Have you lived through a disease, experienced any kind of traumatic disaster or been through a long war combat?

After a life-threatening disaster or adversity, people usually have reactions such as having trouble or unable to sleep, tragic memories of past events, suicidal tendencies, etc. If such kinds of reactions keep on haunting you, you might be going through Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

As Dr. Matthew Friedman– the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for PTSD,  predicts that it can be quite a difficult and challenging experience for war Veterans while transitioning and shifting back to their families after spending years of war overseas and such circumstances often lead to domestic violence.

When the war Veterans, National Guard, Reservists, come back to their respecting natural civilian societies where the prime focus is survival without any formal support, they are required to fulfill various sets of responsibilities regarding their children, spouses and other family matters while trying to fix their own troubling emotions.

Here, from another perspective, it is also critically important to consider the scenarios about the transformations happened in their families while these soldiers were deployed and away from their homes. And now after the years of deployment, when the soldiers are re-united again with their families, they can’t normally go back to the situations before the deployment.

Trying to familiarize and re-align with the current modifications, they need to face various hardships and various adversaries that can even lead to domestic violence in their families and the surrounding environments. In this way, their various behaviors and the way they react to normal situations might resemble the symptoms of PTSD.

So here comes a question: how can a Veteran identify that their nightmares, sleeping disorders, painful sensations, emotional arousal and interpersonal difficulties are PTSD?

When the veterans start experiencing troubles on normal functioning works: unable to sleep, extreme sudden excitements, feeling uncomfortable with people, forgetting daily schedules, can’t accept the love of the family members and unable to support family leading to domestic violence, those could be the starting symptoms of PTSD which are usually more than  readjustment tensions.

PTSD, like any medical condition needs proper diagnosis both mentally and physically. So, gathering as much information as possible is the best thing a veteran can do at the first glance when he feels like experiencing the symptoms of PTSD. Here, right knowledge and information with proper preparation can turn things around.

There are hundreds of communities across the continent with Vet Centers and mental health programs where Veterans are recommended to walk-in and find the information they need about PTSD. Today, Veterans are highly encouraged by VA and the Department of Defense to get screened for PTSD instantly right after the deployment also with regular clinical visits.

Here, the medical specialists at VA’s national network of health care facilities diagnose and examine the Veterans by asking various questions regarding the changes and challenges brought by the deployment in their mental and physical health. The highly skilled medical experts guide and provide assistance to the Veterans while the family members also help them to get reacquainted to their normal civilian lifestyles.

The family members and veterans will benefit from knowing what the both parties can expect during reunion. If the transition period right after the deployment is not handled properly, various family circumstances may arise that sometimes lead to domestic violence.

So, it is critically important to feel and understand the situations for the family members to keep patience that the Veterans need time to regenerate and grow back together while putting forward efforts and maintaining the bonds so that their families can re-establish and re-develop happy normal lifestyles.

For more details on PTSD and domestic violence, kindly contact:

Victims of Crime Compensation & Counseling Services,
163 Victoria Parade Fitzroy 3065.
PH: (03) 9415 9492; (03) Fax: 9415 9256
Email: support@victimsofcrime.com.au
www.victimsofcrime.com.au

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