High caliber or elite level (think national or world class level) athletes don't get to that point by training without rest and recovery. While they will have cycles of intense training, they also get to sleep in great beds, eat great food, and get the best in recovery aids (think massage, cold tanks, etc). I don't remember any of that being the case in the service...
I think you are dead on with that post!
During my few years of service in the military - I participated in what some people may or may not refer to as "
a deployment" and rarely - if ever - did I have access to what might be described as great beds, great food, and great recovery aids.
Now - with that said - there are a few things I've noticed over the years:
-alcoholics 'build a tolerance' to booze
-drug addicts 'build a tolerance' to drug
-adrenaline junkies chase increasingly dangerous pursuits
So what? The remainder of this post is PURE conjecture and has no basis in science, or fact based medical reseach - much like Saint Anthony Faucis position on wearing masks and making six-feet the standard for soical distancing during the during the pandemic.
...thats the so what.
So, here we go:
Athletes and law enforcement live lifestyles that may or may not cause them extended periods of high stress and high fatigue - but it is usually on a schedule. Then, once the game is over, or their shift is over, and they go home and sleep in their own bed.
Military folks get sent away - they get sketchy chow - sometimes they eat shit out of a plastic sack - sometimes they get t-ration meat loaf - sometimes they get well done steaks with crab legs from the messhall ran by Haliburton/KBR (
a defense contractor that totally did NOT in any way whatsoever help Darth Chaney enjoy millions of dollars in profit from the GWOT) and sometimes these "deployed" service members locally sourced couscous and uninspected goat meat covered in some undetermined type of spicy red sauce.
What I am trying to say, is that "deployed" service members are operating under a different paradigm than elite athletes and law enforcement.
Service members don't always get to go home to sleep in their own bed at the end of a 6 hour or 10 hour or 16 hour or 36 hour shift. Sometimes their exercise is limited to whatever they can dream up at the FOB since they don't have a gym available to them. They can't always just go out on a long run to decompress - and a long ruck march might mean that they are simply doing a patrol 'outside the wire.' Their mind s are in overdrive the entire time, hoping they don't or step on (or drive over) something that may cost them their life. As a result, their bodies are constantly trying to produce peak levels of testosterone and other delicious natural endorphins that lead to things like toxic masculinity and systemic male privilege.
...rinse and repeat.
After a string of these things that may or may not be called "
deployments" - it seems reasonable to believe that just like drug addicts, alcoholics, and adrenaline junkies become accustomed to their poison - military folks
might become involuntarily accustomed to this constant and irregular dump of testosterone and other delicious natural endorphins that lead to things like toxic masculinity and male privilege.
The delicious natural chemicals that their bodies produce is almost never in consistent amounts and almost never with a regularity that they might want. As a result, their bodies rely on "
spur of the moment" as the signal to produce these delicious natural chemicals that make us temporarily awesome. Then - this entire demographic STOPS DOING most of the things that conditioned their bodies to produce endorphins. Now that there is no longer a "spur of the moment" demand - the body just sort of adopts 'bankers hours' when it comes to producing these delicious endorphins that lead to toxic masculinity and systemic male privilege.
Just like an alcoholic suffers from delirium tremens (the DTs) or a drug addicts suffers from withdraw - isn't it possible that the veterans having problems with - "
interrelated health and functional impairments including traumatic brain injury effects; endocrine dysfunction; sleep disturbance; obstructive sleep apnea; chronic joint/back pain, orthopedic problems, and headaches; substance abuse; depression and suicide; anger; worry, rumination, and stress reactivity; marital, family, and community dysfunction; problems with sexual health and intimacy; being "on guard" or hypervigilant; memory, concentration, and cognitive impairments; vestibular and vision impairments; challenges of the transition from military to civilian life; and common existential issues" - are just suffering the same kind of physical and mental response to theirs bodies change in its ability to dump those delicious endorphins into their system?
I'm not sure it should be called "Operator Syndrome" - that beloved source of knowledge we call Wikipedia says that a syndrome is
"a set of medical signs and symptoms which are correlated with each other and often associated with a particular disease or disorder. The word derives from the Greek σύνδρομον, meaning "concurrence" and that when a syndrome is paired with a definite cause, it becomes a "
disease"
...like "alcoholism"
...or "sex addiction"
...or liberalism
A mildly observant person might look at this situation and see that there might just be a cause - maybe we should call it "
Operator Disease"
Now, truth in lending -
I don't have it - because much like Dwight Shrute - I can raise and lower my blood pressure, my cholesterol, testosterone, and all of my other endocrine levels through sheer concentration - if for no other reason than to lower them back to their normal levels. Any problems that I might exhibit that resemble "Operator Syndrome" are exhibited purely for my own entertainment.
Please remember, the contents of this post have been PURE conjecture with no basis in science, or fact based medical reseach - much like Saint Anthony Faucis position on wearing masks and making six-feet the standard for soical distancing during the during the pandemic.
...that is all.
