Atrocities are horrible, but to our bodies and brains they are experienced as very very stressful events. You can get PTSD from going off to war without ever seeing atrocities. The daily stress level in the war environment is too high for most people to handle without causing problems.
And so too is the daily stress level for most startup founders... There is a general high stress level involved in the day to day running of a business (particularly if you don't have prior experience doing it), but sometimes horrible things can happen in a business that make stress levels go through the roof.
I can't prove it, but I don't think it's too far off to say that the stress reaction founders experience at the really difficult points of their startup experience IS actually comparable to the stress reaction experienced by soldiers witnessing a horrible atrocity.
Being betrayed by a co-founder or investor. Having key employees quit. Lawsuits. Running out of cash.
the two years I spent in Job Corps was enough give me PTSD. There was no one event that caused it. It was simply being in a stressful environment surrounded by the dumbest mother fuckers ever to claw their way out of a vagina (staff included). I have flashbacks, near constant depression, and bouts of rage that I simply turn inwards as more depression. I guess what I am saying is that it isn't just seeing combat that can fuck you up. (Not that I am in any way trivializing people who have PTSD from combat, just pointing out that, to our brains, it doesn't seem to matter)
And so too is the daily stress level for most startup founders... There is a general high stress level involved in the day to day running of a business (particularly if you don't have prior experience doing it), but sometimes horrible things can happen in a business that make stress levels go through the roof.
I can't prove it, but I don't think it's too far off to say that the stress reaction founders experience at the really difficult points of their startup experience IS actually comparable to the stress reaction experienced by soldiers witnessing a horrible atrocity.
Being betrayed by a co-founder or investor. Having key employees quit. Lawsuits. Running out of cash.