Sheepdog Tip of the Day, Before Combat tip 153
The zealous Stoic would say that you should be unaffected by this; it was not within your control. The ideal of Stoicism is very different from the reality of human emotion and interaction. Anyone who is emotionally healthy will be affected by the death of a seven-year-old. However, affected does not have to mean traumatized. We have already discussed acute stress reactions and learned that we can experience those reactions without being affected by PTSD. Even if we do not experience any of the aforementioned acute stress symptoms such as anxiety, sleep disruption, anger, or avoidance, if we are normally psychologically adapted, we should experience some feeling of sorrow or grief.
Christopher Brennan, The Combat Position: Achieving Firefighter Readiness
Sheepdog Tip of the Day services:
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Other killology services:
Bullet Proof Mind for the Armed Citizen Seminar
The Killology web site
Additional Resources
For PTSD, Shepherd Resource Group.