This article is two of the many released today talking about the state of mental health in the Australian Defence Force. I was lucky enough to be one of the data collectors in this study which involved me talking to a large number of defence force members about their mental health prevalence.
Another article released by the ABC stated:
"The survey shows most of those surveyed have experienced an anxiety, mood or alcohol disorder at some stage in their lifetime - a figure significantly higher than in the Australian community as a whole.
The survey also shows the rate of suicidal behaviour is more than double that of the general community.
On his tour of Iraq, Ben Millman experienced traumatic bombings and shootings. The only psychological help he was offered was from an Army chaplain, and he was medically discharged in 2007.
"In those early years, I wished that I had a physical impairment because then people could have seen, people could have understood, but it was ... no-one can see your injury, no-one can see your pain," he said."
From conducting this study and listening to countless members of the defence force talk about the trauma they sustained from various deployments and how there was barely any help provided from them, I do not find the results of the study surprising. It is well known that those who suffer traumatic incidents have a strong chance of developing mental health problems such as post traumatic stress, depression or anxiety. Alcohol and drug use is also used as a coping mechanism for the horrible things which are seen at wars as the soliders are just sent straight back into society without any assistance after deployments and are suppose to go on living life as normal. This often leads to relationship breakdowns as their wifes (or husbands) try as hard as they can to empathise with their spouses, but at the same time cannot truly understand the trauma they have witnessed and why they are responding in such negative ways.
What is made worse is the Stigma surrounding mental health in the Australian Defence Force.
If you thought the stigma surrounding mental health was bad enough in general society, take an environment where you are trained to be tough, violent men who overcome their own emotions to do the job they need to do. Often people will think, "if you can't cope with war, why did you sign up to the defence force" and thus it is often the case that a person suffering from mental health illness will be medically discharged instead of being offered the support they need. It has also been questioned as to how confidential the information disclosed to the defence medical practitioners is.
However, when you think about it, just because you signed up for the ADF, does not make you immune to mental illness, particularly when you are put in situations of high stress. As much training as you can do will never prepare you for the reality of war, and unfortunately, this means that people find out the hard way the negative effects of trauma.
With the stigma so high and the lack of support from the ADF for mental illness, it is no wonder that these symptoms continue to worsen overtime and lead to suicidal thoughts. With the risk of losing ones job, most people see that the only option they have is to keep quiet and try and deal with their problems on their own by often using maladaptive coping strategies.
A more disturbing thought is to consider those suffering mental illness in the ADF who have not been deployed. Mental health prevlance in society has sky rocketed, thus it can only be assumed that a large proportion of people in the ADF will experience mental illness at one point in their lives. However, with the everlasting stigma of mental health in the ADF, lack of support and fear that one will lose their job or not be eligible for deployment if they reveal the difficulties they are having, these mental illnesses of course will only continue to strengthen in time and be harder to treat in the future.
I'm so glad this study has been conducted and does show that the ADF has a genuine interest in improving this situation. We can only hope that the suggestions are taken on board and effective strategies are implemented to address the issue properly.
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