Controlling my PTSD, one step at a time. Dean Yates

At home in Evandale, Tasmania, Sept 2019. Photo by Helen Barrow, Evershine Productions

I reckon I just about have control over my mental illness. It’s taken 3½ years since I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in March 2016 to do so. Along the way I was admitted three times to the Ward 17 psychiatric unit run by Austin Health in Melbourne. The 77 days and nights I spent in one of Australia’s top trauma facilities helped me understand the impact PTSD was having on myself and my family. It was in the quiet, safe environment of Ward 17 that I found the hope and insight I needed to fight this injury.

I used to say my goal was to manage my PTSD. Then I realised I couldn’t apply an arms-length concept to an illness that made me consider killing myself. That nearly destroyed my marriage. That forced my wife Mary and my three children Patrick, Belle and Harry to walk on eggshells for years. I was so sensitive to noise that my family froze if they dropped anything. Tiny things irritated me. I’d suddenly leave the room without uttering a word and go to bed. Depression sucked the life out of me. Iraqi insurgents chased me through the streets of Baghdad in my sleep. My feet moved, as if I was running.

Guilt and shame tore at me over the deaths of two Iraqi men, a photographer and a driver, shot dead by a U.S. Apache helicopter along with 10 other people in Baghdad on July 12, 2007. You might be familiar with this event – in 2010 WikiLeaks released classified footage taken by the Apache’s cockpit camera that showed the attack unfold. Those two men, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, worked for Reuters. I was the Iraq bureau chief for Reuters at the time. Namir and Saeed were killed on my watch.

Trying to “manage” all the stuff wreaking havoc on my mind, body and soul wouldn’t cut it. No. It’s had to be control. Every day.

I’m getting there due to many factors. The love, understanding and patience of my family has been the most important. Mary never stopped trying to get me diagnosed despite my pig-headedness that there was nothing wrong with me. It was Mary who calmly told me I first needed hospitalisation when I became suicidal in late July 2016. By then I was too ill to make decisions. Mary told me I needed to go back to Ward 17 the following year and then a third time a year later. It was Mary who rode the rollercoaster of hope and despair that followed each discharge. Was I making progress? Was it real this time?

Jeremy Wagstaff, a former Reuters journalist I met in Jakarta in 1993, was a true friend. Based in Singapore, Jeremy checked in on me virtually every day in 2016. He was at our house in the village of Evandale in northern Tasmania during my darkest hours. Jeremy, his wife and another old friend were Mary’s support network. Mary sought their advice when I wouldn’t listen to her. When she needed to talk about how awful things were for her and our teenagers. Or when she needed to laugh.

The support of Gina Chua, my manager at Reuters since early 2017, has also been vital. Whenever I’ve plunged into crisis, Gina has made certain I focused on getting treated and not worry about work. I was able to take the time off I needed.

I was lucky to have an incredible treating team at Ward 17. I was assigned an intuitive Iranian-born psychiatrist on my first admission. I connected immediately with her. She was curious about me. She wanted to understand me. It took her less than an hour to see through the journalist’s mask I wore to contain my emotions. She sensed I was directionless during that first session and suggested I read Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Jew who survived three years in Nazi concentration camps. I bonded with a social worker who has spent decades trying to stop PTSD ruining relationships. She helped save mine. On my second admission to Ward 17, I met a young spiritual care worker who mended my soul over the deaths of Namir and Saeed. (Read more here.)

Being a journalist has helped. Once I realised how sick I was I threw myself into what’s become the biggest story of my life. I started a journal in mid-2016. I began by scribbling a few words in a notepad. I posed questions I couldn’t answer. I took notes after most sessions I had in Ward 17 with my treating team. Sometimes I typed several thousand words a day on my laptop. I read books, research papers and newspaper articles on trauma, PTSD and mental illness. I studied what happens to the brain and the body when the nervous system goes into fight, flight or freeze mode. When you understand what’s happening to you, it’s less frightening.

Among the many things I learnt in Ward 17 was the importance of reading my emotions, especially my levels of anxiety or anger and then being able to bring myself down. I call this deliberate self-awareness. If I push myself too hard, my body tells me. That means I need to step away from what I’m doing and relax, go for a walk or meditate. I also learnt in Ward 17 that it was important to see my psychologist at home regularly, not just when I plunged into crisis.

I read Frankl’s book on day three of my first admission. Man’s Search For Meaning helped plant the seed for my current role, something I get purpose from every day. I’ve been especially honoured that so many of you have shared your stories with me. You guys inspire and motivate me.

Getting control of a mental illness is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to put in the work. “Set Your Intention” is my mantra. It was something the Ward 17 occupational therapist said in group sessions to patients. She urged us to set our intention to understand our triggers, to assess our moods and to practice ways to reduce our anxiety levels. There was something about those three words that clicked with me. They are now tattooed on the inside of my right bicep. “Set your intention” is what I say to myself if it’s freezing in the middle of winter in Evandale and I’m looking for an excuse to skip my daily 45-minute walk. “Set your intention” helps me avoid the confectionary aisle in the supermarket.

The most important thing in my life is my family, but my top priority is self-care because if I look after myself my family gets the best of me. I work better too. I have no regrets about my career. I don’t regret getting PTSD. Mary tells me it’s made me a better person. That can’t be a bad thing. And if I need to return to Ward 17 a fourth time, that’s fine. I’ve got space on my right shoulder to update the Ward 17 tattoo that records the years I’ve been there.

Dean Yates was a journalist, bureau chief and editor for Reuters for more than 26 years. He has reported extensively on war, conflict and natural disasters in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Dean was diagnosed with PTSD in March 2016. He has been admitted three times to the Ward 17 psychiatric unit in Melbourne. He also served as head of journalist mental health and wellbeing strategy at Reuters.

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