Fighting for UK PTSD diagnosed veterans

The Daparian Foundation; Providing veteran focussed PTSD research from the perspective of the veteran.   

  Prospective funder, thank you for reading this request for assistance and funding. What follows is a plea to assist our impassioned pilgrimage towards a UK society which truly listens to its PTSD diagnosed veterans, respects their opinions and acts upon their wishes.

     I am seeking £5,000, the estimated costs of financing The Daparian Foundation for the first 12 months; facilitating the delivery of pre-planned schedules of face to face, diagnosed veteran, and online, qualitative and quantitative, research.

     Let me state, openly and transparently, that The Daparian Foundation is a non-profit organisation. All monies received will be directly invested in facilitating the primary function of the foundation; carrying out pertinent, relevant and current research into UK veteran PTSD; with a view to publishing, sharing and utilising that data to represent veterans regarding their optimal treatment, recuperation, respite and convalescence. This organisation is in its infancy, currently only the founder himself, and requires all the logistical support that such a research organisation will utilise. The founder has, to date, derived no wage from the foundation, and has given his time free gratis; using private funding to purchase necessary items and to fund driving around the UK for previous research. This is inevitably unsustainable, in the long term; albeit that the founder will continue to derive no wage from this organisation until larger benefactors are incorporated into the funding steams, subsequent to the full business plan being completed.

     The purpose of this crowdfunding request, therefore, is to fund the initial stages of conception of the foundation; funding of a website, online survey facilities, a dedicated phoneline and the hire of a vehicle and fuel to enable the veteran volunteers to be visited at home initially; with other resources to be purchased / hired as and when appropriate, necessary and affordable. It is a promise of the founder that all persons who contribute to this exciting venture will be regularly updated as to our journey together, and will be consulted regarding future decision making; your involvement, your generosity, at this early stage is very much appreciated and I intend to carry you along with us as we grow and mature as an organisation.

     Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) destroys the lives of those suffering its many pernicious symptoms, and systematically disintegrates families and support networks if left unmanaged and untreated. PTSD causes depression, severe anxiety and a whole raft of comorbid symptoms and issues; and can lead to suicidal ideation if left untreated.

     Currently, within the United Kingdom we have government that does not legally require the statistical recording of veteran suicides, unlike the US, Australia, Canada and many other countries; the reasoning for this being that it is easy to subsequently fall back on the plausible deniability that there exists any problems with military and veteran mental health whatsoever. The UK faces rising veteran suicides year upon year, and diminishing resources, in real terms, with which to combat this tragic situation.

     The fight against veteran PTSD within the UK has been managed by a handful of military charities, which have, up until recently, provided a mixture of clinical, medical and psychological support and holistic, veteran supporting veteran, respite care and support; both types of care and support being vital for different psychological disorders and different stages of a veteran’s prognosis. However, in the past couple of years, perhaps due to the journey of austerity that the UK has been engaged upon, the residential, veteran to veteran, respite form of care has been cut back massively; with organisations such as Combat Stress and Royal British Legion closing a significant number of its residential respite centres.

     This has left diagnosed veterans with little or no opportunity to receive peer supported holistic therapies from fellow diagnosed veterans; seen by many, including myself, as an extremely powerful tool in the fight against PTSD. Against this backdrop of reduced availability of veteran to veteran respite residential care, paternalistic healthcare practices within both the military charities and NHS have seen veterans told by university educated, clinically qualified, experts in white coats exactly what was best for their care, treatment and recuperation; experts who predominantly have no military experience whatsoever.

     Responsibility, therefore, for the treatment of veteran PTSD is steadily moving towards NHS England; with a focus on a more ‘care in the community’, GP-led, treatment and care service. Emphasis is moving away from veteran-led and veteran-focussed care centres; experts believing them to be anachronistic and of poor value. When veterans have recently, bravely and stoically, protested such closures and organised effective and funded veteran respite facilities, they have been met by prevarication and duplicitous behaviour; effectively stonewalling their intentions and gagging their opinions.

     Nobody knows and understands PTSD better than someone who suffers its daily issues, who lives its rollercoaster ride of symptoms and challenges. I myself was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011, subsequent to an extremely violent incident on duty when I was a police officer. Whilst being treated, and taught coping strategies with which to manage my PTSD symptomology, I met many inspirational veterans similarly diagnosed; and saw at first hand the recuperative power and healing strength of diagnosed veterans supporting each other in a non-judgemental and sincere atmosphere of openness and honesty; an environment forged upon mutual respect and understanding of a common bond of the shared experience of PTSD. It soon became apparent to me that the cultivation of an environment such as this was a powerful weapon against some of the constituent ingredients of PTSD; self-disgust, loneliness and moral injury in-particular.                                   
     It is universally accepted that a significant reason which prevents PTSD diagnosed veterans seeking early support for psychological illness is the perceived stigma of doing so; a contributory ingredient of this being that they are initially attending clinical, non-military, environments. They are potentially overwhelmed by the sterile nature of such environments and the medical / psychological experts therein. The same can be said for veterans in treatment for PTSD, who need a suitable mixture of both the clinical and the non-clinical, veteran to veteran, holistic support; both being equally vital, and complimentary to each other.                   

     I have, since learning to manage my PTSD symptomology, attended university and obtained a Psychology Masters Degree. I am now building my own independent research foundation, The Daparian Foundation, recruiting a significant number of PTSD diagnosed veterans as volunteers; veterans who share a common bond of wishing to improve the lives of fellow diagnosed veterans and giving their community a place at the table of decision making regarding their present and future in respect of treatment, recuperation and support.

     What I have established is a bank of diagnosed veteran volunteers who are willing and enthusiastic to contribute to PTSD research; a database of volunteers that can be utilised as a resource to effect efficacious, current and respected research. This is a facility that many larger research and psychological institutions have traditionally struggled to recruit and employ effectively; making the establishment of my group of volunteers a potentially unique, and extremely valuable, commodity within the veteran PTSD community. 

‘You get me because you truly understand’

‘I feel that I can truly relax and open up with you because you’re the same as me’

‘You get me from the heart, not like the so-called experts who have learnt about PTSD from a book or college’

(quotes from PTSD diagnosed veterans during the data collection stage of my recent Masters research, indicating the efficacious relationship of understanding that is possible between a diagnosed researcher and diagnosed volunteers)

     My Masters research focussed upon ‘The Psychological correlates of self-disgust in individuals with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder’ and drew out some very powerful, empirical and statistically corroborated conclusions regarding loneliness being a significant driver in the prediction of anxiety and depression, and self-disgust working in concert with loneliness, depression and anxiety when significantly predicting PTSD symptomology. This research, and its conclusions, have formed part of an article which has been recently submitted to a prestigious psychology journal for publication, with myself as co-author.

     A major feature of the cycle of PTSD are the dark moments of exclusion, separation and self-imposed isolation from society that sufferers endure; lasting from an hour to a day to longer. It is in these moments that the diagnosed sufferer is conceivably at his / her most vulnerable.; and this represents, conceivably, the Achilles’ heel of the disorder and the conduit by which sufferers can be empowered to manage their prognosis through the targeting of the links between their loneliness, self-disgust, anxiety and depression. In doing so the disorder is effectively dismembered by the attacking of its weakest, and potentially most treatable element?

     This conceivably represents an exciting development in the treatment of PTSD diagnosed veterans, and will require significant further development and research to statistically corroborate and substantiate. A return to basics is possible here; veterans supporting veterans in a supportive, non-clinical, environment; in conjunction, of course, to the already established and life-saving psychological and medical services provided elsewhere by other agencies.

     The world of PTSD treatment is predominantly populated by medically and psychologically qualified, academically educated, experts in white coats; who, albeit that they have significant and informed knowledge of the disorder, will never truly know the pure power of veteran camaraderie, banter and peer support; having necessarily gained their PTSD expertise from books, training courses and qualifications.

     The Daparian Foundation exists to fill this perceived void; to provide veteran-focussed PTSD research with a sole priority of representing PTSD, its treatment and recuperation, through the eyes, and from the mouths, of the diagnosed veterans themselves! The voices, opinions and experience of diagnosed veterans, with regards to their treatment, recuperation and support, has been overlooked, ignored and circumvented for too long now!

     I envisage a reimagining of the current status quo, one step at a time, facilitated by giving PTSD diagnosed veterans an increased voice in their care, support and recuperation. Through, initially, longitudinal qualitative and quantitative research into PTSD and its covariates self-disgust, loneliness and moral injury, The Daparian Foundation will adopt a potentially unorthodox approach of giving back some power, some respect, to the diagnosed veteran community.

     Never underestimate the power and validity of efficacious and targeted research, which is published and circulated in a prudent manner; it can reach everywhere, change anything and bring light where there was once darkness!
 

Thank you,

 
Richard Gettings,

The Daparian Foundation