Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or just Susto

By Franco

October 12, 2014

Those who do the thinking for us concoct all kinds of fancy science-fiction sounding labels that are supposed to impress us into stupor or at the least convince us we are smart moderns.  One of these clinical labels is "post-traumatic stress disorder."  For thousands of years the Native-Mexican culture has been aware of, "Neomoutli," or as it is called in Spanish, "Mal  de Susto." Translated into English it is simply: Fear-Sickness. Traditional Native-Mexican medicine recognized that fear had the capacity to cause illness, both mental and physical, and if not treated could lead to death.  Most of that native medicine is now lost to oblivion, but a few practices remain in Mexican culture. Some of the rituals still practiced today are for example: the "limpia," usually it is performed by passing the afflicted through the vela (candle), or the use of an egg to cleanse the afflicted. These rituals are mostly for children who have experienced some type of fear.  Mal-de-Susto experienced by adults especially soldiers in combat require more intense rituals.  The fear-sickness is more severe in these cases.  In Native-Mexican culture, returning warriors practiced purification rituals to protect them from the ill-effects of fear provoked by the proximity of death in combat.  It is unfortunate that most Mexican-American veterans as they have now become "Hispanics" no longer have recourse to these traditions, to heal and protect them from fear-sickness.   

The Worth-Heights area of south-side Fort Worth was full of veterans in the early 1970s, combat vets from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  They met after work during the hot summer Texas evenings to enjoy cold Schlitz beer and recount their combat experiences.  Jesse, a World War II vet, recalled the gruesome cannibals of New Zealand, they hunted the Japanese, decapitated and displayed Japanese heads as trophies, cannibalizing the headless corpses.  Jesse's own trophies were two samurai swords (Katanas) captured from the Japanese enemy.  With tears, Jesse described the devastating effect of terror on his fellow soldiers.  Some men were so paralyzed with fear they refused to leave their fox-holes, defecating and urinating on themselves, many of them had to be shot by their own buddies to prevent giving away their positions through the wailing of despair.  Jesse tasted the nearness of death when his company was wiped out in an ambush.  Jesse was among the corpses, completely immobile, evading detection while the Japanese enemy finished off wounded survivors.  Thirst, hunger, and exhaustion finally broke his endurance.  Jesse made a final determination to end his life in a suicide rush against the Japanese waiting to dispatch him.  As he rose from the dead, Jesse heard English speakers, it was an American infantry company, the Japanese were gone.  Jesse experienced "Mal de Susto," fear sickness, spending more than a year in a stupor, speechless, his mind in and out of blackouts.  Eventually he returned to normal life, but resorted to self-medication through whiskey and cold Schlitz beers until the end of his long life.

Marcelo never recovered from severe fear-sickness. He was a Korean War veteran. He marched around the Worth-Heights neighborhood, saluting invisible officers, digging foxholes in vacant lots.  On Sundays he guarded the entrance to the Immaculate Heart of Mary church, saluting parishioners as they passed through the front gate of the church.  Kids would taunt Marcelo, he chased them, but never harmed anyone.  He had retained his ability to to play guitar, something he had learned as a teenager before going to combat.  When veterans like Marcelo were no longer welcome in society, he was picked up and whisked away, never to be seen again in the neighborhood.

One of the biggest obstacles to healing veterans with fear-sickness is that our society is in denial about fear.  Instead of admitting that we are afraid, we say that we are stressed out, we are anxious, or experiencing PTSD.  It is taboo to admit that you are afraid.  You are not to be afraid of the suicidal traffic, you are not to be afraid of the cut-throat economy, you are not to be afraid of illness, and least of all not afraid of death.  The truth is that most people in our society are scared out of their wits, paranoid and sick with fear.  Theis the type of society that veterans are returning to.  A society in which veterans are not sick with fear, but have PTSD.  If you ask an uncorrupted child what he feels when hurt, he will simply respond:  “I am afraid.”  If we can recover some of that innocent sincerity, then maybe we can start to recognize that fear is a problem in our lives and society, and then do something to change this.  Veterans can then return to a more healthy society in which they don't have to deny their fear with fancy labels.