shell shock

[…] Think of me / With all these psychic shell shocks — first the war, / Its great emotions, then this Elenor.

There's a condition in combat—most people know it by now. It occurs when a soldier's nervous system has reached the breaking point. In World War I, it was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. Shell shock!!

I passed through the shell-shock wards and a yard where the "shell-shocks" sat about, dumb, or making queer, foolish noises, or staring with a look of animal fear in their eyes.

The other was to go on, to the next drink or the bed or the grass outside, where the party-noises ebbed and flowed like shell-shocks and the Southern Cross burnt crookedly above.