Betrayal: A Novel by John T. Lescroart

Author:John T. Lescroart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thrillers, Legal stories, Legal, Fiction, San Francisco (Calif.), Hardy; Dismas (Fictitious Character), Contractors, United States, Iraq, Glitsky; Abe (Fictitious Character), Iraq War; 2003, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-07-15T04:00:06+00:00

[20]

EVERETT WASHBURN STOOD in the center of the courtroom, addressing his first witness in the hearing on PTSD. Dr. Sandra Overton was a frizzy-haired, earnest psychiatrist in her mid-forties. She wore a dark blue business suit with low heels. She had already recited her credentials and experience as a psychiatrist—i.e., a medical doctor—specializing in veterans returning from active combat. “In your experience with these veterans, Doctor,” Washburn asked her, “have you run across a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD?”

She almost laughed at the question. “It’s pretty much all I work with.”

“Can you tell the Court exactly what it is, then?”

“Certainly.” She looked across at the prosecution table, where Mills sat with her hands folded in front of her, then around and up to where the judge sat on the bench. “It’s pretty much what the name says. It’s a psychiatric disorder that occurs after an episode of traumatic stress.”

“A psychiatric disorder? Do you mean it’s a mental illness?”

She shook her head. “That’s not really a descriptive term. Legally it would qualify as a disease, defect, or disorder. Medically it is more a range of continuing symptoms and reactions experienced by someone who’s endured a traumatic event. The key word being continuing.”

“In what way?”

“Well, almost everyone who experiences a traumatic event has a reaction to it. Shock, or depression, or insomnia. But with PTSD, the reaction first tends to be more serious and second, it persists for a lengthy period of time, sometimes forever. It becomes a disorder, not a reaction.”

“And what is a traumatic event, Doctor?”

Again, Overton shook her head. “There’s no one definition. What’s traumatic for one person might be relatively innocuous to another. But certainly traumatic events would tend to include military combat, serious accidents, crimes such as rape, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, and the like.”

“Military combat?”

“Yes. Very commonly. Although the disorder wasn’t much studied until after the Vietnam War. Before then, when people talked about it at all, it was usually called Da Costa’s syndrome. But since Vietnam, estimates of soldiers with combat experience suffering from PTSD have run as high as thirty percent.”

“And what are some symptoms commonly associated with PTSD?”

“One of the main symptoms is a reliving of the original traumatic experience through either flashbacks, or in nightmares. Beyond that, there’s insomnia, of course, and a sense of disconnect with life. Then depression, memory and cognition issues, abusive and self-destructive behavior. A huge range of personal and societal problems, actually.”

“Doctor, you referred to abusive and self-destructive behavior. Could this include alcohol abuse?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And memory issues? Do you mean blackouts?”

“Yes. Blackouts are not uncommon, especially if coupled with excessive drinking or drug use or both.”

“I see.” Washburn acted as though he were hearing all of this for the very first time in his life. Now he moved a step closer to his witness. “Doctor, is there a physical component to PTSD? Or is it simply what a layman might just call a mental problem?”

As Washburn intended, this question kept Overton from becoming lulled in her relatively straightforward recounting.

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