Special report: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
The number of soldiers who battle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is double than that in the general community, with female personnel most at risk.
In June 1996, two Blackhawk helicopters collided during a night training operation near Townsville in Queensland.
18 men died, including 15 members of the SAS Regiment.
Newly recruited 21-year-old South Australian Calli Morgan was dispatched to meet the choppers carrying the dead back to base.
“That was one of the worst parts, was placing them in the coffins, and just handling the bodies,” Miss Morgan said.
“Those memories are just so vivid with me today as they were right there at that time.
“The smells, the blood, the feelings that I had, the sadness that I felt for those men,” she said.
Calli Morgan suffered depression, nightmares, insomnia and panic attacks for 13 years before finally being diagnosed with PTSD in 2009.
“When I'm sleeping at night, sometimes I wake because I see the men, it’s almost like they come to visit to you and that's really distressing,” Miss Morgan said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that there are 28,500 former soldiers with PTSD, including 1,300 women.
Corporal Sarah Archibald spent seven months deployed in Iraq in 2006.
“One day a young girl was brought in on a stretcher and she was probably no older than 10 or 11, not a lot of her was intact I would say, and shortly behind her followed her family,” Corporal Archibald recalled.
As she searched, word came to the parents that their little girl had died.
“And I had to do that while she was crying and wailing... in that moment, I remember looking up and the father of the little girl was staring at me and yelling... I didn't understand what he was saying, but he was so angry,” Corporal Archibald said.
“I see his face and I have two young girls myself, and that plays on my mind a lot... the fact that I have my daughters and they don't."
The hysterical grief and anger of the parents has plagued her since, especially the accusing eyes of the girl's father.
“It might be shopping centres, it might be anywhere I feel like I don't have control of my children, I feel that he is lurking,” she said.
The Australian Defence Force has spent $95 million in the last four years upgrading their screening and response to mental health issues.
Yet officials have been criticised for suggesting PTSD is just as likely caused by a person’s experiences before they join up.
Rear Admiral Robyn Walker is a doctor and has seen more than her share of trauma.
“You might have had a car accident, a domestic or a physical assault, a sexual assault... but then you build on traumas that you may be exposed to when serving your country in a war zone and in humanitarian aid response that can add to that lifetime trauma exposure, and it’s how the body deals with stress over repeated exposures,” she said.
Rear Admiral Walker says PTSD is just as prevalent among personnel based here in Australia as it is among those deployed to warzones and relief efforts.
“I think there's this sense to simplify it and say that it’s people who've been on deployment to areas such as Afghanistan and the Middle East that must have PTSD,” she said.
“The evidence doesn't support that, and the evidence shows that we have just as many people who have never deployed on operations who might have a mental health condition such as PTSD as those who have deployed on operations.”
Brisbane Psychiatrist Dr Khoo says women in the general community develop PTSD at twice the rate of men, while the ADF says the rate for male and female soldiers is the same.
“The primary risk factor is combat exposure, the more you have of that, the more likely you are to get mental health problems including PTSD,” Dr Khoo said.
“I think we just need more research into women in the military and we also need to realise that a lot more men get deployed into direct combat roles than women do in the ADF,” he said.
Researchers at the Australian Centre for Post Traumatic Mental Health (ACPMH) in Melbourne are currently studying the effects of PTSD on soldiers, from the time they join up through to their eventual referral for treatment and beyond.
“We know a lot more now around the treatment of PTSD and how to intervene early than we did 10 years ago,” said Professor David Forbes, Director of the ACPMH.
According to Professor Forbes, PTSD can certainly be triggered by one event and that the diagnostic criteria only requires that the sufferer ‘experiences a particular event’.
“The more exposures you have, the higher the risk that you are, and it may be that the event that actually triggers your PTSD isn't even necessarily the most horrific or frightening event that you've experienced,” he said.
Since the invasion of Iraq, 85 Australian Defence personnel have taken their own life.
Corporal Archibald now helps other vets through the group Soldier On.
Miss Morgan is a co-founder of the Women's Veterans Association, helping others deal with the affliction that still dominates her every waking moment.
“People - soldiers, airmen and sailors - are struggling to come forward because they don't associate as having PTSD, because they don't feel worthy enough of having that label,” Corporal Archibald said.
“It was very distressing, at the time and brutally confronting, you realise that life is just over like that,” Morgan said.
“I still feel that today, I still cry for them.”
Read more of Calli and Sarah's stories in this month’s Marie Claire magazine.
If you or someone you know needs help with PTSD or any other mental illness, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au.
Related links
Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service
Specialist, free and confidential counselling
1800 011 046
www.dva.gov.au/vvcs
Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI)
Information for parents, their partners, carers, family and friends.
www.copmi.net.au
Druginfo
Facts and resources about alcohol and other drugs
www.druginfo.adf.org.au.
Sane Australia
Education and services for those affected by mental illness.
1800 187 263
www.sane.org
Black Dog Institute
Information and support for mood disorder sufferers.
www.blackdoginstitute.org.au
Soldier on - Helping wounded warriors
www.soldieron.org.au
Women's Veterans Association of Australia
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