Different Battlefields, Same Scars: What an Ex-CIA Agent Taught Me About PTSD

PTSD isn’t always born in a firefight or a resuscitation bay. Sometimes it grows quietly while you sit at a computer, doing your job well, watching the worst parts of humanity play out on screen. We sit down with Dr John Tullius, a former CIA officer and current professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder, vicarious trauma, and the unique toll of open source intelligence in the social media era.John shares what changed in his work with the CIA after 9/11, how analysts shifted from newspapers and radio to high-volume internet monitoring, and why repeated exposure to torture and killing can be one of the most pernicious pathways to PTSD. We dig into the cultural and organisational barriers that keep people silent, then unpack a surprisingly effective intervention: a psychologist who designed group sessions for safety and anonymity and ultimately got most staff to seek help. If you lead teams in intelligence, law enforcement, military units, or first responder organisations, you’ll take away concrete ideas you can apply.We also connect it to healthcare worker PTSD and burnout, including what it feels like when a difficult patient story or a child’s death triggers a body-level stress response. We talk screening, prevention, and why “I’m fine” can hide a lot, plus the uncomfortable truth that alcohol often becomes the go-to numbing strategy in high stress professions. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show.To contact Dr. Grover: [email protected] learn more about the podcast: https://www.addictionmedicinemadeeasy.com/