NIC HARALAMBOUS

View Original

David Bullard: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome?

I love David Bullard. I love his brash approach to politics, life, economics and everything in between. After reading his column "Out To Lunch" in todays Sunday Times I felt as if he was suffering from depression or possibly Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS).Normally Bullard belts out words of enthusiasm and conflict, words of incredible observation and brilliant solving strategies. Today Bullard sounded like a South African on the verge of packing it in and heading to the dreaded land of New Zealand. I can only imagine what he has gone through and do not judge the actions and thoughts that he writes about in the column. I just think that he is going through the normalities of stress and depression that are associated with his type of ordeal (not that I am a qualified psychologist).He speaks of canceling his nephew and some other friends that he and his wife were going to host on their trips to SA. He also mentions not being able to host the families unless they sign legal documents stating that he and his wife are not liable for anything that happens to them on their trip to SA. This is somewhat over the top and a bit drastic if you ask me. I also think that someone like Bullard should be more careful with their words when talking about an entire country and an entire trip to SA. Not every tourist is guarenteed to get mugged, robbed, murdered or raped on their trips, hell tourists in New York City have the same things happen to them, but not every person, ever time.It seems as though Bullard has attempted to illustrate the more real side of his ordeal in this column, which is commendable. It is necessary to be grounded about the realities of our beautiful country. People get hurt, bad things happen and have happened to people we know. This is real. Yet this is not all that our country is about. I am glad that Bullard has shown his readers that he is human and he has fear after what happened to him. He often comes across as a super human that is filled with a never ending pool of concentrated positivity, which is fantastic, but not real.I have the utmost respect for David Bullard and the greatest sympathy for his current situation. I hope he is back to his normal self sometime in the very near future!