*I want to preface this by saying I don't actually buy that Palin's son acted the way he did because of PTSD.
Whether Palin's son has PTSD or not...Veterans are adults and should act as such.
I don't understand the logic here. You are saying that someone who is mentally ill should still be able to think and act like they aren't mentally ill because they are an adult? This kind of thinking is what underlies the stigma around mental illness. Expecting a mentally ill person to be able to behave as if they have no mental illness only makes sense if you believe said mental illness does not affect one's behavior.
Having PTSD is not an excuse to use violence against those less powerful
If you knew the cause of the episode was PTSD how would that not be an excuse? I could not think of a much better excuse for abnormal behavior, emotions, and thinking than having a disorder that affects your behavior, emotions, and thinking.
and it doesn't make someone abusive.
PTSD has been associated with increased violence in certain cases: "a large epidemiological study of Vietnam and Vietnam-era Veterans that was conducted in the mid-1980s examined intimate partner violence (ranging from slapping and pushing to using a knife or gun), and found that 33.0% of Veterans with PTSD compared to 13.5% of those without PTSD reported intimate partner violence in the past year."
Source: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/co-occurring/research_on_ptsd_and_violence.asp
If someone with PTSD is violent and abusive, it's because they always were. I know the type, but I also know plenty of veterans – who have experienced plenty of awful shit – who are friendly, functioning members of society.
So, what you are essentially saying here is that if someone with PTSD were to get violent that means they are a bad person because other people with PTSD, who have had even more trauma, did not act violent? This ignores individual differences between people when it comes to how their symptoms will manifest, and it is just further stigmatization because it opens the door for arguments that dismiss the legitimacy of PTSD entirely (e.g. someone who served in a war zone could argue that they, and everyone in their unit, experienced extreme trauma and they all came out fine so those claiming they have PTSD are just malingerers).
Too often I have seen people with the same mental health diagnosis discriminate against each other and, in doing so, just feed the stigma around mental illness (e.g. one person with depression who is able to hold down a job claiming that other people with depression who can't are just using their depression as an excuse for their own laziness/incompetence).
honestly, if he does have PTSD, you'd think that with her political connections, she'd be able to get him the help he needs instead of waiting for a publicized incident.
On this point I completely agree.