What does being shell-shocked really mean?
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So for the origin of the shell-shocked, it goes back to ww1. Many many soldiers developed PTSD as a result of their experiences fighting. There was a lot of artillery and bombings (which were referred to as shells and shelling). So the people who got PTSD and later would react to loud noises, it got called shell-shock. They literally looked shocked when they heard it, before having whatever physical response they would have (eg catatonic, running, screaming). Reading that bit back it sounds horrible but put it like this but it is that people have different responses in those scenarios and don’t want to go into details here
As time has gone on we have learned more about the problem and given it a better descriptive term, post traumatic stress disorder. We have also learned that it’s not just the meltdowns in response to a trigger that people can have, but much much more that they experience.
Because she’ll shock was so common following ww1, it became a common term. And as it was semi-descriptive, the general public could understand it, so used it. Gradually the term would get used to describe someone who has frozen or had a change in activity in response to something major, be that anything from a sudden loud noise, to a new dad with the look of “oh my god, my baby has just been born” (I’ve worked in maternity hospital so this is a look I see a lot!). It’s no longer used by the medical profession
Tldr: term comes from wwi and was term used for the previously unrecognised/poorly recognised condition PTSD which was a result of experiences being shelled (bombed) during the fighting. Later went on to mean a sudden but transient change in behaviour in response to any sudden event
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