Navy Chief Fights PTSD With Family’s Help

Face of Defense: Navy Chief Fights PTSD With Family’s Help 
DoD News
By Shannon Collins
Defense Media Activity

VENTURA, Calif., June 11, 2015 – As the nightmares took control of him, the sailor’s wife wrapped her arms around him and told him he was safe, comforting him until he calmed down and went back to sleep.

Ida Malone helps her husband, Navy Chief Petty Officer Averill Malone, stretch before cycling during the Navy’s training camp for the 2015 DoD Warrior Games at Ventura County Naval Station Port Hueneme in Oxnard, Calif., June 3, 2015. DoD photo by EJ Hersom

Navy Chief Petty Officer Averill Malone, a logistics specialist, has been married to his wife, Ida, for eight years, and he said the support he receives from his wife as a spouse and caregiver helps him with his post-traumatic stress symptoms.

“She tells me I’m safe, especially on those nights when I’m waking up screaming and jumping from nightmares,” he said. “When I get depressed or the anxiety starts kicking in, she says, ‘Baby, you’re safe.’ I love her for loving me through this.”

Breaking Point

When he came home, he said, he felt depressed and emotional, was anxious around loud noises and had trouble sleeping, but he didn’t realize he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I took care of my sailors and just pushed on,” Malone said.

He said that looking back, there was a decline in his work performance, but he didn’t know how to ask for help and kept internalizing his feelings.

At home, he had rules for the children: Don’t slam the doors, no loud music or television, and leave Dad alone and let him take naps.

The breaking point came in 2013, when his son Alonzo slammed a door. Malone and his son fought until his other son pulled him away. Through the help of his friends, he acknowledged something was wrong and checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“At first my plan was I was just going to keep driving and run into something to kill myself but I called a battle buddy, James, he’s been deployed several times,” Malone said.

“It was 2 in the morning, and he said, ‘I don’t know what to do but go to Bethesda, and I’ll meet you there.’ I didn’t know how to explain it and how to talk to people about it, but they finally got me a therapist, and that was the beginning,” he said.

Ida Malone, who served as a Navy corpsman for eight years, said she was angry and hurt initially, because her husband hadn’t told her he was hurting. They are both ministers, and she said she was also angry with God.

“I told God, ‘You took him over there, and you broke him,’” she said, her voice breaking. “I told Averill, ‘You lied to me. You shut me out.”

She said when she went to visit him at Bethesda on the third day, she saw the shell of the man she knew and kept telling him, “I’m sorry. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it. I just need you better.”
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