Returning from Front Lines: The Stigma of Mental Illness

The JSB is starting to share its curriculum and model with civilian first-responder agencies such as paramedics, firefighters, and police forces. And the military now has programs to support spouses and families.

It’s completely different from the experience Lively and his wife, Marcia Mills, met with during the seven years when they had no support at all.

The family “rolled in and out of one anxiety state into a more severe panic attack, back to an anxiety, and then ultimately collapsed with exhaustion for a day or two or a week, and then it would just start all over again,” Mills said.

Lively’s symptoms were dismissed as a “normal” part of returning from deployment. It was assumed they would go away with time.

Unfortunately, they didn’t, but instead got worse as he continued to be deployed. By the time he was diagnosed with PTSD, nearly five years had gone by.

“I had lost much body weight, and I was so sick at this point that the military made a decision that I was going to be medically released. I was unfit for military duties.”

That was in 2001. But he was left with no treatment program in place. “There were no doctors, no therapy plan. There was absolutely nothing for myself, or for my wife,” he said.

It was another two years before they found a program within the DND that started to turn their lives around.

Over the seven years, Mills became her husband's advocate, working with doctors, psychologists, Veterans Affairs Canada, and other organizations to try to find treatment.

Today she speaks out to others on the issue but remains “ready to step in if things are going bad” for Lively, who still has flashbacks occasionally if something happens that triggers memories of the trauma in Africa.

The couple were among recipients of the 2010 Inspiration Awards presented by the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health last Friday to honor people who have educated and inspired others as a result of their own experiences of mental illness.

Mills found that after having the chance to step forward and share with others, “you find out that people are generally very supportive.”

The more awareness campaigns there are and the more people speak out, it gives a voice to others who have been suffering mental illness, as well as their families.

It empowers them to say, “Here I am, and this is who I am, and I’m going to carry on,” Mills said.