PTSD:"Daddy, why don't you play with us anymore?"

This article says that most veterans will seek help after the family insists on it. It is something too many families avoid. They see the signs of distress but do nothing. They complain about how their husband, wife, son or daughter return home changed, but do nothing about it. They do not make themselves aware of any of this. While someone is deployed, a wife will say, "I have enough to worry about and don't want to think about them coming home changed" believing they can just avoid it. The problem is they don't understand that while their family member is deployed they have a job to do. It's not just about taking care of the family and taking on the chores the soldier used to do, especially with the citizen soldiers deployments. It's about getting prepared with knowledge for when their war becomes a battle to fight at home.

Iraq vets here seek help while psychic wounds are still fresh
By Carol Ann Alaimo
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 08.03.2008
"Daddy, why don't you play with us anymore?"
Iraq war veteran Rigo Morales was cut to the core by the question from his 4-year-old twin girls.

His wife had been asking questions, too, wondering what had become of the doting husband who used to leave her roses on the windshield and love notes on the fridge.

"I knew right away when he got back from the war that something was wrong with him," Angelica Morales, 30, said of her 34-year-old mate.

"He used to be so loving and attentive. After he got back, he was always tense. He looked scared.

"If we tried to go anywhere, the people and the noise would bother him so much that we'd have to leave. So we stopped going places."

A trip to Tucson's veterans hospital confirmed her fear: Her husband had severe post-traumatic stress disorder — a combat-induced condition that had taken their whole family hostage.

Such cases are on the rise in Tucson and around the country. The Pentagon and the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System are reporting major spikes in stress illness among veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The PTSD clinic at the local veterans hospital has seen its caseload soar by more than 100 percent. Last fiscal year, an average of 32 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans visited the clinic each month, compared with 73 a month so far this year.
Nationally, about 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with the disorder since 2003, The Associated Press has reported.

Unlike veterans of past U.S. wars, who often buried their pain for decades, some young veterans are seeking help while psychic wounds are still fresh, often at the insistence of loved ones.
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http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/251035