Knowing About PTSD Before Deployment - Did You?

[anthony]

Knowing About PTSD Before Deployment - Did You?

Well, just reading a news piece from Army Times, and why doesn't it surprise me that soldiers still have zero knowledge about mental health, PTSD, etc, before deploying...

Army Col. Rich O’Connor does not mince words when he talks about the amount of mental health training he had before he took a squadron in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to war in Iraq’s Diyalah province in 2006.

"What kind of training did I receive on post-traumatic stress?" he said. "Zero. How much did our soldiers receive? None."

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When I started falling apart, the doctor on base told me she thought I had PTSD. My answer was, "PTS what?" No idea, no clue, na da. I even watched some of my own soldiers suddenly disappear on leave, even removed from the military for PTSD, but still no idea what it was. I just thought they where being weak shits or something. How wrong I was...

 

[Charon]

Yeah, I really didn't know much about it before my deployment, how to handle what I saw and had to do. While deployed Army chaplains pretty much told me I would get PTSD, like it was just going to happen and was inevitable. That really freaked me out, but well, they were right lol.

 

[anthony]

WOW... that is pretty harsh from chaplains to detail such a thing whilst on deployment.

Even coming home, never knew about it. We had to go through psych debriefing, the typically... what traumatic events did you endure, blah blah blah... with the typical answer, nothing... feel fine. Basically, we all just wanted to get back to drinking and thinking about getting home, not talking to psychs about what we experienced during a deployment. Shit... most of us couldn't tell you what occurred on day one by the end of months on deployment.

I know the military around the world are trying hard to reduce the issue, but I am not sure that what they do will reduce much... as you can know all you want about PTSD before deployment, but will that change what your brain does after trauma? Likely not considering the science.

What I think will help reduce PTSD, is more counselling during deployments. I mean compulsory one on one sessions each month... no bullshit statements to get out of the office, but really well trained people who know soldiers techniques to avoid discussion, and instead force them to engage and discuss what they feel, not think...

I think this vision 21 scenario needs to be turned into something more like a private youtube site for soldiers, where soldiers are forced to record video onto a private server where shrinks can assess each one and pick out those they know are avoiding emotional discussion and identify those at risk. Shrinks can do this from looking at video, and especially a pattern over a deployment. This type of thing will reduce PTSD IMHO.

 

[Jimmy1]

After Deployment

What is PTSD???

Yes it is an interesting question for veterans returning.
I think the major problem with the Australian Army was that we were not ready for the influx of veterans returning with mental illnesses.

Yes they do debrief you in country prior to returning home, but usually most soldiers are just in a hurry to get the hell out of there.
I know that some of the guys returning from Rwanda were group debriefed. So who in their right minds will want to put their hand up in front of their mates.

I was miss-diagnosed and they pursued thyroid problems instead.

My family fell apart, and if you ask my ex wife and children, they will tell you that I did not return from there.

So believing there was nothing wrong, I threw myself into work with promotion courses, and getting my job done. I took a posting to Townsville to enable my promotion to Warrant Officer. It was not until I returned from Iraq that my actual world fell apart and I had no idea what was going on in my head.

The Army psych blamed the majority of my issues on family problems. so five months later when I no longer had a marriage, he eventually gave in and said I may have PTSD.

Then I went to VVCS and filled out a questionnaire on PTSD, this still did not show anything as my belief was that I did not suffer a trauma. My belief on trauma was like someone in Vietnam having someone killed beside them.

So my counsellor went through the questionnaire with me and probed the me with questions on trauma. That is when it all came out.

I also believe that PTSD can be related to childhood issues or genetics. Some people can go through the most horrific life threatening situations and never be affected. Where as others, the most minor of trauma's can have life damning effects.

The major issue we have here is that the heirachy just drop you like a hot potato, and don't want to know you. Its almost like you have Aids or something.

Now with Afghanistan and the amount of people returning affected its a very real issue.

It is proven though that if you can catch it early enough, it can be treated as an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode and treatment can work and people can return to normal lives.

What I would give to have known that now.

 

[anthony]

Yep... I would have loved to have known about the ASD aspect before developing PTSD itself.

 

[FMG]

I think its kind of weird. PTSD was known by other names such as battle fatigue, shell shock and so on. People forget that those exist as medicine advanced on the topic and made terms more inclusive to understanding the disorder. And its not helped by people who assume we are just faking it as we saw in the US where since the amount of claimants went up. The response was somewhere along the lines of "Soldiers are faking it" when there is a clinical test for PTSD (remember its where your renal glands secrete extra adrenaline/epinephrine causing our flight and fight response to be on all the time hence our wild mood swings, tendency to violence and/or anger and poor sleeping.

Most military don't want to hear about it. Most people don't want to hear about it because its "awful". Its so unbelievable I have had people tell me I was lying. I am sure at some point people have said that as well to some other members because a lot of what we saw was not normal and not understandable by most people. And in all honestly we aren't the easiest of people to get along with.

It is true you can return to a semblance of a normal life. I have a normal life, I know some of the members here were left to dry usually due to the unwillingness of the military to acknowledge a problem. I got help quickly and I dealt with a lot of the issues. My main ones are the depression which can't be solved and the anti social loneliness since "knowing how the treatment works makes the treatment not work since you analyse it and ask too many questions".

And the thing is we know PTSD exists. Its in popular movies such as the English Patient. As I sat in the hospital I joked about MASH with my friend who sat by me. I cried when I watched the last episode of MASH and didn't leave my house for a week because I got so scared of ending up like him (No spoilers! Its a beautiful show and I would urge you if you are feeling upto it to watch a genuinely funny show that portrays life in a medical unit and how people get PTSD in different ways). We know famous individuals such as Peter Sellers who had PTSD (a soldier like us). But we forget a lot because its convenient. We shot PTSD sufferers in WW1, pitied them in WW2, ignored them in Korea and Vietnam. Its now that the internet and we came home that it became an issue.

The people I fear for the most are women in the armed forces with PTSD. There is literally nothing done for them.

 

[abnvet]

Yes I agree, not only did I not know what ptsd was, none of my buddies did either. Not to say that we were looking up definitions. In fact were were just all trying to forget our experiences from the war. Little did we know that these thoughts would still be around years later.....

 

[T.J.]

Nada, Nothing What the hell is PTSD? After 20 years in the Army I never even heard of it, yes some old footage was shown
many years ago of soldiers with shell shock but this was in heavy artillery bombing in WW1. It was certainly not briefed or taught as
a possable illness which not only I could face but also my soldiers, come to think of it some of my ex soldiers may also be suffering.

 

[abnvet]

I remember that nobody talked about what happened. The group that I lived with for almost a year in the sand came home, turned in equipment and tried to pick-up where we left before deployed. We had problems but never discussed them. Then slowly one by one lives were changing. Children were born, soldiers were divorcing, soldiers were accused of beating their spouses, etc. There was never any type after action report and on the outside we all seemed to be normal. Later to find out that all of these was associated with ptsd. Why so late......?

 

[femaleveteran]

hey what do you all think about this thing I heard about today.....a guy from my group gave me a James Gandolfini documentary from HBO about PTSD...he taped it and I just watched some of it and in one part of it this one mental health guy was talking about how after WW2 those guys got a sort of what he called a "decompression time" because it took them longer to actually get home and he thinks that they were able to sort of let the pressure that had built up after years of being exposed to sustained trauma sort of dissipate during that time they weere travleing to get back home. he says one of the main problems starting with like Vietnam was that you could be in the warzone one day and right back in your own living room the next and he says that is not good.

Any good reason for this? I'm just curious because it is the first i ever really heard about any such type of theory or whatever you call it.

 

[Jimmy1]

I know when we went to Iraq, we stopped in Kuwait before and after. Maybe they could start up a decompression area there. Or somewhere where there is no threat and you can be group and individually counselled.
I think the main problem with it, is the expense behind it. Besides, the only thing you want to do is get home.
Having foresight would be a wonderful thing.
They say its also the first couple of months you return home. Most people go straight on war service leave for a couple of months. The go from working in small team environments and sleeping by themselves to trying to lead a normal family life. The debriefing just does not work.

Just my thoughts

 

[Charon]

I wasn't really told anything about it before deployment, but working mortuary it was mandatory that the team I was on have a debriefing with an Air Force chaplain and mental health therapist. Not sure if the Army mandated it, I was on an Air Force team that worked out of an Army facility with an Army NCO.

The debriefings were useful to an extent, we just kind of talked about what happened with that particular casualty, how we thought about it, whatever. It was honestly kind of dumb in a way though, because our entire team was there, to include Senior NCOs and our CO. You really couldn't say anything critical about any of it, and honestly we didn't...respect/honor/feel part of the Senior NCOs. It was weird, they wouldn't do any of the grunt work at all, wouldn't touch the body, wouldn't go through his personal effects, really do anything other than radio out to the airfield to see when we could get the remains home.

Even our CO would help out to an extent, sometimes helping to move transfer cases and moving the body. We all really respected her for that. But the rest of our leadership treated the dead like they were some kind of turd or something, they just didn't want any part of it. And how are we supposed to open up around people like that?!

The really, really stupid thing though is that once we got back to home base, that was it. No meetings, briefings, no check-ups, anything. This after we had been told that PTSD usually manifests about six months after you get back. A lot of us drank, but some of us like myself drank more. A friend on the team told me she was seeing ghosts. She came close to getting killed by shrapnel from a mortar.

All we really had, honestly, was each other. I worry about my buddy that I bunked with who was on the same team, still in the service. He told me he was waking up with "night terrors" and can't go to mental health because he's gotta earn and can't risk getting kicked out. War is just f-ed.