I'd be interested to see whether this is genetic or environmental. I know that everything nowadays is ascribed to genes, but I think that traumatizing experiences can shock you into permanent anxiety.

Actually, the extent to which traumatic experiences cause anxiety is also mostly genetic. Some people apparently have greater resilience against an adverse environment than others.

Here's a good popular press article on the topic
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/ ful...754C0A9659C8B63

Tapping The Mood Gene


A depressed patient tells me about her neighbor. He is suffering the crises that arise in the course of diabetes -- first foot pain, now vision loss. He has remained upbeat throughout. ''He's legally blind,'' my patient says. ''I don't know how he can stand it.'' Amid the wonder, I sometimes hear a suggestion that the man lacks self-awareness.

To this question, how some people cope, scientists have just now proposed a tentative answer. Humans, it seems, are constructed differently: adversity depresses some, but not others.

Well of course some people are more resilient than others. That's a given.

I'm simply saying that enviromental factors matter too. It is normal to be affected by violence. Perhaps what you call resilience I'd call callousness.

Heavy combat is associated with higher rates of PTSD. The heavier the combat, the higher the rates of PTSD. This has been revealed in study after study.

http://psychiatry.jwatch.org/cgi...full/2008/130/ 1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp...6121901659.html

http://ptsd.about.com/od/ prevale...ilitaryPTSD.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/0...=th& oref=slogin

It is normal to be affected by violence. Perhaps what you call resilience I'd call callousness.

Most people are affected by violence, but not everyone suffers debilitating depression simply from exposure to it. That is NOT normal. Not everyone who fights in wars becomes a self-destructive maniac as a result of PTSD. That is partially genetically determined. Some people have the ability to properly categorize past negative experience as just that; past experiences which do no necessarily have to recur. That doesnt make them callous. It's just self preservation. A clear evolutionary benefit.

Imagine how awful life must have been in the environment our ancestors evolved in. Crying over every dead relative would have made you way to depressed to seek food and procreate.

In fact, I expect that the short form of 5HTT has only become more commonplace recently as some of the selective constraints of our environment has been relaxed via relative peace and prosperity. So in other words, we experience less war and pestilence, so these people are no longer at a genetic disadvantage. In fact, the extra neuroticism the gene confers may be beneficial in todays world.....