Category Archives: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Sex is Therapy for Some Combat Vets

For some combat veterans, physical intimacy acts as therapy because it triggers positive brain chemicals that reduce stress, build safety, and combat emotional numbness. These veterans may use intense physical and sexual stimulation to briefly dull or escape persistent emotional pain, intrusive thoughts, and combat-related trauma.

Combat veterans who engage in high-risk sexual behavior in countries like Thailand despite the threat of imprisonment are often driven by complex psychological factors, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), compulsive sexual behavior (CSB), and trauma-induced impulsivity. Research from the VA Office of Research and Development shows that veterans have considerably more behavioral addictions than the general population, often engaging in extreme risk-taking as an unhealthy coping mechanism to manage severe psychological distress.

https://www.research.va.gov/currents/0617-study_yields_insight_on_sexual_disorder.cfm

The chronic adrenaline and high-alert state caused by combat exposure can alter the brain’s threat and drive systems. This prompts certain people to pursue intense experiences to achieve a sense of typical arousal or dominion.

https://www.swords-to-plowshares.org/toolbox-article/common-mental-and-behavioral-health-conditions

How Intimacy Helps Some Combat Veterans

Oxytocin release: Sex and close touch release oxytocin, a brain chemical that lowers fear and builds trust.

A sense of being grounded: Reassuring contact aids a detached mind in returning to the present.

Reducing isolation: PTSD often makes people feel cut off from others; physical closeness restores a human connection.

Reclaiming joy: It replaces memories of war and danger with a positive, shared human experience.

The Varied Impact of Trauma on Individuals

Not a universal rule: Loving sex is not therapy for every combat veteran. Many vets struggle with avoidance, anger, or being triggered during sex.

Shared struggles: Both survivors of abuse and combat veterans can experience hyperarousal (high anxiety), emotional numbing, or pain because their nervous systems are stuck in “survival mode.”

The role of safety: Healing depends on mutual trust and consent. If a partner is insecure or under duress, intimacy can result in damage rather than recovery, irrespective of the nature of the trauma.

“Clinical research demonstrates a complex picture. While some veterans view sexual intimacy as a comforting ‘means to an end’ to manage symptoms, the data repeatedly shows that PTSD often disrupts intimacy. Emotional numbing, hyper-vigilance, and trauma-focused medications commonly make physical closeness a significant challenge for veterans.”

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/specific/ptsd_family.asp

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2783889

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/01/01/507749611/for-veterans-trauma-of-war-can-persist-in-struggles-with-sexual-intimacy

https://www.research.va.gov/currents/spring2015/spring2015-3.cfm

Combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may take sexual risks to cope with emotional numbness, recreate adrenaline highs, or self-regulate intense internal distress.

Why Risk-Taking Happens

In Search of Excitement: PTSD commonly leads to emotional detachment or a lack of sensation (anhedonia). High-risk sexual behavior can trigger a massive surge of adrenaline, allowing veterans to for a short time perceive a sense of intensity or aliveness that everyday life lacks.

Some individuals unconsciously search for turbulent, perilous, or pivotal scenarios because it matches the known nervous system excitement they felt while serving.

Handling Negative Feelings: Research indicates that sudden increases in unhappiness or bad moods often result in unwise sexual behavior. Sex becomes a maladaptive coping mechanism to distract from or soothe painful memories, anxiety, or depression.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4684959

Substance Use Impairment: Many veterans deal with co-occurring alcohol or substance use disorders. Intoxicants lower inhibitions and impair judgment, thereby causing reckless or high-risk decisions.

Compulsive Behaviors: Trauma is linked to compulsive sexual behaviors, where the act functions as a powerful psychological reinforcement loop to briefly escape core PTSD symptoms like hypervigilance or intrusive thoughts.

Compulsive Sexual Behavior Among Military Veterans

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-debrief/201802/why-do-veterans-have-issues-sex-and-intimacy

Locations such as Pattaya, Thailand, at first grew as Rest and Recreation (R&R) locations throughout the Vietnam War, establishing a heritage of a military environment and easily available adult amusement.

Despite prostitution being completely prohibited by Thai legislation, its application can vary in significant tourist destinations, causing people to undervalue the real danger of being apprehended and facing serious legal repercussions.

U.S. Troops are Speaking Out — Adam Kinzinger Explains What They’re Saying

The next link leads to a post I recently published on one of my other blogs. The two are related!

Sphincter Police

“Usually starting one of the genre, I find the overwhelming right of center or further right political beliefs. This time, with centralist politics, the story is more on the action than the politics. A good, well-balanced read.” | Michael Wooten – Five Stars – with more than 360 reviews on Goodreads

START READING

“We Know Where You Live! — Leave the Country or Sleep!”

I was up today before 0400. Sleep is a challenge. Since 1966, it always has been

When I sleep, my subconscious takes me to times and places I don’t want to revisit. That’s why I’m sitting here at 0519 writing this blog post when I should be trying to slumber for another hour or two.

I write in my thriller novels about violence and what it does to our minds and bodies. I do that every day for an hour or more.  I do that to avoid thinking about 1966, the year I spent in Vietnam in combat. A Marine. A field radio operator.

When I’m awake, I seldom think about that time or talk about what happened over there.

Before I sighed and surrendered to escape the demons waiting to pounce if I attempted to sleep again, I left the bed, thinking about the vital and dangerous job I had driving a Jeep in Vietnam and one specific day after one of our gun companies had been seriously hit.

Serving as a 2531 Field Radio Operator with the 1st Marine Tank Battalion in 1966, meant I was likely driving an M151 MUTT configured as an MRC-83 or MRC-110 communication jeep, stripped down, no armor, for maximum speed and visibility without doors or a weapons mount. We often drove along muddy, unpaved roads with a high risk of landmines or ambushes. The space behind the two front seats was filled with a combat radio. One of our M48 Pattons had hit a one of those IEDs, powerful enough to lift an almost 51-ton tank into the air before it dropped back down, blowing off its tracks. They crew survived with broken ear drums.

The next day, I drove that jeep to Charlie Company’s forward operating base, racing down one of those muddy one lane roads through a jungle behind a tanker truck carying a full load of fuel for the gun company’s tanks. They needed a resupply because the fuel they’d had blew up the night before when their base was overrun, ending in Martines fighting hand to hand with knives in their skivvies in the rain and mud.

I drove the jeep. A staff sergeant sat in the other seat making himself as small as possible as bullets snapped past us through the open cab.

During Donald John Trump’s first year in the White House, I received an old fashioned, unsigned letter in the mail with no return address. The postage stamp revealed it had been mailed from Florida. I live in California.

It said, “We Know where you live?”

After Trump won the 2024 election, the same or another Trump loyalist MAGA member sent me an email or left a comment on one of my blogs warning me to “Leave the Country or Sleep!”

I don’t like to sleep.

Start Reading The Patriot Oath to swear fidelity today!

I took an oath when I joined the US Marines to defend this country against the likes of Trump and MAGA. I’m not leaving. You may understand why if you read the one-star reviews for The Patriot Oath.

Refreshing the Josh Kavanagh Thrillers

UPDATED July 19, 2026: After a day or two and a few hours learning how to talk to an AI, this is the new cover for The Patriot Oath. So new, I haven’t had time to replace the old cover on the book’s Amazon page yet. That will happen later today and take time for Amazon to process before it appears.

ORIGINAL POST STARTS HERE

Here’s the final cover. I had to learn how to talk to an AI first and I’m a slow learner. But I finally got there and haven’t had time to replace the old cover on the books Amazon page yet.

“The primary reason to update a successful thriller series is to drive new sales by aligning the books with evolving design trends and online discovery habits, such as those on social platforms. This ‘rebranding’ strategy expands the target demographic and boosts visual recognition.” SOURCE: Jane Friedman

The Patriot Oath | published July 2, 2021
Never for Glory | June 23, 2023
Fiddling with Death | February 10, 2025

On July 13, 2026, orders for the series reached 7,474 eBooks, 135 print, and 1,592,394 KENP reads 

— The Patriot Oath’s future Cover Under Construction —

Earlier this month, my editor for the Josh Kavanagh Thriller series recommended a “new” website called Book Leopard, and I took a look. Impressed with what I learned from what was offered free, I decided to give it a try and paid $49 for one credit. 

I think Book Leopard offers a one-stop shop for authors to not only come up with a new book cover working with the site’s AI generator, but to provide a list of benefits that, in the past, took “me” years, months and weeks to learn while using multiple sites and never-ending research to produce.

At this time, my focus is the new covers for all three books in the series, and I’m still learning to work with their AI. The wordless cover above is for The Patriot Oath.  The text was there from the beginning, and then I asked the AI to remove the words.

I think asking the AI to do that will make it easier to add a public domain image of George Washington Crossing the Delaware, similar to how it was done on The Patriot Oath’s original cover. Most, who have read the book, may not know the image is there. It’s sort of camouflaged in the background behind the word OATH and my name. For me, that image is symbolic and readers don’t have to know it’s there.

George Washington was the first person to take the presidential oath to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic, but he did not write it himself. The specific language of the presidential oath was drafted and proposed during the Constitutional Convention in 1787 by delegates James Madison and George Mason.

As soon as “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” is added to the background near the bottom of the new cover image above, I’ll ask Book Leopard’s AI to put the words listed below back.

A JOSH KAVANAGH THRILLER
THE PATRIOT OATH
&
LLOYD LOFTHOUSE

If that goes smoothly, George Washington will be in his boat, lurking in the shadows behind my name.

Here’s what Book Leopard offers for the price of one credit (at this time $49).

Book Leopard is an interactive site where authors/editors guide the site’s AI to generate most of what’s needed to get an already written novel’s draft ready to publish and promote. Still, their AI cannot do the work alone. The author/editor must be part of the process. I think this AI is going to help authors/editors avoid weeks, months and even years of learning, work and eye strain, and get it done in a very short period of time.

The Price of One Credit Gets All of This for One Book

·      For any Genre

·    A spectacular cover

·      An amazing description

·      A great subtitle

·      3 Kindle categories

·      3 Amazon paperback categories

·      3 categories for non-Amazon sites

·      7 search keywords

·      Attention-grabbing text for advertising

·      12 Kindle categories for targeting Amazon book ads

·      12 paperback categories for targeting Amazon book ads

·      300+ keywords for targeting Amazon book ads

·      100 ASINs for targeting Amazon book ads

Fiddling with Death is OUT!

Launching Fiddling with Death

How to tell the real heroes from the hero-wannabes.

“Democracy”: A War Hero Who Deserves To be Honored

Like Frankie McGrath, I wasn’t a baby killer

My review of this realistic, historical action suspense thriller will join hundreds of thousands already on Amazon and Goodreads. Still, how many of those ratings and reviews were written by Vietnam combat vets who were there?

Soon after this novel was released, The Women was mentioned in my VA PTSD support group that meets every Wednesday morning. This support group may differ from many since half are women that served in the Air Force, the Navy, with one a Marine, who served in the Middle East. In combat!

Later that day, I saw The Women at Costco and bought a hardcover.

The main character in this novel is a young Army nurse, and the first half of this brutal combat story mostly takes place in Vietnam. Although Frankie McGrath was an Army nurse saving lives in a field medical unit beyond the front lines, and not behind them, she didn’t fight in combat. Yet she was in combat, every moment, awake or asleep. I’m going to explain what I mean soon.

For me, reading this historical fiction became a triggered journey back in time.  And I started losing sleep, waking at the slightest sound. Alert, ready to fight.

Remembering!

And by the time I finished reading, I was angry.

My DD214, a form we get when we leave the military and return to civilian life, had one entry that said I’d gone on one major military operation for a few days during 1966.  Yet I was in combat almost daily after climbing down that net (like the kind used on D-Day during World War II) on the side of a Navy transport ship, jumping the last few feet into a landing craft that took us Marines ashore. As we landed, fighting was taking place not that far from our location on the beach. And a few hours later, the first night we were there, my company was hit before we’d finished setting up our base camp.  We had no wire surrounding us yet, and none of the bunkers had been completed.

All of Southern Vietnam was a war zone. It didn’t matter if you were inside the wire, in a bunker, we were always in the war. No place was safe. We didn’t have to go out on a major field operation to find the war. It found us almost nightly and sometimes in daylight.

Frankie McGraths’ medical unit was inside the wire, protected by bunkers, almost all the time, yet her unit was also under attack, as VC or North Vietnamese mortar rounds dropped in without warning, looking for random kills.

Like me, McGrath has some close calls inside the bunkers and wire. Like me, she lost friends. Like me, she came home to protestors calling her a baby killer. And she shot no one. Instead, she saved lives, even Vietnamese citizens, including children.  She was a nurse.  Not a US Marine rifleman. Not a grunt like me.

Some protestor in the story spit on her once she returned to the States. I’d heard about that when I came home in December 1966, but being spit on didn’t happen to me.

McGrath suffered from PTSD as I did, and we still do. Yet when she went to the VA for help, she was told no women served in Vietnam and she couldn’t have PTSD. They sent her back home.  When she returned to the VA later, after a traumatic episode of PTSD, and tried to join a group of combat vets to share her trauma with, the men told her she couldn’t stay because she couldn’t be a combat vet. No women served in Vietnam. She left again, with no support.

And yet thousands of military women served in Vietnam.

Maybe what happened to McGrath is like what happened to me.

Her being told women didn’t serve in Vietnam reminded me of something someone working in VA-mental health care said to me after 2005.  I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something like, Your PTSD can’t be that bad, since you only went on one military operation.

WTF!

Like McGrath, VC mortar shells dropped into my base camp without warning to kill at random. One time, in daylight, a sniper almost took me out. The round grazing my left ear. An inch further to the right, my body might have been shipped home with a Purple Heart my parents could hang on a wall in the same case the folded US flag arrived in.

Then, unlike McGrath, there were the night patrols and ambushes outside the wire that were not part of a major military operation, that were not mentioned on my DD214.

Or that mad dash with sniper rounds snapping past us while we drove at top speed through the jungle, me in an unarmored jeep with no doors on a one lane dirt road to reach a forward artillery base outside the division perimeter that had been hit hard and needed to be resupplied before they got hit again.  While I was there, they got hit again, a rain of mortar shells and rockets, when one Marine lost his life, decapitated by a rocket.

I recommend reading The Women for the reality it paints and when you finish the story, read the author’s notes, to learn that about 10,000 women served in Vietnam, many just like McGrath.

Lloyd Lofthouse is the author of military action suspense thrillers: The Patriot Oath, Never for Glory, and Running with the Enemy, a novel placed in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Introducing my NEW website and Writer’s blog

This link will lead you to the first post on my new Writer’s blog. The title is Accused of Attacking Trump and Conservatives.

The first paragraph says, “Obvious Trump supporters and/or conservatives have sent me emails, accusing me of being unfair regarding former President Trump and attacking American conservatives. They were referring to my thriller The Patriot Oath.”

The new Website’s link is: Lloyd Lofthouse

The menu to the right of Lloyd Lofthouse has three new pages following links from my older blogs that are still on WordPress, and one of the new ones is the new Writer’s Blog:

iLookChina

Crazy is Normal

The Soulful Veteran

A Writer’s Blog

About Lloyd

Portfolio

Josh Kavanagh Thriller Series launched with Never for Glory

He’d give his life for his country. But this time, it’s personal.

Josh Kavanagh burns for vengeance. Parachuting with no backup into a lawless area of southern Venezuela, the Special Ops legend is intent on hunting down the rogue agent who put his wife in a coma. But as soon as he gets feet on the ground, the loyal protector discovers he’s dropped into a trap… and a sex trafficking operation run by the Russian mob.

Fighting his way out and desperate to rescue the victims with minimal body count, Josh plans a daring raid on a remote ranch. But after learning the identity of the mastermind behind the hit on a former lover, the talented operative takes the law into his own hands on a hell-bent solo mission for revenge…

Will Josh’s single-minded thirst for justice finish on the wrong side of a gun barrel?

Never for Glory is the pulse-pounding second book in the Josh Kavanagh thriller series. If you like determined heroes, tough conflict ripped from the headlines, and page-turning action, then you’ll love Lloyd Lofthouse’s pursuit of payback.

Buy Never for Glory to retaliate with deadly force today!

The first thriller in this series was The Patriot Oath.

“Here’s a pull quote from Chuck Yarling’s 1-star review on Amazon. “Once you started reading it, this was one book that was absolutely hard to put down. It has great characters, action galore, and about a group whose mission is to preserve the American republic. That made it hard not to put it my top ten books I read this year!”

“Yes, it was a gem right up to the near-end …”

He fought for his country. Now he’s home and engaged in the deadliest of battles.

Josh Kavanagh eats and breathes loyalty. Wary of how he’ll fit in after a twenty-four-year absence, the Special Forces legend returns to his family’s Montana ranch on an undercover mission. And though he’s anxious to see the high school sweetheart he abandoned a lifetime ago, the dedicated Marine’s greatest concern is tracking down a dangerous neo-Nazi cell.

Juggling unresolved feelings for the woman he left behind, a sister expecting him to avenge her brutal rape, and keeping his own covert activities secret, Josh discovers the threat to the US is bigger than anyone previously thought. And when a member of his team goes MIA and the danger creeps perilously close to home, the talented military man fears he’ll lose everything he holds dear…

With a tangled web of corruption pulling deadly strings, can he blow a conspiracy apart without paying the ultimate price?

The Patriot Oath is the riveting first book in the Josh Kavanagh thriller series. If you like war-hardened heroes, action-packed fight scenes, and powerful political agendas, then you’ll love Lloyd Lofthouse’s gripping adventure.

Buy The Patriot Oath to swear fidelity today!

Raise your hand or honk your Horn if you Love Long COVID

UPDATE on April 24, 2023

“Even if 1 percent of cases lead to long Covid, “that’s still a disaster because so many people are still getting infected all the time.” – Vox.com

Original post:

Last week, I had a physical therapy appointment at the VA. Everyone was required to wear masks because many military veterans have compromised immune systems… that may not be the only reason.

This week, I had a follow up exam from an oral surgery (tooth removed about two months ago). The VA does not cover my dental, so my dentists are in the private sector. I have no dental insurance, so I have to pay 100% for that.

No one at that dental office was wearing a mask but me. It seems this dentist’s office and its staff has had enough with COVID, even though COVID isn’t done with us yet.

I complained and kept my mask on. I pointed out that as a combat vet on the Agent Orange list my immune system may be compromised and I’d rather be dead than end up living with Long COVID. I was being nice when I complained. No “F” bombs. No loud rage!

“As of January 16, 2023, 15% of all adults in the US reported having had long COVID symptoms at some point and 6% reported current symptoms.”

Rates of Long COVID in the U.S. Have Declined Since June of 2022

Does anyone reading this know what long COVID can do to us? I do. I’d rather be dead than have to live like that.

Nearly One in Five American Adults Who Have Had COVID-19 Still Have “Long COVID”

Think again if you think your are safe from COVID because you already had it.

“Some people have a false sense of security after getting COVID-19, thinking they can’t get reinfected,” Dr. Varga says. “In truth, anyone may test positive for COVID-19 any number of times.”

How Many Times Can You Get COVID?

“In 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 331.4 million people living in the United States; more than three-quarters (77.9%) or 258.3 million were adults, 18 years or older.” You do the math to discover how many adults may be walking around without a mask that are infected with COVID at any given time.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Census,from%20234.6%20million%20in%202010.

The POTS Update (10-19-23)

I’ve been reading about the increase in POTS cases associated with COVID infections. POTS is something I’ve never heard of until recently. I went on a COSTCO supply run and was one of a handful of hundreds of shoppers and employees wearing a mask.

As I was shopping, I thought about POTS, a crippling disease that has increased during the COVID pandemic, that most people are pretending is no longer a threat. I even had a couple of maskless shoppers stare at me as if I was the freak because I was wearing a mask.

Still, COVID isn’t done with us yet!

“POTS is marked by orthostatic intolerance, a sudden reduction in blood flow returning to the heart after a person rises or stands. Common symptoms include feeling lightheaded, faint, and having an increased heart-rate after standing. Treatments may include consuming salt tablets, staying hydrated, wearing compression stockings, and taking certain medications.”

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2022/researchers-study-links-between-covid-and-pots

Living with PTSD One Day at a Time – a book review

If combat or abuse of any kind, mental or physical, has traumatized you, I’m suggesting you read this memoir, even if it is the only one you real in your life. If you hate to read, then listen to the audiobook. Geeze, no excuses! You may also want to read this memoir if you know someone with PTSD. Then, you may understand what life is like for them.

At first, I was going to title this review Traumatized in Nairobi. After I was halfway through Meyli Chapin’s memoir Terrorist Attack Girl, I have done little but think of what I’d write in this review. I woke up thinking about it. I thought about her story while exercising. And I think about it before I sleep and when I’m sleeping. The only time I didn’t think about it was when I was reading.

While reading her memoir, I virtually joined Meyli in her hotel room in Nairobi. Apparently, I wasn’t there, but my mind didn’t know that.

Her terror and fear became my terror and fear. When she talked about not wanting her little brother to know what was happening to her, that terrorists might murder her, I cried and laughed. When the two guys that probably were Navy Seals knocked on her door 17 hours into the attack on that hotel, I laughed again.

Meyli divided her story between brief scenes in the hotel room (regular print) and scenes taking place after the attack (ATA): in the US Consulate in Kenya and back in the states (italicized print). I think this was a stroke of genius, sharing the trauma of that terrorist attack and what happened to her later when she thought the nightmare was over, often on the same page. And every ATA scene mirrors what I’ve experienced with fucking PTSD in the last 55 years, helping me make sense of what happened to me back then.

To survive ATA, Meyli is learning, as I did, how to manage her PTSD so it doesn’t eat her, and I suspect she may learn to live one day at a time, too, if she hasn’t already.

Terrorist Attack Girl

Meyli, back in the 1970s after I graduated college with a BA in journalism, I was still drinking heavily. One afternoon, I sat on the floor in my living room with the barrel of a loaded sniper rifle in my mouth, ready to pull the trigger to end it all. I did not know what fucking PTSD was and what was happening to me. It was a desperate attempt to get rid of that never ending nightmare.

I snipped off the safety getting ready to fire and looked out the screen door one last time to see a teenager wearing headsets dancing as he moved down the sidewalk. That image stopped me from squeezing the trigger.

I thought, Dear God, if I do this, I might miss that kind of happy moment. So, instead, I learned to live one day at a time and bless each day as I turned off the lights, only to thank God when I woke up to a new dawn to live another one. Thanks to that dancing teen on that sidewalk, I have experienced many great days with laughter in them. The drinking didn’t help. In fact, the booze made the fucking PTSD worse, so I stopped in 1982, and became a vegan. Also, I now belong to two PTSD support groups that Meetup each week, through the VA.

As a former US Marine and combat veteran living with fucking PTSD since 1966, I could easily have written a book about Chapin’s memoir, but I did not want to turn this review into a story about me. The fucking PTSD still lurks waiting to pounce if triggered, along with the loaded pump shotgun I keep by my bed. Without that weapon, I touch each night before I turn out the lights. I couldn’t sleep. As it is, I think this review may be too long.

Meyli’s memoir taught me that the fucking PTSD I’ve lived with for so long isn’t my fault. That revelation lifted a heavy burden weighted by guilt off my mind. Somehow, I feel lighter, almost floating through each day.

But I’m still living one day at a time. Thank you for sharing that slice of your life with the world, Meyli.

NOTE: Amazon rejected this review the first time I submitted it, because I used the word fucking one time as an adjective describing what that acronym means to me. Once I removed that word, Amazon accepted the review without any other changes.

As you may have noticed here on my Blog, I added more fucking PTSDs to make up for that example of legal corporate censorship by an app programed to reject the use of certain words.