Connect with people who understand what you are going through, seek advice and surround yourself with support. We're free, anonymous, and professionally moderated 24/7.

47,612Members
1,358,869Posts
1,400,000Visitors

Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Unknown userMember18 Jan 2018, 11:19 am AEDT

Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

This Topic Tuesday we'll be focusing on supporting someone experiencing PTSD. Our special guest @DeanYates will be talking from his own first hand experience of PTSD - how it developed, his symptoms, what helped and what didn't.

Dean Yates, 49, has been a journalist, bureau chief and editor for Reuters, the international news service, for 25 years. He has reported extensively on war, conflict and natural disasters in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. While the Reuters bureau chief in Baghdad in 2007, three of Dean’s Iraqi staff were killed, two by a U.S. Apache helicopter.

Dean was diagnosed with PTSD in March 2016. He spent five weeks in the Ward 17 psychiatric unit at Melbourne’s Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Aug-Sept 2016. He was readmitted for three weeks in July 2017. Besides PTSD, Dean has moral injury.

Since May 2017, Dean has been head of journalist mental health and wellbeing strategy at Reuters, a newly created position for the company’s 2,600 staff around the world.

Below are some of the articles published about Dean's experience. Please be aware that some of the content in the links below could be triggering as they talk in detail about the distressing experiences Dean had during his time as a journalist.

In November 2016, Reuters published Dean’s account of his battle with PTSD. Click here

The ABC did this story on Dean in July 2017.

Columbia Journalism Review did a profile on Dean in this November 2017 story.

Join us from 7pm AEDT, Tuesday 27 Feb.

Hit the 'Like' button below to get an email reminder on the night.

115 replies

81 - 90 of 115

1...8 9 10...12

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

DeanYatesSenior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:26 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Really sorry to hear that @Adge

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

DeanYatesSenior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:27 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Great that you stay in touch @Former-Member
Vitally important for people who have PTSD to know that others care about them

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

HillsyContributor27 Feb 2018, 8:31 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Thanks @DeanYates. He does want to be home but struggles massively with sensory overload now which he didn't have before. He is unable to help with the kids (or anything) at night when he has taken his medication, nor in the morning until the medication has worn off and he has been able to get up when it is quiet. We have 4 kids, including a 7 month old so getting them organised in a morning isn't calm!

He also does not have the energy for the gym, gets light headed, short of breath and dizzy easily. Very fatigued. Avoids all social situations and can't have noise at home. This has been going on 3 months now and as a family it is extremely hard. I feel like a single parent, but also a carer for him. He didn't used to be like this

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Unknown userMember27 Feb 2018, 8:32 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

I had not heard of moral injury before, had to look it up.

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

DeanYatesSenior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:34 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Hi @Former-Member
It has to be an individual decision. You have to feel comfortable sharing. When I tell people about my PTSD and say I got it from working in Iraq, covering the Boxing Day tsunami, the Bali bombings, losing three staff in Baghdad, everyone gets it. What I mean is that in a sense, my experience is an easy one to share. I really understand that for others it can be very difficult given the nature of the trauma. That said, I believe that sharing with people who will listen with empathy and try to understand is worth doing. I will be forever grateful to a former colleague from Baghdad who said to me, when I was at my lowest point, that I was not alone. He had gone through the same thing. Until then, I have told virtually no one.From my experience, sharing helps the healing process and moving on. I just don't think bottling up works. By sharing, talking, journaling and processing - I think you get control of the narrative. You get to have more control over how you feel. You give yourself a chance to heal.

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

DeanYatesSenior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:36 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

I get what he means @Soozasaur. Seeing faces on strangers.

In response to: Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Shaz51Senior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:37 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Interesting @DeanYates

some tips of Supporting someone dealing with PTSD

In response to: Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Unknown userMember27 Feb 2018, 8:38 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks @DeanYates.

Sherry

In response to: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

DeanYatesSenior Contributor27 Feb 2018, 8:40 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Thanks @razsbags -- The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma in New York says the following: The “act of articulation — writing, drawing, painting, talking or crying — seems to change the way a traumatic memory is stored in the brain, as if it somehow moves the memory from one part of the hard drive to another. Child survivors from Guatemala to Bosnia have begun to heal by drawing or coloring out images of attacks. Especially when the act is coupled with the opportunity to grieve, articulation often provides a release of the emotions associated with the event and leaves its author able to recall the memory in the future with less or no pain.”

Some of my journalist colleagues in New York attend a drawing class once a month to deal with stress.

Sounds like by REM you mean EMDR. There is a few earlier references to this.

In response to: Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Unknown userMember27 Feb 2018, 8:40 pm AEDT

Re: Topic Tuesday // Supporting someone dealing with PTSD // Tues. 27 Feb. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

Hi all. Firstly thanks @DeanYates for coming and sharing your experiences tonight. And thanks also to @NikNik and @Former-Member for organising the evening.

Unfortunately I cannot stay any longer and need to go.

Thanks everyone.

Sherry

81 - 90 of 115

1...8 9 10...12