PTSD - The get out of jail free card?

[stacker1]

Root causes?

Have you known or interacted with anyone with PTSD? Or any mental or substance addiction issues

A daily mail holier than thou opinion piece from you holds no water whatsoever.

Let’s hope you are a “rubber duck” type and never succumb to any of the issues you scornfully dismiss, they are more prevalent in society than your ignorance tells you
You probably have family members with MH issues. Just tell them to snap out of it.

Mean time get yourself a medical degree and a post grad in psychiatry and come back to us

Get yourself down the DCMH in Aldershot and ask these apparently highly educated (with a degree) doctors why they are giving out App 9s to soldiers straight out of training which exempt them most of the military stuff (ACMT, exercises, duties) but allows them the fun stuff (AT, sports) normally given out to those known within the units as "Jack cnuts".

 

[thegimp]

Man up fella

And you can wind it in you motability scamming noshbag. I don’t pay my taxes so you can cut around parking your shiny free motor wherever you want and being an unproductive disabler

 

[dingerr]

And you can wind it in you motability scamming noshbag. I don’t pay my taxes so you can cut around parking your shiny free motor wherever you want and being an unproductive disabler

Fortunately I don’t pay (income) tax, so don’t have to worry about such frivolity.

 

[pimpernel]

SSAFA launches support group for Forces families affected by suicide

As alluded to by @thegimp above....Telic and Herrick will have a downstream impact long after the tabloids have forgotten the names and places involved.



TRiM training was rolled out by the RM...Army then followed.

It is entirely dependent on buy-in at the lower levels. The boys have to see that their Seniors take it very seriously indeed. Not just another box-ticking exercise.

Also at the senior level sadly it is a classic box ticking exercise.
After deployment there is the scramble as Officers and SNCOs are sent on posting and the next batch of bright young things appear and life goes on. There are situations where TRiM is missed as boys are sent back early from tour, and as we all know the Orderley Room is always right - and our service records are a true and honest reflection. Ha Ha!

 

[dingerr]

I dodged having to do the trim course, I always felt it was for others, I had enough to do.

 

[Deleted 60082]

A while ago, there was an interesting article in the Guardian on that very theme.

While writing a series of articles on mental health, a journo visited Broadmoor, the place where Hanibal Lecter would be locked up if he was British.

The patient he was interviewing arrived in the canteen wearing a three piece suit. During their conversation, the man in the suit confessed that he had lied to his doctors. Facing 7 years in prison for a crime I can't remember, he told anybody who would listen about the voices in his head and he ended up in Broadmoor where he had a room to himself, TV and stereo and even pocket money each week. Cushy.

The journalist was torn. Should he protect his source, or tell the psychiatrist at Broadmoor that he was being had by a common criminal.

Eventually, he decided to tell all. The psychiatrist was unsurprised. "We knew he was bluffing as soon as he arrived here. He obviously isn't psychotic." said the doc.

"Unfortunately we also discovered that he has a dangerous and incurable personality disorder, so he's going to be with us for the rest of his life."

A lifetime in the nut house instead of 7 years and out in 3. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

It reminds me of the (true) episode of Colditz where an RAF Officer feined a breakdown to get repatriated to Blighty, only to have a real mental collapse and end right up there with Blackadder IV and wibble.

 

[brighton hippy]

a personality disorder is mental health speech for there's **** all we can do for them met one poor sod built like a brick shithouse gave off really really bad vibes and nobody had a plan to deal with him found out while key working he'd been in a secure hospital for seven years. Rather above my 2 day worth of MH training .

 

[Deleted 60082]

The military management of PTSD is basically supplied by a charity organisation

Is that really the level of support the military should expect.

Why isn’t military mental health funded by the government and man powered correctly to the level required.

I’d suggest that rather than getting outraged about people using PTSD as a mitigation in legal criminal proceedings your energy would be better spent asking where is the budgetary support from the government is

Another case of divide and conquer and eat/blame your own.

I find it very hard to stomach that posters who theoretically are military/ ex military as so easily manipulated

What’s the route of this outrage? Is it from bill oddies suffering from PTSD who think that these (majority undiagnosed) squaddies are taking away from the support system in place? This isn’t the case

Or is it ex squaddies who have never been in a situation that would trigger PTSD who are just looking for something to jump on, bathe in some fantasy reflected glory of the kids of the last 15 years who have been put through the combat ringer

********* are ********* are you willing to shut down what could be absolutely PTSD driven Defence cases because you think the card is “shown” to much

How about everyone who gets put in harms way physically or mentally gets the correct level of assessments and support at point of incident and onwards long into the future

As a corollary to this, I am undergoing long-term and expensive cancer treatment. Part of this requires me to have a very regular CT and MRI scans to check progress of the treatment and to detect new tumours. Fortunately, the cancer unit I receive my novel treatment at (near Northwood) has a charity-funded scanning unit attached to it. I received a letter on Monday asking me to contact them to arrange scans; I had those scans this morning. If it was NHS, I’d have to go to East London, with a month-long waiting list and then wait another week or two for the results. The results of this morning’s scans will be with my NHS consultant by 1400, when I have my appointment and subsequent therapy.

The sad fact is that the government cannot fund everything, and cannot react with the agility of the private Andy charity sectors.


* The staff in the scanning clinic are NHS staff; the equipment and the facility is funded by the charity, and has some of the most up-to-date scanning equipment in the United Kingdom. Sometimes I feel very blessed, and extremely fortunate, to have access to this facility, and of course my treatment both for Stage IV cancer and for a rare degenerative cardiac condition. In most countries - especially when medical insurance is de riguer - I would have been long left to die. Also they provide nice sandwiches, drinks and cakes FOC. Which is really nice (sorry, welling up).

 

[Deleted 60082]

@thegimp

Not much to say to that...seeing inside another person's head has never struck me as a particularly straight forward exercise.

Some people are good at sublimating stuff, others less so. And chancers will always jump at the chance to make a few bob, garner sympathy, work the system whatever.

The Ex-Forces Mental Welfare Society (Combat Stress) was formed just after the Armistice in 1919.
They can only accept patients who already have a clinical diagnosis.
They have seen the wheel turn many times on whether or not serving in dodgy places, seeing nasty things can monkey with your head.

This is their centenary year .

Part of the problem for a lot of ex-Forces people is the 'Rubber Duck syndrome' -

" only weaklings have mental health issues - that's not me, I'm a rubber duck - you can't crack me'

So dealing with people who have reached the end of their rope is tough. Especially as they have a tendency to alienate people close to them.

I agree with @Ninja_Stoker that how people react to the extraordinary sh1t to which some have been exposed reflects all sorts of things - background, life experience,and very much initial training and the elusive 'ethos' of the Corps or unit involved.

Booties have a particularly dark sense of humour, which is a great coping mechanism.

I was in the cabinet office meeting late last year, and as we were waiting to go into the briefing room, there was a group of quite senior army officers (Lieutenant-Colonels, Colonels, a Brigadier) discussing about having a Herrick reunion. They then casually listed several of the number who had committed suicide, or had on going psychiatric issues and were thus disinclined to attend.

 

[Goatman]

I dodged having to do the trim course, I always felt it was for others, I had enough to do.

Well, there is an honest response from a Senior, full marks.

( where's the rest of that cake gone!)

I was in the cabinet office meeting late last year, and as we were waiting to go into the briefing room, there was a group of quite senior army officers (Lieutenant-Colonles, Colonels, a Brigadier) discussing about having a Herrick reunion. They then casually listed several of the number who had committed suicide, or had on going psychiatric issues and were thus disinclined to attend.

yeah....there's a strange notion that ' Officers don't do mental health problems, they administer them in others' - balls.

Post Balkans I knew two serving majors who were badly affected by their time on a 'peacekeeping' mission.

Both were functioning in fairly complex fast-moving environments ,one a borderline alcoholic, the other with surprising rage issues.

I've also known a half colonel who was badly injured in Afghan - and has just about recovered physically but not up top.

 

[Draft Dodger]

As a corollary to this, I am undergoing long-term and expensive cancer treatment. Part of this requires me to have a very regular CT and MRI scans to check progress of the treatment and to detect new tumours. Fortunately, the cancer unit I receive my novel treatment at (near Northwood) has a charity-funded scanning unit attached to it. I received a letter on Monday asking me to contact them to arrange scans; I had those scans this morning. If it was NHS, I’d have to go to East London, with a month-long waiting list and then wait another week or two for the results. The results of this morning’s scans will be with my NHS consultant by 1400, when I have my appointment and subsequent therapy.

The sad fact is that the government cannot fund everything, and cannot react with the agility of the private Andy charity sectors.


* The staff in the scanning clinic are NHS staff; the equipment and the facility is funded by the charity, and has some of the most up-to-date scanning equipment in the United Kingdom. Sometimes I feel very blessed, and extremely fortunate, to have access to this facility, and of course my treatment both for Stage IV cancer and for a rare degenerative cardiac condition. In most countries - especially when medical insurance is de riguer - I would have been long left to die. Also they provide nice sandwiches, drinks and cakes FOC. Which is really nice (sorry, welling up).

what kind of sandwiches?

 

[Deleted 60082]

what kind of sandwiches?

They had ham, cheddar cheese and savoury cheese ones today. Plus muffins and digestives. Last time loads of warm mince pies and lashings of whipped cream.

But the waiting room is full of the living dead; utterly silent. Most attend the treatment sessions with a partner and sit there in stone cold, awkward silence.

I prefer not to put my partner - a nurse - through this.

 

[Draft Dodger]

Well, there is an honest response from a Senior, full marks.

( where's the rest of that cake gone!)



yeah....there's a strange notion that ' Officers don't do mental health problems, they administer them in others' - balls.

Post Balkans I knew two serving majors who were badly affected by their time on a 'peacekeeping' mission.

Both were functioning in fairly complex fast-moving environments ,one a borderline alcoholic, the other with surprising rage issues.

I've also known a half colonel who was badly injured in Afghan - and has just about recovered physically but not up top.

i might be mis-remembering but trim asks that you get together and talk through the incident as soon as is possible, is that correct?

to me this seems to assume that you have downtime after an incident and that contacts, cas etc. arent a fairly regular occurrence.

 

[Draft Dodger]

They had ham, cheddar cheese and savoury cheese ones today. Plus muffins and digestives. Last time loads of warm mince pies and lashings of whipped cream.

But the waiting room is full of the living dead; utterly silent. Most attend the treatment sessions with a partner and sit there in stone, awkward silence.

they've got it all wrong. Pringles, that's what you want for awkward silences

 

[smallbrownprivates]

Here's a cracking one from across the pond:

”it were the anti-malarials that made me do it...."
Soldier convicted of massacring 16 Afghans seeks new civilian trial, citing a psychosis inducing anti-malarial drug

 

[Tommy_Sun]

I just hacked the **** out of my arms tonight. I haven't done that for years. Scarred now. Like the pain. It's only a bit.

No one likes an attention whore.


PTSD?

Can't ever get to sleep.

Not for days. You just ******* lie there. Days.

**** me, I've made a mess of my arms now.

Shit.

It's not enough.

 

[Tommy_Sun]

PTSD pisstakers.

 

[Heartbreaklane]

Root causes?

Have you known or interacted with anyone with PTSD? Or any mental or substance addiction issues

A daily mail holier than thou opinion piece from you holds no water whatsoever.

Let’s hope you are a “rubber duck” type and never succumb to any of the issues you scornfully dismiss, they are more prevalent in society than your ignorance tells you
You probably have family members with MH issues. Just tell them to snap out of it.

Mean time get yourself a medical degree and a post grad in psychiatry and come back to us

WTF? I’m not scornfully dismissing anything, nor do I go anywhere near the Daily HeiI. I am not saying that PTSD isn’t a real condition, and yes thanks I have known and know blokes who have been professionally diagnosed and are dealing with it. Including my old man who was down South in 82.

What I’m saying is that I also know blokes who are undiagnosed and possibly using PTSD as an excuse for their behaviour and poor life decisions etc.. And as I say, the shame is that this prevents them from seeking a proper diagnosis and getting the right help for the underlying issues.

 

[Stanchion]

They had ham, cheddar cheese and savoury cheese ones today. Plus muffins and digestives. Last time loads of warm mince pies and lashings of whipped cream.

But the waiting room is full of the living dead; utterly silent. Most attend the treatment sessions with a partner and sit there in stone cold, awkward silence.

I prefer not to put my partner - a nurse - through this.

Crash, Truly sorry to hear of your condition
I hope you are feeling well (many maybe won't understand that, but I think you will)
Best wishes

 

[stacker1]

They had ham, cheddar cheese and savoury cheese ones today. Plus muffins and digestives. Last time loads of warm mince pies and lashings of whipped cream.

But the waiting room is full of the living dead; utterly silent. Most attend the treatment sessions with a partner and sit there in stone cold, awkward silence.

I prefer not to put my partner - a nurse - through this.

Take a Nintendo Wii with you and liven the place up a bit.