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Canadian soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force work near the provincial council offices in Kandahar on April 1, 2009. (Hamed Zalmy/AFP/Getty Images)
OTTAWA—Three months after Steven Lively returned from central Africa in 1996, the former Canadian forces soldier started experiencing constant panic attacks, migraines, and anxiety.
It was two years following the Rwandan genocide. He was in Africa to observe the survivors who had fled to neighboring countries and were trying to return to Rwanda.
“It was a feeling of complete helplessness,” he said. “You come home from a mission and before you know it you’re overcome with a very strong sense of guilt.”
He encountered mass graves and other horrors of human suffering, including children and babies dying.
Yet, due to the military’s rules of engagement to guard the soldiers’ safety, “There was absolutely nothing that I could do. I was unable to stop and provide any kind of assistance.”
The resulting guilt manifested as depression, anxiety, nightmares, and flashbacks, along with other severe symptoms that included headaches, fibromyalgia, and irritable bowel syndrome.
“I didn’t understand all these things that were part of post-traumatic stress disorder that we now know. Back then, I had no idea what was happening to me,” said Lively, who now works with the Joint Speakers Bureau (JSB) of the Department of National Defence (DND) to provide education and awareness on mental health and operational stress injury (OSI).
He is among a group of speakers who conduct pre-and-post-deployment education within the military. All are former military personnel who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or another mental health condition resulting from military operations.
Just as it is in society at large, the stigma surrounding mental illness is significant within the military.
Over one-third of Canadian forces members will not come forward for mental health treatment due to their fear of the stigma, according to a study published in the February 2008 edition of Medical Care, a journal of the American Public Health Association.
The military is making efforts to educate soldiers and their families as well as all levels of leadership.
“The backbone of our organization is to try to eradicate stigma within the Canadian forces in regards to mental health injuries,” Lively said. “We’re taking those negative experiences and reusing them in a positive way to educate our peers and colleagues.”
In pre-deployment training, the group talks about experiences that the soldiers may encounter, and the signs and symptoms of mental illness. Another program provides social support for soldiers suffering from an OIS.
And when troops return from a mission, rather than going home directly as they did when Mr. Lively was serving, they spend from one to three weeks in an isolated location for what’s called “third location decompression.”
“It’s an opportunity for trained social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and peer speakers, and educators to speak to the troops … so if they do happen to sense any depression or anxiety, the message is to get help immediately, not to wait, and not to be afraid of stigma,” Lively said.
