TA suffer more than Regulars after deployment

Well said, I'd never heard of the charity before - wonder how many other TA had heard of it (i.e. the problem could be far worse)

 

When I was demobbed I seem to remember 'give us your kit back, fill in these forms, clean your gun and fcuk off'

Then I got pi$$ed for 6 weeks

 

Maybe after de-mob they should give you a couple of months work back at your TA unit to de-stress you, then give you your 6 weeks leave.

I know of one guy who was in Basra one day and sitting on his armchair at home the following evening. Bit of a culture shock for the poor bugger.

 

I know the feeling, in the sand one minute, following day pi$$ing about at chilwell then freaking out at Victoria station cos I hadn't seen that many people for 3 months!

 

Do reserve forces have easy access to counsellors / chaplains on de-mob?

I'm quite lucky - if I ever get mobilised my mum's a counsellor and she has a LARGE network of counsellors which I could see (If I needed to).

Hasn't someone taken the initiative and tried to set-up a support network for reserve-forces. Maybe pull together a database of counsellors willing to offer pro-bono work to members back from operational tours??

If so, it sounds like something which I could try and do (On a small scale at least)...

 

hogspawn wrote:

"When I was demobbed I seem to remember 'give us your kit back, fill in these forms, clean your gun and fcuk off'"

I got basically the same as well as " YOUR UNIT WILL HOST A WWEKEND LATER (8-12 WEEKS). TO FOLLOW UP ANY ISSUES REGARDING YOUR DEPLOYMENT. 11 MONTHS LATER STILL NO WEEKEND AND NOW THEY WANT MORE GUYS FOR ANOTHER TELIC......

 

Formed regular units will have a week(ish) decompression period in barracks before being sent on POTL in order to let the dust settle, TA are "supposed" to have a similar decompression/ debbriefing weekend within a finite period. Doesn't occur that often to my knowledge..

 

It actually felt very odd going into town and seeing loads of people. I found the sense of dislocation quite shocking - for the first week back I didn't know where the f**k I was. The tempo went from 150% to about 20% in a matter of hours after leaving theatre.

After a week of monging it at home and being fairly unpleasant I was lucky enough to go on a career course - That helped enormously - back in the Green suit and I could decompress. That was an absolute god send.

To be honest, I'm still having sleep problems. I find running and phys helps.

 

devilish no and **** no .spent a week in germany before demob doing ****
all ******* signallers did it help did it **** might have been somepoint if there
had been something to do or if we had had a harrowing tour as it was just
a another chance for the regular army to **** us around pointlessly In and out of chillwell fast as possible .By the time i got to chillwell army had broken me so would have done anything signed anything just to get home .Your not going to realise if you have a problem till you get home and in normal life .
trying to identify psychatric problems among blokes who are itiching to go home is pointless.Combat stress are probably best people to talk too
a civi counsellor would probably get a slap (imho a lot of them deserve one anyway)

 

In the first Gulf war we where all handed a letter which stated " You have all done well no matter what your roll was and you should feel proud of your achievements. You worked hard and if you feel down or depressed at any time be secure in the knowledge that your hard work was greatly appretiated" or words to that effect.

Pretty shit wasn't it?

 

anyone else find themselves alert all the time on return? or constantly awating something to happen? like the next task/incident etc.

or am I just a freak

 

I drove the car with Mrs Stabtastic standing up in the back through sunroof shouting 'contact right' for a few months after I came back.

Oh, and I washed the same socks, shirt and keks in a bucket in my room for a while before I remembered I had a wardrobe and a washing machine...

 

Car alarms were annoying.....one second on, one second off.

Having stealth w@nks

Crapping in your front garden and burying it

 

Nope- first night back in my own pit I was up at 03:00 to prepare for the morning G3 update conference call!

Mrs Foz eventually weaned me off using the solar shower in the back garden and back to the joys of working indoor plumbing