Vets and depression: Returning from war to fight new battle

How many more years will we hear of the wondrous accomplishments the VA is claiming before they are actually reality? Any ideas? How much longer will they waste time instead of hiring exactly what they need to take care of all the veterans? That is, after they hire outreach workers to go out into the communities to inform veterans along with the general population exactly what PTSD is? Two thirds of the American people don't have a clue. As appalling as that figure is, it includes veterans and their families. National Guards forces and their families across the country still don't know what it is or what comes with it.

How many times do you have to read about a domestic violence issue before you understand most of them were avoidable if the family members knew what to do and what not to do to avoid escalation of simple arguments? It happens more times than you could imagine.

How long do we allow them to come home feeling they were not lucky to have survived the deployment? Honestly, that's how a lot of them feel as the lives they had before they left vanish into distant memories of what they used to be. They cannot see the person they were before is still in there trapped under a wall of pain.

I could tell them exactly what has to be done, but they won't listen to people like me. I only live with all of this everyday in my own home as I have done for the last 26 years. I know what worked for us so that we avoided a lot of problems and had the tools to cope with what we couldn't get around. I know what is needed for the newer veterans as well as the fact the older veterans need to be treated with just as much urgency as the newer veterans. I'm really tired of seeing them suffer when there is no need for any of this to be happening. The time for baby steps addressing all of this should have come as the plans to invade Afghanistan were just being drawn up, but as usual, taking care of the wounded were last on the to do list.

Vets and depression: Returning from war to fight new battle
UM Health Minute: Today's Top Health Issues and Medical Research
Reuters - USA
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When Lamont Christian
returned from war, he often felt angry, afraid and unworthy. Years later,
Christian found himself living in a homeless shelter, a sign that time had not
healed his emotional wounds.
He went to the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System for help, and there, he
learned the root of his problems: he was suffering from depression, post-
traumatic stress disorder and anger management problems. Now, he wants others
to learn from his experience.
"If I had a message to give to veterans who are coming out of the military
now or even veterans who have been out for a long period of time, it's that
nothing is going to happen in your life unless you go and get the help you
need," he says.
Christian is a veteran of Vietnam, but his experience holds true for
soldiers returning from current battlegrounds as well.
Nearly a third of veterans who are treated at Veterans Affairs health care
centers have significant depressive symptoms, and about 13 percent have
clinically diagnosed depression, says Marcia Valenstein, M.D., clinical
psychiatrist with the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor
of psychiatry with the University of Michigan Health System.
Depression is a "very potent" risk factor for suicide among people
receiving treatment for depression at the VA, she notes, with a suicide rate
that is three times higher than that of the overall VA patient population.
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