Haunted minds, black memories and dark secrets plagues war veterans, when they return from war. Their torments cause mental suffering in their families. Anders Pedersen and Jonas Løvschall-Wedel investigate.

Does a soldier’s safe return mark the end of his torments or is it the beginning of long term mental health struggles for them and their loved ones? Image: 小猫王

For many years, young Australian men and women have travelled to wars in as distant lands as Turkey, Vietnam and currently Afghanistan. Some have lost their lives others returned to be celebrated as heroes. But what happens when the orchestra stops playing and the parades end. How do the returning heroes live on with their black memories of death and destruction? How do they find their place in normal society back among their families and at their work places?

Australian diggers return from war, many as broken men, suffering from depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and thoughts of suicide. The soldiers are not alone in their suffering though; their families may also bear the crosses of war.

New research shows that the families waiting at home are at great risk of taking on mental sufferings of their own, when a digger returns with a haunted mind.

For more than 30 years, Doctor Brian O’Toole, Director of Vietnam Veterans Family Health Study at the ANZAC Research Institute, has been researching the mental health of returned diggers. Recently he started to look into how mental illnesses among diggers are affecting their families, especially their spouses. The results so far speak their own clear language.

“We looked at the women, and their physical health is the same as other women in the Australian society, but their mental health is terrible.

Doctor O´Toole says that the level of depression is six to eight times higher among these women, and continues:

“The name of the game is what affect this war service of the diggers has on the wives. How difficult is it to live with people with mental illnesses, walking on eggshells and all those kinds of things. What we find is that if he’s got PTSD, she is less likely to seek medical help and less likely to seek counselling. She is more likely to take tranquilisers or sleeping pills but less likely to seek medical attention,” says Doctor O’Toole.

One of his remarkable findings during his research was the clear connection between the mental health of the veteran and the mental health of the spouse.

“Looking at one of the things in the veterans’ lives that predicted the wives’ state is that his depression is rubbing off on her. He’s got a depression; she is more likely to get a depression. If a veteran has suicidal ideas, and he is thinking about committing suicide, it raises the risk of anxiety disorder in the wife about six to eight times,” Doctor O’Toole explains.

These findings indicate that it is not only the soldiers suffering; their family’s pay the price long after the cannons has been silenced.

On day two, Reportage Online will take a deeper look into The Family.