1 000 Yard Stare -

Originally used exclusively by military personnel to describe combat fatigue (what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD), the term “1,000-yard stare” has since bled into civilian language to describe anyone—from refugees to first responders to victims of abuse—who has looked into the abyss and found the abyss looking back. What exactly is happening inside the brain during a 1,000-yard stare? It is not mere daydreaming or distraction. Psychologists classify it as a form of dissociation —a survival mechanism where the mind detaches from the present reality to avoid being overwhelmed by stress or horror.

It says: I have seen too much. For just one moment, let me see nothing at all. 1 000 yard stare

Lea later wrote of his subject: “He had been a normal kind of guy… He had left a lot of his life on the coral beaches. His eyes looked as if they were made of blue steel. He wasn’t seeing anything—he was looking at something that wasn’t there.” Psychologists classify it as a form of dissociation