How to Increase Paranoia

Newsweek, June, 2007 by Kevin Peraino

Israelis have always been something of a reluctant authority on the subject of posttraumatic stress. Experts estimate that 15 percent of the Jewish state's combat wounded--more than 3,000 vets--suffer from some form of the disorder. It's unclear how much PTSD costs the country each year, but one veteran of Israel's Yom Kippur war, who didn't want to be identified to protect his privacy, told NEWSWEEK that he gets roughly $2,000 per month. His symptoms, he says, began with headaches and nightmares, and later developed into severe asocial behavior. "I didn't understand what was happening to me," he recalls. Eventually he began avoiding even the most benign gatherings like barbecues, he says, because they reminded him of "the barbecue of human beings." At times, he felt as if he were...

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