What does being shell-shocked really mean?
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It’s basically an outdated term for PTSD. In WWI they discovered that way more soldiers returned from the trenches with severe mental health problems than in previous wars, so it must have been caused by something that was new to this war.
Doctors at the time thought it was brain damage caused by having lots of artillery shells going off near you (while artillery wasn’t new, the sheer amount employed in WWI was), so they called it “shell shock”. Today, it is usually seen as PTSD caused by the unprecedented intensity of trench warfare.
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