Australia: Quarter of a million with PTSD

Overseas service can lead to an unseen war at home for those who return.

ON APRIL 18, 2006, Australian federal policeman David Tonacia strapped on his flak jacket and ventured out into the streets of Honiara.

More than 2000 rioters, some wielding machetes, were rampaging through the

Solomon Islands' capital city.

Until that day, Tonacia's policing work was confined to diplomatic protection on the usually uneventful streets of Canberra. Now he was on the front line in a war zone.

"Everyone there still remembers that day," he says.

But, two years on, he shies away from describing in any detail exactly what he saw on his first and only overseas trip.

His reticence is due to his fear of returning to the dark place that enveloped the ordinarily fit and healthy 41-year-old for almost 12 months after he returned from deployment.

"I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. I just sat there thinking, 'Why me?' "

Tonacia still can't stop the dreams at night. His wife, Kate, recalls nights her husband sweated so heavily, the sheets had to be washed in the morning.

Tonacia's diagnosis with severe post-traumatic stress disorder was the catalyst for Kate beginning a national PTSD support group, Picking Up The Peaces, several of whose members will this morning flying to Papua New Guinea to hike the Kokoda Trail.

The hike is an attempt to raise community awareness about a mental condition caused by exposure to trauma that affects a quarter of a million Australians a year.

Among them, not surprisingly, are scores of police officers and soldiers.
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