are what drive him to seek the secret of immortality.
Herodotus, in 440 BCE, describes a Greek warrior named Epizelus being struck blind after seeing his comrade struck down in battle, though his eyes were not injured. The psychosomatic blindness lasted several years.
+1
Didn’t say they didn’t, was attempting to explain why the numbers now are so much higher, and it’s not just because more are being diagnosed
Even in WWII there was some awareness that most soldiers were extremely reluctant to kill, and that’s been pretty thoroughly researched since. It’s not the uniform or lack of one, it’s actually pulling the trigger with someone in your sights.
It’s killing, but not murder. Murder requires it to be unlawful killing. Killing in self defense or a soldier killing an enemy soldier in a battle are ‘lawful’ killings. But still probably traumatic once Sydney stops to think about it. Plus Sydney might be having nightmares about, yknow…. almost dying or being attacked by kaiju in the first place.
*shrug* I’ll go there.
What about if the squidwards were survivors of alari attack, getting their just revenge, but Halo killed them as target practice?
It’s still not murder, at least for Sydney. It’s not an ‘unlawful killing’ when it’s in a warzone and it’s one soldier vs an enemy soldier or soldiers. In addition, even if you could say it was murder, the obvious legal defense would be self defense, since they were trying to kill her, so it still falls under self defense (if they were human or applicable to human US laws :) Which makes it a lawful killing (a killing with a self-defense exception, making it a legal killing, and therefore not murder). Sydney also did not kill them as target practice – she killed them because there was no way to escape and they were trying to kill her, and had already tried to kill her twice before she decided to fight, then flee, then realize there was no way to flee. I’m also going to say it’s probably a stretch that a single ship being able to lay waste to an entire spacefaring empire’s homeworld, including orbital war platforms, was probably not ‘survivors of an alari attack.’
Self defense includes a “duty to retreat” when using deadly force, which Sidney’s orbs are. Her first disengagement from Squidward was in line with her that principle.
Returning to fight Squidward, could be argued either way by a civilian court as, “the planet was neither large nor familiar enough to retreat safely, it would have reengaged so she preempted it,” or “there was more than enough space on that planet for her to safely keep her distance.” This wasn’t civilian tho, this was military and I don’t military well enough to know how this would shake out.
The Squidwards chased Sydney with an orbital nuclear barrage, and they initiated the hostilities.
No grievance the Squidwards might have had with the Alari translates to a legitimate excuse to attack a law enforcement detachment from earth tracking an Alari.
The last claim “Halo killed them as target practice” is nonsense. Sydney specifically decided against grinding for levels.
Responding to myself so other replies can come in, but really replying to all of you:
It depends on what’s in Sydney’s head. The mind can warp things. “I did this because it was necessary at the time” can easily become “What I did was wrong, and only by looking back at it when not in direct danger can I realize this”, even if that is an incorrect thought.
Yes but self defense is not about looking back at what happened after you’re already safe. It’s based on the person’s perception AT THE TIME. :)
Although lets be fair, even looking back, there wasn’t much Sydney could do that wouldn’t have required defensive violence :)
The definition of self defense, legally, varies a bit from state to state, but in general it’s this:
The use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of ones family from bodily/physical harm from the immediately imminent attack of an aggressor, if the defender has reason to believe he/she/they is/are in danger.
The important words here?
Reasonable – the fear of harm has to be a reasonable one. Self defense can be justified even if the perceived aggressor didnt actually MEAN the perceived victim any harm, if a ‘reasonable person’ would have perceived an immininent threat of physical harm.
Bodily/physical harm – it has to be actual, physical harm that you’re being threatened with. It can’t be words unless the words are something like ‘I’m going to kill you with this gun that I have right now in my hand’…. even saying ‘I’m going to go home and get my gun and kill you’ isnt going to be enough for you to respond with ‘no you won’t’ as you take out your gun and shoot them in the head. Because of the next requirement – imminence. Also, emotional harm is not enough. If someone is going to hurt your feelings, or your sensibilities, you can’t respond with physical violence and claim that’s self-defense.
Imminent – it has to be something IMMINENT. Something that’s going to happen right away, in the moment. It can’t be ‘He was going to run home and get his gun and come back to kill me’ because that’s not imminent.
There’s also usually an additional element in self-defense in minor levels of self-defense, which is proportional response. If the threat is deadly, you can respond with deadly force. If the threat is major, you can still respond with deadly force. But if the threat is minor, you cannot respond with deadly force (if, of course, a REASONABLE PERSON would have perceived that the threat was minor). For example, if someone gives you a punch in a bar fight, but they’re not the type of person that looks like they could kill you with their bare hands, it’s not a proportional response to then whip out your gun and start shooting, or take a knife and stab them in the throat. If the person is someone who could kill you with their bare hands, like lets say a 6’4″ mugger and a 5.2″ woman in a dark alley, that WOULD be self defense if the woman was being chased by him and was in fear of her life and she takes a gun out of her purse to shoot the mn.
Anyway, with the kaiju….. Sydney was in fear of her life, in a way that ANY reasonable person would say was a reasonable fear at the time, and the threat of PHYSICAL force was imminent, and was a proportional response even in the most liberal use of the word. In addition, she even tried first to escape, and couldn’t (in case we’re comparing it to a jurisdiction which first requires the victim to try to escape before using deadly force).
Pander, that’s the thing that’s catching up with her. She was never in fear. Even when injured she looked at it like a video game and she was kicking ass.
Except…
The Ass was a living thing…
And the Kicking was killing…
How, would she know!?
Technically she doesn’t know whether she *killed* anything. She could easily rationalize all those things she fought as organic alien warbots – which to be fair, they quite likely were. They certainly didn’t look like they were well adapted to office work or dinner conversation and were immediately, unremittingly hostile.
So, I think *most* people would be pretty easily able to rationalize away the killing aspect from that particular battle as its entirely possible there was none in the traditional sense. Combat PTSD has dimensions well beyond guilt however, and she’s clearly trying to deal with some of those.
I don’t think it matters to her if she was a target or even needed to take them out. She ended a life for the first time, intentionally. That has a mental weight.
The legal terminology has very little to do with it.
I am not saying it wasn’t justified or even necessary, it totally was, just that she did it and it would be jarring.
+1
When you consider that she’s been gone for 2 days in her timeline, and has only had one chance for sleep when it was set up, comedic or not, that she didn’t get to during said period (was in the bathroom breathing fire through the other end apparently), after trauma…yeah, no way, schedule or not, that she wouldn’t be on some sort of leave right now.
If you go back and look, there was six or eight hours to sleep after Sydney’s goodnight conversation with Cora but before the Grakz worked its way through her digestive tract. But she was likely so tired she had dreamless sleep and nothing was processed.
All things being said, and while there certainly is a lot of things for Sydney to work through, physical exercise is not a bad thing for you when you are having a bad time, just you know keep it in moderation.
I wonder who that “professional someone” Peggy will arrange for Sydney to see,I hope it’s not Dr.Ford Taurus..er..Chevy!?
Maybe Dr. ‘Tip’ Wilkin, of Project Skin Horse infamy :D
Fairly sure Sydney would like his use of sock puppets
Doc Chevy is not a psychiatrist or psychologist. You wouldn’t ask a podiatrist to do open heart surgery. Nor would you ask a surgeon to provide chemotherapy for your cancer. Undoubtedly Archon will have access to top notch psychiatric care (you don’t want someone with super powers to have a public breakdown or worse) and with what they pay them and their obvious value, they want to keep the team members in top shape both mentally and physically.
Maybe DaveB can set up a crossover?
http://www.drblink.com/
I always thought it would be interesting having an empath as a psychologist. Like Diana Troy (Star Trek:TNG, for you kids who were born after its run) only better written.
Though you would have to carefully set the power limits, too weak and it would just be a side joke, too strong and you creep people out by overuse (even the readers).
Seriously, look up Chaplain and Chaplain Assistants for the US Army. Don’t let the name fool you, we worked with all religions (including no-religion), or just a regular Military Counselor is fine too. Just as long as they are familiar with the “special needs” of the military. My experience has been that most civilian counselors just make matters worse.
Hey, I just stumbled across your comment while re-reading the comic. I’m working on a story unrelated to Grrl Power, and was wondering if you could elaborate on the part how civilian councelors can make matters worse when trying to treat people who worked in the military? I’ve got a character who was ordered to commit war crimes by his superior (and followed through) and sees a counselor years later about his guilt and PTSD , and could use some pointers on what does help and what doesn’t.
Sydney’s blanket looks like it’s half in her shield and half out.
Did she just accidentally cut her blanket into pieces? Did she have two blankets and it just looks like there’s part inside and part outside? Or is her shield just that amazing?
I think those are two blankets. They don’t even have completely same color.
The one she is mummy’ed in looks to be a quilt or duvet (the thing that goes on the top of the blankets and makes the bed look nice)
The shield orb doesn’t seem to cut the ground when the shield intersects the floor (that’d be a lot of property damage in a skyscraper like they live in), so I’m going to guess that no, she didn’t cut her blankets and bed in half.
The shield orb seems to be pretty dam smart since it dos’t cut up ground. if it was’t for its habit of slowly sufficating her it would be perfect at least the air orb helps counter that.
It seems like it’s either well designed, or semi-aware, or both. It makes sense that it wouldn’t automatically refresh the air, though, since it knows there’s an atmosphere generating orb . . . it just doesn’t necessarily know that Sydney doesn’t know (until recently) about the air orb.
So, continuing with a long long ago suggestion I had, would a set of stretchy mittens work well for her, as she could force the orb up into the mitten with her hand around it or something similar. A bit of velcro would work a lot better and be easier to grab than constantly taping it to herself.
Also, I don’t recall, but I assume she can’t use any powers by having an orb rest against the back of her hand. Of course, there’s also the many many fiddly controls we’ve seen on some of them, so that wouldn’t exactly matter.
Velcro is far less reliable than good quality tape.
Define “work well.” Consider:
1) Tape’s cheap (although compared to her budget, so are mittens).
2) In the amounts she’ll need, tape takes up very little space or weight in her pack.
3) Tape can be used for many other things (it comes in many medical kits, for instance).
Would mittens work? If tape does, then almost certainly. But it’s not something she’s likely to need often, and it’s unlikely she’ll spend enough time sufficiently far away from civilization that the reusable nature of mittens will outweigh the benefits of disposable tape.
I suspect they were working on that, and may already have a working prototype.
1) You answered yourself.
2) So would a set of thin highly elastic mittens/gloves. It’s also possible that rubber gloves, or some variant of fingerless gloves could work, either of which could have additional functionality added. They could even be made part of the uniform in the case of fingerless gloves (depending on if those work).
3) I don’t think removing tape to be beneficial. Space to utility discussions would depend on a variety of factors, time spent applying tape vs whipping out gloves for instance. It may also be usable as weather proofing on her part, as Sydney has demonstrated a remarkable level of forgetfulness.
I would posit that extended combat engagements, combined with Sydney’s ‘twitchiness’ would be common enough scenarios to consider the possibility of a more permanent solution to be a viable concern.
Consider: fingerless gloves with a high elasticity mesh across the palm and a velcro/snap wrist restrictor. The fingerless and mesh nature would still allow reliable skin contact across the palm and fingers in any active situation without removal. The velcro component would allow for an easy way to force an orb into position where it could be held against the palm by the glove/mitten, but could still be undone by a free hand, or by teeth depending. This could easily be integrated into her uniform, or simply carried on her person when not in uniform.
Fingerless bicycling gloves with an open palm and a spandex/lycra pouch with to hold the ball in (velcro straps to secure it) would work swimingly, though given the balls never leave her orbit, I’m not sure all this is really necessary. She’s not going to lose them, and if she loses her grip, I believe she can just recall them to her hand anyway.
Yes, but would she remember to do so in the middle of explosive decompression? She can get into circumstances where accidentally dropping the shield could be almost instantly fatal. At least one orb retaining glove would appear to be a good idea.
Mittens, gloves, whatever, would obscure her ability to view the glyphs/sigils/runes that are the control “buttons” on each orb. Tape could be applied to keep them securely in place, but still allow a finger or thumb to access two different buttons, etc. Plus, the tape really is a lot more versatile. She’s got a limited encumbrance/weight limit that she can carry, and the tape is more multipurpose than mittens or latex gloves. (Though I’ll admit the latex gloves come close.)
Believe the mittens, gloves, whatever are being suggested as alternatives to the tape for when she doesn’t want to let go, like at night when she wants to stay safe and protected, or when going into a situation where dropping one or both balls by accident could mean instant death, with the added benefit of being easily removed when the threat is over (plus, ripping tape off your skin smarts like the dickens!)
Good job on Sydney’s face in panel 5.
1- Note Peggy said “a little exercise”. I sincerely doubt they (especially Max) would throw her right back into it like nothing happened because she is still rather new to the process/group. “Getting things back to normal” and not allowing her a break – which includes PT – is likely a byproduct of trying to help Syd get and feel “back to normal” after her recent ordeal.
2- You should expect that after everything learned by Max last night that she has Sydney under watchful eye for signs of trauma of any kind.
I have PTSD and a few other things. When I am not in the right frame of mind, then exercise, the exercise just knocks rust off more ‘wrong thinking’ gears and I absolutely get overwhelmed and start flipping out with as much violence as I can generate.
Sydney has superpowers.
Another symptom of this sort of thing is being easily startled, and a tendency to lash out when triggered. It might be a good day to stuff the PPO into the old shipping tube.
When I was a military brat we got caught in a situation where a shooting conflict sprung up around us (country on the verge of a civil war) in a situation that had no immediate means of evac. Things got … interesting for about a week until the local government got things back to “normal”. But plans had been made to get the dependents out of the area if needed, it just cleared up before those plans could be implemented. This was Morocco in 1971, a similar thing happened in the 50s when they decided they didn’t want to be a French colony any more.
Seriously got to see the shrink who can deal stony faced after being told her problem is “nightmares caused by being stranded in an alien apocalypse hellscape in the future”.
After working for nearly 30 years around state psychiatric hospitals Ii can tell you the only reason that tops the “freaky shit people have told me ” meter is that in Sydney’s case it really happened.
Hmm, if Peggy finds one of her recruits basically curled behind her bed clutching her loaded gun – the normal military equivalent of what Sydney’s doing – her job isn’t to ask if Sydney needs to see someone, it’s to order that she do so.
At the minimum what she’s doing suggests she’s in a hypervigilant state, and a half-trained recruit who can’t be separated from a heavy weapon (and heavy weapon is severely under-estimating what Sydney’s capable of now she’s leveled up in the firepower department) is not someone you want subjecting to potential startlement, and definitely not actual combat, until you know which way she’s going to jump if something unexpected happens.
And besides the psychological issues, while Sydney has been checked over by (and checked out) a doctor, that wasn’t a military doctor, never mind ARC’s doctor, and she’s been MIA in an alien environment for weeks. Maxima, never mind Peggy, should really be insisting she have a barrage of tests before anyone declares her fit for duty. As should the team doc, who has authority to override anyone on that point.
For all they know, Sidney has picked up an alien virus – or even a sentient parasite.
They need a thorough and classified medical exam, and ask for Dabbler to use her secret alien tech and personal talents to look for any signs of trouble.
Human medical science isn’t capable of catching everything Frix would have caught in his examination.
Would Frix know what to look for though? You can only find something that shouldn’t be there, if you know what should
The reason Dirt doctors miss things, is because they are either looking for something specific or find something that does not appear to be doing any harm. Not every one is ‘built’ the same, which means doctors have to make judgement calls all the time (at least the good and competent ones do, they don’t just assume everyone is the same)
Absolutely Frix would know what to look for. Academics study things by their nature even on vacation. And earth has been an exotic sex tourism destination for mellinia.
Earth may just becoming aware of the sprawling civilizations offworld but those same civilizations have know (and indulged themselves on) earth for thousands of years…and maintained a seat on the Twilight Council.
Frix wasn’t encountering a lifeform alien medics had never heard of, and even the general population of Fracture knew of the effect of grakz on humans.
How could the population of Fracture know of the effect of Grakz on a hyu-mon, if a hyu-mon had never encountered it before? o_O
And it still comes down to: Frix knowing what to look for, and actively looking for it
Fairly sure they would have some space-machine to treat PTSD, butt only if they know the patient has it, and why would you look for it if they are not showing symptoms? o_O
Except this isn’t Syd clutching a loaded gun. This is Syd in full SCUBA rebreather gear and Bomb Disposal armor. Or sleeping in a sealed bunker. Just a very, very small one.
Granted, still probably ought to be ‘ordered’. But then again, Syd’s still a raw-ish recruit, not used to the military-style ‘orders are orders’, who might need to be cajoled or directed more gently as yet.
The best orders (and the ones most likely to be carried out) are those are not issued as orders, butt suggested in a way that it seems the one being ‘ordered’ came up with the idea themselves
The orders most likely to be carried out are all orders within the parameters of the ordering authorities prescribed area of authority.
An order to build a terrace around a building on hilly post using shovels and a wheelbarrow is a legal order. An order to babysit the adjutants children or to go bring back hookers from off post is not.
Yes to that.
Side note: Neither is an order to a civilian contractor to destroy items containing data deemed by higher authority to be classified legal. Destruction is declassification by definition, and declassification can NEVER be done by a civilian contractor. BTDT, backed down a Colonel who was full of himself.
Was referring to ordering someone to do something they don’t want to, like go see a shrink or dig a latrine
Sure, you can order them with the added “Because I said so!” and they will do it with the least amount of effort as possible (and then bitch about it being the officers fault when the latrine overflows or collapses while they are using it) or you could say “Well sure, you don’t have to, but do you want to be sleeping next door to an open sewer?”
That the consequences of disobeying a lawful order in any of those cases will probably be a a minimum a page eleven entry and loss of liberty.
Time in grade for promotion? They just reset that.
Civilian life and life under the Uniform Code of Military Justice are not equivalent.
She hasn’t been in long enough to feel like she belongs. Give her crappy orders before she gets why orders matter and she could just go “f this, I quit” and who could stop her? She can explore space now, what some lawyers think matters a whole lot less then it used to.
This may or may not already be known to DaveB.
There exists another comic called “The Monster Under The Bed”
It is pretty well-done, even if it does not get updated as often as this comic.
It is self-rated between PG-13 and R, although I do think it probably has, after all this time, earned an R rating.
You might enjoy it.
Yup, one of my favourites
> I can’t imagine trying to exercise while sleep deprived.
Getting a proper amount of sleep is essential if you want to exercise.
You don’t get stronger by excercising – you get stronger by resting after exercising.
You do develop mental resilience, physical discipline, and confidence in your self and in your abilities.
Some times strength isn’t the goal.
+1
Some of my fastest running times were on insufficient sleep. One of the things that keeps performance down is pain aversion, and with fatigue muting the pain my speed limit went up.
IMHO, I think the military types are pretty serious about mental conditions, like depressions and PTSD and the likes … You don’t want to give a gun to someone that might go psycho and start shooting his peers or something.
“Friendly fire” is already high as it is.
Self Defense is not a get out a murder free card even if it really was in self defense. For example: cases where someone is shot in the back, means they were running away at the time and thus “Not a clear and present threat” to you under Self Defense laws. If you say, shoot or otherwise injure and intruder on your property and they die off your property, you can be held responsible for their death. Like the old man who stabbed a would-be thief with a screwdriver. The thief fled but died from blood loss down the street. If I recall the old man got out of the murder charge, but it could have gone the other way.
Laws can be slightly silly sometimes, like when some kids were high on pot and decided to rob an elderly man’s home because they thought he wasn’t at home. He killed one of the young men when he shot at them. The other’s involved in the robbery were later charged with the murder of their own buddy because they were responsible as a group.
Sydney’s case has… it’s own circumstances. As she is military/cop, super powered, in an alien environment with no chain of command, and enemies actively trying to kill her. Her actions could be justified as “not murder” but yeah… give her a damn break. All that crap. Plus the burning crap on Cora’s ship heading home, and the after party of mental fatigue inducing stuff… let the smallest big can of whoop-arse chill a bit.
lol. He was turning around to do a spinkick, just as I pulled the trigger, shot him in the back …but he was gonna kick my butt!
Yeah, that can be outside of self defense even when you are under an attack. If you can prove it, you’re safe though.
Nothing silly in any way about home invaders all being charged when one of them is shot, and intentional use of intoxicants is not in any way, shape, or form a mitigating factor in the favor of the home invaders.
Massachusetts. If you kill a burglar, you can be charged with murder.
In the entire world, if you kill a gang of people who break into your home then they never kill you. Some places have sane and rational laws and others don’t.
People who break into someone else’s home have already demonstrated that altruistic intentions are entirely off the table.
“sane and rational laws” look at the circumstances and whether force was necessary, or whether you have a householder who is recklessly negligent, or looking for the opportunity to hurt someone, or even to commit a hate crime.
Consider at the case of Tony Martin, convicted of murder for shooting a burglar in the UK in 1999. He’d already had his shotgun license withdrawn for recklessly shooting at someone. The gun he used was illegal without a full firearms license, which he had never held. When a man and a 16yo broke in, he fired at them and they tried to escape. He fired twice more as they tried to get out of a window, killing the 16yo. The prosecution case was that Martin wasn’t just guilty of firing after he was demonstrably safe, English law only allowing ‘reasonable force’, but that he had in fact lain in wait for the burglars after previous break-ins. He was convicted of murder, which was reduced to manslaughter for mental health reasons.
(Martin had a history of membership of far right groups, the victims were Irish Travellers, who face considerable racism in the UK, how much this was a factor wasn’t explored in the trial, but almost certainly would be nowadays as it would be grounds for increasing the sentence)
Then there are all the cases in the States of people (usually non-white) shot while seeking help, rather than being burglars, cf Renisha McBride and Yoshihiro Hattori
Rationally, breaking into a home in a group indicates ill intent.
Once one starts traipsing through the fantasy land that good people who mean no harm also break into other people’s homes then rationality has been entirely discarded.
And three against one indicates clearly the probable outcome. So would one on one with an elderly person versus someone young and strong.
Now, the British farce you just described?
1. You admit it isn’t a case of self defense. Subjects fleeing are not a case of self defense so you changed the topic.
2. Laying in wait. We are back to laws that are entirely irrational. The man stayed in his home and was not asleep. It takes a fascist outright to call that laying in wait.
3. Illegal weapon. Well, that’s a different crime, now isn’t it?
And in all of that, for the age of the deceased assailant is to be a worthwhile factor in any way the prosecution will need to show sixteen year olds don’t kill people.
Governments that construct rights for criminals to have unresisting victims have abandoned their purpose of protecting their populace and eventually fall.
Even the Soviet Superstate eventually fell.
You can be ‘charged with murder’ for that in any state. Whether nor not it will pass in a court of law is another thing entirely.
Massachusetts has a statutory castle doctrine, which means one can defend oneself under the threat of imminent danger.
Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 278, Section 8(a):
In the prosecution of a person who is an occupant of a dwelling charged with killing or injuring one who was unlawfully in said dwelling, it shall be a defense that the occupant was in his dwelling at the time of the offense and that he acted in the reasonable belief that the person unlawfully in said dwelling was about to inflict great bodily injury or death upon said occupant or upon another person lawfully in said dwelling, and that said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself or such other person lawfully in said dwelling. There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling.
Now, in the case of certain lummoxes interpreting that to mean “I kin shewt anywun who steps on mah porch”, things are not going to go very favorably for them in court, such as a one mister Jeffrey Lovell of Chicopee.
The above being said, aint nobody going to jail for defending themselves against a group of home invaders with obvious ill intent, or giant alien space kaiju that are carpetbombing you with clusternukes.
Even in Massachusetts. XD
Lovell went favorably though… sure he probably felt guilt ridden about what he had done, and that he made a horrible mistake, but the judge found him not guilty.
That is if you can feel bad for shooting and killing a kid. A kid, who with his buddies, had been drinking all day before they started pounding on Lovell’s doors trying to get in. The window on the door broke from his pounding, and mr. bang went through the door and broke him.
In Massachusetts, you can be sued by the burglar. …and actually be found guilty.
which is a good thing because in the end they’re all equally human and stealing property is far less of a crime then taking someone else life. this idiotic idea that its okay to kill someone for just coming onto your property or taking you stuff is a sickness.
it steams form people valving stuff to much and humans to little.
It is rather difficult to tell the difference between someone breaking into your house to steal stuff and someone breaking into your house to do you harm.
True, but people who empathize with a desire to break into others homes desire to be protected or avenged by the courts if the intended victim defends themself.
You made me think of something:
Sydney MIGHT have an aversion to spicy foods now.
Happiness and trauma are both created the same way- an emotion connected with an action. Happy is nostalgia and dopamine, trauma or PTSD especially, are recurrences of similarity.
So getting PTSD from the alari homeworld, then trying to recover with yummy spicy food, which burns her a new asshole. Something trustworthy (Maxima / spicy food) betraying her (being abandoned with no salvation / being terrorized and injured by spicy food- remember the look on her face when Cora told her it comes out hotter than it went in and she be totally pale after?).
I also can’t imagine she’ll be half as friendly with Maxima anymore. Professional. If Max keeps trying to be buddy-buddy, Sydney’d flip out on her. If Max was more professional to begin with, then Sydney’d never have experienced most of this. The PTSD is directly Maxima’s fault.
Well, she might have an aversion to phosphor-ASS-ent alien spicy food that makes you quote Bladerunner on the toilet, anyway. Which seems like a perfectly sane reaction, really.
Then again, she might just try that stuff again, only with a dollop of sour cream… Only building up her resistance, this time.
Maybe you should lay off the funny-smoke
“The PTSD is directly Maxima’s fault.” Come again? How is that even indirectly Maxi’s fault? Maxi didn’t betray her and ‘abandon her with no salvation’, that was Sydney forgetting her reset and reaching for Mr Buble instead of getting her tiny heiny through the portal before it closed (Maxi had had to be physically held back from returning to Sydney)
As for the spicy food: she was fucking warned by the crowd (and probably the stall owner), in her arrogance she viewed that as simply a challenge
u mad bro
Xone – You also need to keep jurisdiction in mind with statements like that. Here in Texas, no DA is going to attempt a prosecution on those kinds of things. In California or New York City, though, they attempt to prosecute cases that are obvious self defense against violent intruders.
In this case, any legal repercussions would have to be in the jurisdiction of Alari… which is unlikely, to say the least.
Aww I was looking forwards to seeing Max’s reaction to Sydneys description of the battle, escaping by opening a wormhole and ending up on Fracture Station and that Archon is likely to receive a sizable lunch bill when they make official contact with the station. LOL
Sydney scored a deal to cover (At least part of…) her tab in return for publicity rights.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-687-a-friendly-tongue/
Actually she never got to enjoy that free round (probably a good thing considering the after effects) as Cora showed up just after she was offered it. She’d already had 3 dishes of it before then.
Hey, love the comic and not trying to have anything bad happen to you or your lovely comic, but everytime I’ve come here in the last week or so my security has been saying it’s been blocking a trojan from “Piperka.net”
The art on this one, wow.
My time in the Infantry was partially contradictory to your imagination; yes, I did PT on less than 4 hours of sleep most of the time, less than 2 hours almost regularly. You’re right about the “plod along in misery for 15 minutes” is correct, but it isn’t followed by an adrenaline rush, it’s followed by an 30 minutes of misery.
Also, the NCOs are the ones doing the making people run, Enlisted are the ones being run into the ground.
Well… the NCO’ s are enlisted too… just not “lower enlisted”. Just sayin… and who says halo isn’t on the officer track?
Anvil says Halo isn’t on the officer track.
Could have sworn she was called “cadet”. They don’t call enlisted that, just officer schools. Just sayin
I’d like to point out that just because Sydney has PTSD and is having nightmares doesn’t mean that the Squidwards of the Apocalypse aren’t going to come looking for her, or that they won’t attack while she’s vulnerable from sleeping.
Of course, there is no reason for the Squidwards to be looking for her.
Besides for the excessively obvious revenge / threat quenching.
It was demonstrated handily that their invasion force had massive difficulties handling even one Sydney. From their experience on the Alari homeworld it would be clear to even a genocidal force of Xenophobes that their force would be critically outmatched if they crossed the path of a planet full of Mighty Halos.
Nothing that happened would have supported any assumption on the part of the Squidwards that there was only one Sydney.
True. Plus, they scanned the Unknown Orb. They probably know without question that there’s only one.
Scanning the orbs told them that the orbs are unscanable. All they know is how many of them Sydney had.
That doesn’t equate to any knowledge about the existence of more orbs.
In fact, it tells them they can’t know about other orbs until anyone wielding them used them because they are undetectable.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Yyyyyuppp!
Dave.
Councilor: Talk therapy as a minor effect of their job.
Therapist: Dialectical (talk) therapy as their job.
Psychologist: Dialectical as their job, but they have more training and are legally allowed to diagnose someone and have it in paperwork.
Psychiatrist: A medical doctor who is also a psychologist, but practically speaking, they don’t talk to you, just pump you full of tranquilizers so you don’t have the energy to talk about your problems anymore. There you’re cured.
Sydney probably talked to a psychologist, who referred her to a psychiatrist (probably in the same office) who prescribed her medications and does periodic follow-ups to make sure they’re still working. Meds have to be cycled out periodically because your body gets used to them and they no longer work.
I imagine ADHD and PTSD combo would be enough for anyone to lose a few winks sleep. Though, I am not qualified to make a diagnosis of either conditions. I think once she was off survival mode and in more familiar surroundings, she started to reflect on what had happened to her. Albeit, her reflection seems to have manifested in a “Stranded in an Alien Hellscape” nightmare.
Peggy is directly in charge of her training, and has experience with battle and trauma. Structured, physical exercise could help in recovery from mental stress and fatigue. Besides, she knows what Sydney’s capable of and it’s probably enough to get her out and moving around.
The point of driving recruits to the limits of their endurance is supposed to be to have them understand **when** they’re reaching the limits of their endurance, and they’re supposed to be taught tricks to compensate for exhaustion, muzzy-headedness, lack of focus, etc…plus it’s supposed to get them to admit that they’re not invincible, and…the military has really fallen down on the ball on explaining all this, and NOT driving the recruits half-dead. The problem is that while many Drill Instructors are good guys, they also allowed a lot of sadists to get into power. So that supposed-to got turned into a “supposed”-to.
The United States Bootcamp system was overhauled from top to bottom, left to right, and front to back by General “Blackjack ” Pershing as the United States went through the First World War.
All of the traits and abilities (whether mental, intellectual, or physical) which bootcamp builds up or measures are intended (when the system is functioning as originally designed) to improve each trait or ability to a minimum standard and remove individuals who lack an essential component of combat abilities to ensure that the mission is accomplished with minimal casualties.
Not all things have been measured adequately, I myself have hypothalamus damage that slipped through and I have known hundreds of people who damaged knees because the medical screening methodology available back when I went in couldn’t detect weak knee joints until the recruits ran on them all the time.
The mental games are intended to serve the same purpose for the ability to withstand stress.
This is why even recruits who wash out for physical assaults or certain other crimes are given a clean discharge if they stay out of trouble after being court martialed out. The system is designed to imitate the pressure of combat before actually sending people off to war. People break who would never do untoward things in civilian life.
Bunch of things…
1) in basic training they intentionally keep people at various levels of sleep deprivation to add to the stress level. Idea being if you crack in basic, actual combat isn’t for you. Not getting any sleep for days is common (except for the air force). I’m thinking that if you want this to be “realistic” pseudo-military, do what the movies do. Get a consultant. I’m sure you have to have a friend who’s a vet, or who at least knows a vet. Do some homework. Granted, this isn’t standard military training. Private rooms? As if. Now if one thought of this as west point instead of basic training… but then that means she would be going the officer track. Whole bunch of other issues there…
2) as for her getting ptsd… a few nightmares after a traumatic event isn’t ptsd. If she’s still having them in a few months then yes. As for guilt over killing… she has already been around so much carnage and hasn’t batted an eye. Any travel down that road would only be to bring a forced moral lesson to the story. I see two possible reasons for ptsd. First is as stated, stranded and hunted. There were no panels of her being scared shitless and then overcoming that fear. Nothing of her trying to hide/ sleep there. Sure, these would be char development and not action panels, and one has to play to the audience. But one can’t rely on off-camera activities to give reason for plot developments. If it affects the story, it should be on camera. Simply put, she wasn’t there long enough for it to effect her. The other possibility is raw gore. Real death isn’t like the movies. Seeing it for the first time does affect people in different ways. Now I can understand not wanting to do nc-17 death scenes, but a image of her reacting to the Gore… closest she’s come to that was the magic vault with the break in. That didn’t give her nightmares…. So back to the fear reason then. Can’t have her being glib and funny, just to say how the event scarred her. Gallows humor sure, but not wacky.
Your comic of course, do as ya will. It’s only the write up at the bottom that had me comment at all. Trying to get a scale for severity of PTSD is a little crusade of mine. So do it, don’t do it. But if you ARE, the groundwork hasn’t been laid yet. I’m sure the next fight could scare her if you wanted t to be an angle. Her having died once already is a much more likely cause for ptsd then that the bad guy was really tall.
Me? Combat arms Army vet and also was a fire fighter/EMT.
For someone whose crusade is PTSD realism, you seem to be under a lot of assumptions about it. Ultimately Sydney has, absolutely, suffered more then enough to suffer PTSD. A quick google search alone with some very basic info on the subject is all you need to learn that PTSD can be caused by even the perceived threat can be enough, nonetheless the actual threat of death. Until she was stranded, Sydney was basically being watched by Superman in most of her going ons with the world of Supers. She might have felt threatened to a degree but might have also mitigated it. Being stranded without said superman on a hostile alien world alone for possibly the rest of her life while giant death monsters are trying to kill her? More then enough. And the symptoms can show up anywhere from months after to years after the traumatic event. This could be our first sign in comic. Going by what he said in the descriptor, my concern would be less that he’s not going to set it up right, and more that he doesn’t understand he’s pretty much started setting up a PTSD story line right here and now and making what Sydney went through here a regular thing would be all that’s needed to really set it up, as it were.
Oh I know the DSM IV-TR pretty well (that’s that manual for diagnosing mental disorders ( or it was untill the DSM V came out ( one could argue that it’s the manual for billing insurance companies… but that’s a major sidetrack (man I hope the 5 is less Freudian then the 4 )))) now granted I was painting with wide strokes there, always room for exceptions etc, but I stand by my points. She has seen way worse already, and this wouldn’t be her cause. Having some bad dreams about it? Sure. That the vault carnage or being killed once gets brushed off, but the alien world with giant monsters does it? And my crusade is for a severity scale for PTSD, not for it being realistically portrayed. It’s a superhero webcomic, if floating power orbs can happen, then she can get ptsd from stunning her toe. I just won’t think it’s as well written then is all.
Now let one of her friends get killed (and stays that way ) and we have a great excuse for it.
Peggy would be a much better candidate for it IMHO, with the lack of powers and losing the leg… but the last thing I want to do is dictate parameters to Dave there. That he’s giving her nightmares at all is a step most comics wouldn’t do and I applaud it. The ptsd angle alone wouldn’t have made me comment, more like a perfect storm of ideas caused me to stop lurking. I’m sure I’ll go back to it with the next page.
Where and when has she “seen way worse already” than having a horde of skyscraper-sized monsters try to nuke her to death while stranded on an alien world with no real hope of escape?
That’s a serious question, because that’s the foundational claim of your entire premise. Absent something at least resembling supporting evidence, your entire claim that she shouldn’t have PTSD from that encounter falls more than a little flat.
I find it interesting how many people seem to be unable to wrap their minds around how bad it would be for Archon to send their recruits to standard military basic training. It works in the real world because they can put the recruits on a base where just about everybody else is far better trained than them, and since there’s no super powers, that means the base staff are mostly immune to the recruits. The recruits don’t have a lot of lethal force available to them most of the time, and when they do, they’re watched closely.
If they could have an entire base staff made up of Maximas, it’s possible that could work with supers. But they don’t. Also, the entire base staff made up of Maximas would do nothing against Harem’s ability to teleport, and while it’s arguable whether Maxima could do anything against Halo’s shield, there’s basically nothing that she could do to stop a rampaging Halo that wouldn’t be likely lethal, because pretty much anything that could get through the shield would be fatal. (I know Harem isn’t a recruit now, but she was at one point.)
There’s also the aspect of wanting to retain the supers. They’re all there voluntarily, and have plenty of other opportunities for lucrative employment. It’s not like most military recruits who are there because it’s their only viable career option.
So while they definitely want to achieve the same goals, they have to go with a basic training lite, because they can’t afford to actually break people down to the extent that basic sometimes does. Winding up a regular human private to the point of taking a swing at their sergeant is fine. Winding up Halo to the point of blasting her sergeant with her PPO is not.
To expand on this comment ever so slightly, PTSD is considered as trauma reactions after about a month (some dr’s say more). In Sydney time (2-3 nights), she’d be experiencing something called Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), which can become PTSD. If she’s launching herself into a professional in this early game, she has a much higher chance of not experiencing full blown PTSD
https://www.bridgestorecovery.com/blog/acute-stress-disorder-vs-ptsd-how-they-differ-and-why-it-matters/
/sources
+2
when did Peggy start looking like Bryce Dallas Howard?
Maybe when DaveB learnt who he was
Plus, it’s been years since He last had to draw Peggy, his art-style has changed since then (just look at Peggy’s scars compared to how they originally looked: close butt not quite the same, and that little lock of hair in the front is gone)
she is. Bryce Dallas Howard is a girl. quite an attractive girl in a wolf-like way.
PTSD –
“Diagnosis criteria that apply to adults, adolescents, and children older than six include those below. Read more details here. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury…”
“The presence of one or more of the following:…”
“…-recurrent distressing dreams in which the content or affect (i.e. feeling) of the dream is related to the events”
Two or more of the following:
persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted,” “The world is completely dangerous”).
Two or more of the following marked changes in activity:
hypervigilance
difficulty falling or staying asleep or restless sleep
To my actual comment now. Please be careful throwing PTSD around as a ‘probably not’ thing before you understand it. As far as an actual diagnosis is concerned, all she needs is repeat offenses and one more tick to be considered diagnosed. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use PTSD but I’m saying if you, please portray it with as much realism as you do everything else. A lot of military people seem to like your comic and as someone who suffers PTSD and a friend whose turned a few of them toward your comic, and knows how hard it is for some people to take mental illness serious, it’s important this kind of stuff gets tackled maturely and realistically. PTSD is a real, serious thing and it really doesn’t need to be flashbacks in the middle of a day because a car backfired for you to have it.
Otherwise still love your stuff as much as ever.
You realise you are cutting and pasting academic dogma in a conversation with a varied group of people many of whom have dealt with the condition right?
I just want to make sure that you are clear on that before you continue in your current vein. Because you do not have more academic training on the topic, and many of the people you believe to be ignorant on the topic have experiential knowledge which tempers their academic training.
I’m copying and pasting a basic, vague, and very low detailed list of things which are, while not 100% agreed upon by the medical community, currently being used to diagnose and treat PTSD. I am also someone who was diagnosed with PTSD about a decade ago, so maybe don’t try and say ‘you don’t know’ when you, well, don’t know.
I am also someone who lives in a world where mental disorder is often looked upon as laziness and who finds moments like this by creators I like to be painfully obvious symptoms of the problem that is our culture in regards to mental disorders. ‘A touch of PTSD.’
You want to maybe jump down off your high horse, given that all I did was show a very basic way that Dave had already misunderstood PTSD, rather then complain about how I’m not going into the depth and current arguments circulating a medical community or particular community that you may be a part of. I honestly don’t care if your experiences differ, because it’s a mental health issue. Every mental health issue differs from a textbook. It doesn’t make the textbook useless and it doesn’t take away from the value of sharing said textbook, even the very basic ones, with someone who doesn’t understand the issue.
“Persistent” hasn’t been demonstrated, there hasn’t been time.
Looking at the actual DSM V definition, there are 8 PTSD diagnostic criteria, all of which must be met, and Sydney has only demonstrated three or four – stressor, alterations in arousal and reactivity (via hypervigilance and difficulty sleeping) and exclusion (not a non-trauma cause), with the fourth, functional significance (via distress), arguable. One of the criteria she doesn’t meet is explicitly that things must have been occurring for a month or more.
Agreed, DavidG. That is absolutely true. Hence my ‘all she needs is repeat offenses’ comment in my… comment. I need more words. Anyway, it is a big issue, but all the same your complaint rather misses the point. Dave, in his comment beneath the page, decided to say she might have a ‘Touch of PTSD’. It shows a lack of understanding of mental health issues so broad and misinformed, that one can have a touch of PTSD or any other mental illness, that I did not get into the details of the issue because that wasn’t needed to show how misinformed he could be about something. All I did was give the very basics, as found on a list which I matched with a dozen other lists, including one in a textbook I have from college (albeit that one is missing a few pieces, given how old it is), and then make a polite request that he do more research himself before he touches on the subject, given how dangerous it can be for people who actually suffer it to have media grossly misrepresent such issues. Particularly a media that is consumed by many of the people who actively suffer from PTSD and stigmatization of it in their daily lives, i.e. the military fans he has.
I’m not completely certain on actual military protocol; I’d never been in any combat scenarios where it was applicable, but I’m almost certain that they would have given someone in her situation some time off after the fact, if anything to recuperate and catch up with time difference. Hell, I’m surprised someone didn’t suggest a few days leave, certainly she’s accrued it.
The difference with Sydney and any other police officer or solider is that she cannot check her weapons in with the quartermaster and she has A LOT of firepower. Some R&R is certainly in order but it would be wise to first conduct a psyche evaluation and taking her for a jog is both good for her mental health and a subtle way to do that. If someone has something on their mind it’ll show in their body language and the more they’re moving the more obvious that body language will be.
I’m curious. If she tapes orbs to her feet will it count?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-98-triple-facepalm-and-sidebutt/
Which way did your curiosity lean? “Will someone answer with a link to the page in 2012 where this was explained?” Yes. “Will someone answer this question which has been asked and answered semi-monthly for years and years?” Yes.
Just a thought but how viable would it be to make a sort of hand brace that locks shut. Like a glove only on the back of her hands that locks up her fingers by pressing a button. Kinda like those knee brace things that only allow movement within a range. That way she doesn’t have to keep applying tape and it releases faster. The only tricky part would be finding out how much contact from the hands is needed because the small straps around fingers and such needed to hold the glove in place could be enough to prevent her from using the orbs.
Is this going to be a case where the Therapist, quits after the first session or Sydney Sydney suddenly finds her new room over in Arkham?
Sydney has emotional stress and is doing PT short on sleep.
Stress and PT short on sleep are not uncommon circumstances for recruits in basic training. But the particular kind of stress she’s under certainly is. Recruits are not normally trying to deal with stranded-on-a-battlefield-with-no-expectation-of-rescue-and-no-expectation-of-ever-coming-home-and-forced-into-lethal-combat stress. Both the amount and type of stress are profoundly different from what normal recruits in basic experience.
Heavy exercise and physical exhaustion can make perception less reliable and the feeling of vulnerability worse, at least in the short term. Both of those things elevate the risk of weapons being used inappropriately, and that’s one of the reasons why, early in training, recruits do not do their PT with loaded weapons.
This might be a good time to wrap the PPO in duck tape so it can’t be fired instantly. Syd by nature can’t be disarmed, but she could at least put a safety on it.
Peggy’s probably relieved that Syd asked to talk to a mental health pro about it. If she hadn’t, Peggy would have to order it after walking in on Sydney in her bubble fort sleep-deprived from nightmares.
As a combat vet who’s seen combat and 6years later still dealing with the PTSD and fallout from it, I’m actually incredibly happy to see it handled this way. It took me years to stop sleeping with a weapon under a pillow or strapped to my belt, and that feeling of ‘being vulnerable all the time’ never, ever, ever goes away.
It took me 4 years to ask for help, seeing Syd have the forethought to ask for help upfront actually made me super happy.
Keep working on it.
It may never completely go away but eventually it can be reduced and perhaps only affect you intermittently.
In some locations the VA has support groups which I assume that you know about, and there are twelve step programs for just about every bad coping method that can get out of hand.
Thanks for sharing.
Mind you the one thing which had me disappointed is that Maxima was not the one to reach out to Sydney. She has seen the signs (very very visible ones) that Sydney does need help.
However it is a fair reflection of society. Civilian or military it is typically the employee/soldier (etc) who has to initiate things like this. Plus, for Maxima in particular, she has the flaw that she forgets that objects have weight (by analogy) or (by extension) that squishy people need other kinds of help.
Or, I feel more likely (as Maxima is pretty well attuned) just that Sydney has beaten Maxima to the punch.
Something just occurred to me. If Sydney was to lose control of the breathing orb while sleeping, she could DIE and nobody would be able to do anything about it. She’s in an impenetrable shield, there’s no way to get air inside it. She could asphyxiate herself, pass out, and die.
Please don’t die, Sydney.
“So hey, I maybe, possibly, probably, have the highest kill count in Archon now. just, you know, processing that.
Also, does the military health insurance cover butt skin graphs, because that may also be a thing, that I need, with some urgency.”
NCO’s (non-commissioned offcers, the upper levels of enlistment) are usually the ones punishing, not being punished. Well, not in that way. NCO’s are usually punished clerically.
:-þ
So, you’d think the design wizards would have designed her some gloves that have finger and palm cutouts, and a little strap system that lets her grab a ball and strap it to her hand. It’d need to work one-handed, maybe a place she can grab with her teeth to open up the cradle. Or, heck, over design the thing and have little clamps that automatically extend and grab the ball. For bonus points, it could pull a ball in and eject the one she’s holding for instant swaps.
+3
Sounds like something Cora might want to take on as a challenge!