Dr. Janice Husted

'Omnia vincit amor,' so goes the timeless declaration of the Roman poet Virgil. No other line can best define the sacrifices of spouses and partners of war veterans who grapple with post-traumatic stress disorder. This article from The Telegraph plays out how love wins over a situation fraught with odds.

       Simon Buckden, who suffers from PTSD, and his partner Louisa Rodriguez

                                                     Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

I remember the first time I was woken by Simon crying out: this awful,  blood-curdling scream. Suddenly he was back in the war zone with a gun in  his hand and a woman in front of him, covered in blood. He squeezed my hand  tightly and wouldn’t let go until morning. I recall thinking, ‘By day he’s  my brave ex-soldier; but by night, who is this man?’”

Louisa Rodriguez, 30, met Simon Buckden, 41, two years ago, via their shared  love of marathon running. At the time Buckden, who had served as a soldier  in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the First Gulf War, was undergoing cancer  treatment.

“I knew Simon had post-traumatic  stress disorder [PTSD],” says Louisa, “because when we met he was  running marathons to fund charities helping PTSD outreach. When it came to  our future together, it was the cancer that worried me most. I’d fallen for  this kind, strong, compassionate man – a real inspiration in the way he  lived his life for others. So it took months of sleepless nights and  aggressive outbursts to realise what I’d taken on with Simon’s PTSD.”

PTSD’s symptoms range from nightmares and hallucinations to anxiety and  inability to control emotions, and is often accompanied by alcoholism and  substance abuse. According to American statistics, one in five veterans of  the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffers from PTSD. Here the Ministry of  Defence (MoD) seems reluctant to accept the extent of the syndrome, with  official MoD statistics citing PTSD prevalence among serving soldiers and  vets at 2.9 per cent (lower than rates in the general British population).

The “invisible wounds” of combat-related PTSD affect not only the soldier or  veteran, but also those around him or her. According to American and Israeli  studies, veterans with PTSD are three times more likely to divorce than  veteran counterparts not diagnosed with PTSD and are more likely to  perpetrate physical and psychological aggression against their partners,  with rates as high as 63 per cent for some forms of physical aggression in  the past year.

“In almost every case of PTSD there is a ‘ripple’ effect of secondary trauma  experienced by the patient’s partner,” explains Prof Gordon Turnbull of  Capio Nightingale Hospital in London, a leading expert in PTSD.

Louisa found that she could cope with Simon’s flashbacks. She also came to  terms with quirks such as his need to sit with his back to the wall in  restaurants and bars, scanning faces as they entered, for threat, as if he  were back in the theatre of war.

“But the anger was different,” Louisa says. “There was an incident in January  2013 when Simon kicked me out of bed in the middle of an angry outburst. As  a child, I’d watched my mother’s partner physically abuse her, so when a man  shows anger to me, I shut down.” Simon remembers the incident with clarity,  but remembers, too, that he could do little to stop it: “When a PTSD hit  [outburst] is coming on I can feel it like a chemical,” he says.

“I stop shaving and eating, and I withdraw from my friends. The most upsetting  thing is taking the anger out on Louisa. I try to be a decent person. The  last thing I want to do is upset someone I love.”

Louisa felt she couldn’t talk to her friends about Simon’s angry displays. “I  knew they would tell me to leave Simon, as I would them. So I left for a  two-month break in the countryside. I had to work out, alone, whether I  could sign up to a life with Simon in the shadow of PTSD.”

Where can couples like Simon and Louisa turn for help? In September 2013 the  British Government announced it was investing in mental-health services for  veterans and serving military. The MoD told me: “We are committed to giving  everyone who serves in our Armed Forces all the support they need. That is  why this government has invested £7.4 million to improve mental-health  services for veterans and service personnel. This includes the online  mental-health wellbeing service Big White Wall and a 24-hour Combat Stress  helpline [combatstress.org.uk].”

But are help and treatment as easy to access as the MoD suggests? Dave Adams,  a former vehicle commander in the British Army, and his wife Lyn, from  Bedale, North Yorkshire, spoke to me of lengthy waiting lists for NHS  talking therapies and treatment by Combat Stress, the MoD’s designated  mental-health charity.

Lyn, 54, and Dave, 51, married in 1988. Lyn knew her husband as a quiet,  gentle man. It all changed when Dave returned from a 2004 tour in Basra,  Iraq, which was rocked by sectarian violence. “Though he didn’t tell me at  the time, he saw awful things on that tour,” says Lyn.

Dave came back a different man. “He hit the bottle, was snappy and moody – he  wouldn’t go out,” says Lyn. One night that year, she returned from an  evening out to discover that Dave had smashed up their home. “I know now  Dave had PTSD,” says Lyn. “At the time the police put it down to drink. The  military didn’t diagnose him. Instead, they sent him back to Iraq and put a  live weapon in his hands.”

Dave’s condition reached a crisis point in August 2010, after he’d returned to  civilian life. “One night he was in the mood for an argument,” says Lyn. “I  had to work the next day, so I went to sleep in the spare room. He followed  me and suddenly his fist came from nowhere and smashed into my face,  breaking all my front teeth. He’d never laid a finger on me before. The next  day I covered my face in make-up and went to my job at a local hospital as  if nothing had happened.”

                                 Dave and Lyn Adams at home in Bedale, Yorkshire

                                                 Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

Neighbours reported Dave’s assault to the police and he was arrested. “I was  advised by the police to get an injunction against him,” Lyn says, quietly.  “But we had so much history, two sons and grandkiddies, and I knew the man  he was underneath it all. I knew something wasn’t right. I lost friends for  standing by Dave like that: they thought I was a fool.”

In prison, Dave eventually received his PTSD diagnosis, and with Lyn’s  testimony his sentence was commuted to seven months. Dave recalls: “Lyn went  to court and fought for me not to stay in prison, to get me a health  worker,” he says. “This woman I love who I’d beaten up – and that kills me.  And now we're left, and I’m like a ticking time bomb, never knowing when  there will be a trigger and I’ll be back in the theatre of war again.”

Dave is yet to receive treatment for his PTSD. “We get £30 a week army  pension, which we fought for,” says Lyn. “And Help for Heroes [the charity  for veterans wounded in combat] put Dave on to Combat Stress. But they keep  putting off his assessments by months at a time… When we get an appointment  Dave will have to travel across the country for it, which he’s not fit for.”

We contacted Combat Stress to ask about the concerns of veterans, such as  Dave, about waiting times and distances to treatment centres. Despite  repeated calls and emails, Combat Stress declined to respond.

While some victims of PTSD struggle with violent outbursts, others suffer from  emotional detachment, a numbness that leads them to withdraw from family and  friends – something Eileen Shepherd, 64, from Burnley, understands. She met  her husband Keith, also 64, in 1975, when she worked as a military exchange  telephonist and Keith, or Shep, as Eileen calls him, was serving on a  six-month tour of Northern Ireland.

“I worked in the military, so understood Shep’s mindset more than the average  military wife,” says Eileen. “Yet it’s been hard. Shep’s PTSD developed in  the early years of our marriage. My dad was a Japanese POW in the Second  World War, so I recognised in Shep the ‘wall’ of withdrawal I’d lived with  as a child.”

Keith recalls feeling unable to process the memories of Northern Ireland. “I’d  seen friends get shot to bits with petrol- and nail-bombs in front of me.  But I couldn’t talk about any of this, especially to Eileen. When you leave  the military you get your discharge certificate and you’re on your own. You  feel you can't ask for help.”

Eileen agrees: “It’s the way the Army trains them: to fight and be strong men.  So when they come home suffering, they won’t talk about it or ask for help.”

A few years into their marriage Eileen began to suffer with depression.  “Things got worse then for both of us. Shep couldn’t reach out to me,” she  says. “He just can’t deal with emotion, so I battled it alone.” Then, 10  years ago, Keith’s PTSD worsened. “There was a period when Afghanistan was  always on the news,” Eileen says. “Shep was losing his old military friends  too, some to illness, some to suicide. He started having panic attacks and  breaking down in tears.”

Delayed-onset PTSD is not uncommon, explains Prof Turnbull. “The condition can  develop over many years, via depression, behavioural changes and alcohol  abuse,” he says. “For this reason we have a duty to veterans well beyond  their discharge from the forces.”

Since the Second World War British troops have seen active service in Northern  Ireland, the Falklands, Bosnia, two Gulf wars and, most recently, in the  Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In coming years, many more veterans will present  with symptoms of PTSD. Without a profound change in culture around the  treatment of the condition, family lives will continue to suffer.

Yet at the fringes of PTSD treatment, there is cause for hope. A veteran of  Northern Ireland and the first Gulf war, Tom Sawyer, 49, from Newhaven, had  displayed PTSD symptoms since his first tour of Ireland in his early  twenties, including anxiety attacks in open spaces and violent outbursts  that ended two marriages. He first reported his symptoms to his army medical  officer in the early 1990s and recalls the response: “He asked me whether I  was a man or a mouse.”

When, two years ago, Sawyer’s violence and suicidal tendencies threatened to  devastate his relationship with girlfriend Sue Hawkins, 52, Sue took action.  “Tom’s GP diagnosed PTSD,” she says. “He was put on a waiting list for  talking therapy. We tried Combat Stress, but never heard back.”

On the recommendation of another veteran, Sue contacted the independent  charity PTSD Resolution [ptsdresolution.org],  which funded six sessions of a new treatment known as Rewind Therapy. The  technique is a promising new neurolinguistic-programming-based treatment for  traumatic brain injury in which the patient is asked to recall trauma and  given tools to stop reliving the experience.

“I cried through the first sessions,” says Sue, “but they helped me understand  how PTSD affects Tom’s brain. They also gave me the key to calm him down if  he’s getting a ‘hit’. Now I can take him to his ‘safe place’, a quiet  prairie with white buffaloes.”

With Tom’s symptoms under control, Sue is angered by the fact that he has  battled PTSD alone for 28 years. “Frankly, the military needs to buck its  ideas up,” she says. “As I see it, they have the responsibility to these  men: not small charities, not the NHS.”

                                     Tom Sawyer and his girlfriend Sue Hawkins

                                                 Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

For Louisa and Simon, life is an ongoing accommodation to Simon’s PTSD. The  couple reconciled after Louisa’s months away but live separately. “We sit at  the back of restaurants, we sleep apart and I no longer take it personally  if he’s having a withdrawn day,” she says. They have set up an organisation  to campaign for PTSD awareness, military and non-military (positiveactionforptsd.org).

The Shepherds have also harnessed their experience with PTSD to help other  couples struggling with the condition, setting up a Burnley social club and  holiday fund for veterans and families.

For the Adamses, life is still a waiting game. “I look at Dave and I can’t  honestly say, after what PTSD made him do to me, that I love him,” says Lyn,  sadly. “Most wives would have walked away. I’ve stood by him because it’s  not his fault he’s got this disease. But what would happen if we did that to  all our soldiers?”

The long stretch of the holiday season has ended, and by now, almost everyone has gone back to the regular nine-to-five routine.

The long stretch of the holiday season has ended, and by now, almost everyone has gone back to the regular nine-to-five routine. The next few weeks could be tough for you and other workers, though. You might find it hard to drag yourselves to work for many reasons—the chilling weather, the dread of seeing kilometric piles of unanswered emails, or perhaps a longing for another round of skiing with the kids or another catch-up potluck with friends.

                            Image Source: villadreamvacations.com

While the post-holiday blues usually wane after a couple of weeks for some, others might take longer to get back to their groove. Before you could get too consumed with the sinking feeling and spiral further downward into your moods, you must start to identify what triggers this dampened emotional state, and how you could beat them so you could find your way back to your cheerful, productive self.

                                          Image Source: ksl.com

Technology, for instance, can be such a slog. Most people do not really get rid of email alerts and phone beeps during the holidays. As work hounds you even during vacation, chances are you will come back not feeling recharged at all. Make little efforts to break away, like making dinners a no-phone zone.

                                 Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

Drastic changes in what you eat during the holidays can also lead to a cranky mood, sluggish performance, and an overall lack of zeal. Blood sugar levels crash as a result of unhealthy choices, and when that happens, you become more susceptible to physical and emotional problems. Revise your food choices as soon as possible. Apples make a better filling snack than a bag of chips.

Lastly, your perspective about the goals you have set can also be a downer. The feeling that nothing has changed and you haven't started on the targets you set last year, like saving up more or going back to blogging, should be overcome. Manage your expectations and think of this new year as a continuum of whatever baby steps you have taken to achieve any of your goals.

Studies have found that suffering from stress is not at all stressful. And successful people have more ways than one to prove that. This World Economic Forum blog discusses this issue further.

                                    Image Source: forumblog.org

You may think that burning the midnight oil and staying constantly busy are good for your career — but you might be seriously damaging your career — and your health.

It turns out that the vast majority of successful people aren’t that stressed, not because they don’t experience stressful situations, but because they have tools for dealing with and diffusing that stress.

Stress is one of the biggest killers in the developed world and how it negatively affects our careers. Many people thrive on stress and love the buzz that comes with it, but ignore the effect it has on their physical and mental wellbeing. It’s important to realise the dangers of stress in the long-run and take action today…

The dangers of staying stressed

Stress is a major factor in your health. In fact:

Stress increases your risk of heart disease by 40 percent

Increases your risk for heart attack by 25 percent

and increases your risk of stroke by an alarming 50 percent.

Studies have also found that stress is a risk factor for certain types of cancer, and even physically shrinks the size of your brain. (Yikes!)

The cascade of hormones your body releases under stress may make you ready to run from that metaphorical lion that wants to eat you, but it also has the effect of degrading and deteriorating nearly every system of your body, from your gums to your heart.

Add that all up, and stress related ailments cost more than $300 billion in lost productivity and medical bills — more than $100 billion more than the cost of obesity.

How to cool down

If you want to have a great life and career, the key seems to be dealing with stress in a healthy way.

Often the difference between a fun and challenging situation and a stressful one is simply understanding what’s expected of you. So, the No. 1 way to reduce job-related stress is to have a clear idea of what’s expected of you and manage those expectations.

Another key difference between successful people who are stressed and those who aren’t? Optimism. Taking an optimistic view of the outcomes of problems — or even just imagining a benign outcome — will make you feel less stressed and more successful.

If you constantly stress about work after you get home, take the time to make a firm plan of how to deal with problems before you leave the office. That one step will help you leave work at work.

Automating as many tasks as possible can also help reduce stress. This can also include simple daily decisions such as what to have for lunch or what to wear.

And if you’re working more because you’re worried about money, the research shows it’s not a good trade. A study showed that the increased stress and fatigue of working overtime was not offset by any increase in happiness or wellbeing that might accompany the extra income.

In short, that stress you think you thrive on isn’t worth it in the long run. It could be killing you and your career, and it’s important to address it now, rather than later.