Importance Of Counselling After Traumatic Situations

[anthony]

Hi Terry,

Welcome to the forum. Yer, isn't hindsight wonderful? I could just kick myself nowadays, yet still struggle to get others to understand the importance of immediate counselling so these things don't develop into PTSD, or have a minute chance of developing into PTSD.

What part of the cleanup did you help with? Was this the removal of the building or the removal of the surrounding effects. I ask this because nobody has really chatted about the 9/11 incident indepth here, and I think its something that probably needs to be spoken about so more can understand the process of how PTSD has developed from 9/11.

 

[mayertl]

Hello Anthony, nice to meet you...
As you might have guessed, my wife is LaVonne on the spouse side, a true angel.
I was in a position in the military that placed me (without training or experience) in charge of the morgue for the Pentagon attack. For the uniniatiated, that is a complex issue, including identification, reassociation, autopsy, and disposition.
I made a gross error in judgement when I thought it would be better to be strong (on the surface) than show the "troops" that I needed help as well. What they needed to see is the leader needing help as well. Like you say, hindsight.
I have at least one friend who was at the Pentagon at the time, but will not open up. We military are way to macho. I'm retired now, and the stress has kicked me off. Hoping the Zolfit will kick in soon. Terry

 

[anthony]

Yer mate, I totally understand the military aspect, as I am also an ex SGT Australian Army myself. Looking at things now, I believe I was weaker then as I wouldn't admit defeat that I had a problem, instead as you said, I was the leader as such, and always looked macho to my troops, in charge and intact, so they could see the top reign wasn't falling down on them. I now look back and wonder where the true problems lie within the military, ie. the private soldier who says they have a problem, or the leader who is supposed to never show their problems to their troops!

I think I can put the picture together of your job in the morgue. Seen it myself before on operations, enough that it made me sick just seeing it, let alone putting the pieces together for identification purposes. I remember one time in New Guinea when we opened a bin and there was a body dismembered into six sections (arms, legs, torso and head), which was someone who decided to use their payback system for something the shop owner had done, so the rascals provided payback on a innocent relative to demonstrate they had crossed the wrong people, which was easy identification. Then compared to East Timor in 99, well... what can one say, apart from you couldn't match body parts up that were left lieing around that country.

For some of the terrible things that happen in the world, someone has to be there to put things back together again. Its just never a nice thing to have another human having to put another human back together again for identification purposes. I can fully understand how one would accumulate PTSD from such acts.

I remember one time in Bouganville when we decided to setup an old tip truck dumper out the back of the base to burn off excessive waste fuels and rubbish, at which point the doctors thought this would be a great way to dispose of the body parts they where removing from locals in the surgery because of the sheer heat the fire was obtaining. Everytime we went to burn off waste, suddenly we were then burning off body parts that had been amputated. I think the smell had a little impact on me, but certainly not the cause of my PTSD, but I have friends who identify with this act after my deployment who have gotten PTSD because of the burning of these body parts. Military being military simply denied all knowledge of such things occuring because several people got PTSD because of it, so these people are struggling with their claims for compensation.

Anyway, it really is great having you both here, to chat with, learn from and assimilate part of the PTSD puzzle with you both.