Nailed again | Power Line

I’m so old, the State of the Union Address is past my bedtime. That’s a joke, kind of, but it reminds me. A perceptive reader has called me out for lying in “Only yesterday” earlier this week. He writes:

In his essay [sic] “Only yesterday”, Mr. Johston [sic] states that he “suffered PTSD reading Robert F. Kennedy’s Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That assertion is implausible. The criteria for diagnosing PTSD require that at least six months have passed since the trauma and that symptoms persist for at least one month. Perhaps Mr. Johston read the essay [sic] more than six months ago and had symptoms for at least one month. But was he exposed to death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in any of the following ways, as a diagnosis requires?

• By direct exposure
• By witnessing the trauma
• By learning that the trauma happened to a close relative or close friend
• By indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

Of course not. It would be appropriate for Mr. Johston [sic] to publish a retraction.

Nailed again. Bobby Kennedy’s memoir did not cause me PTSD. I actually enjoyed it when I read it as a college student many years ago. I confess — to attempted humor.