Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a problem many service veterans face but help can be found

WHEN Queensland MP Brent Mickelberg arrived home in 2013 after serving six months in Afghanistan, so did the PTSD. Now, he is working to raise awareness of the condition and that help is available to those who reach out, writes Michael Wray

• Qld MP reveals his dark days with PTSD

DRIVING through the helter-skelter confusion that is traffic in war-torn Afghanistan always elevated former Australian Army officer Brent Mickelberg’s anxiety levels.

“Driving in Afghanistan is a combat sport,” he says.

“There’s no side of the road, there’s guys on motorbikes riding up and sticking magnetic car bombs underneath the vehicle, police are always trying to extort money out of you and trying to get you out of the vehicle, so you’re always on edge.”

Based just north of Kabul attached to a NATO Special Operations unit, Mickelberg’s team organised raids and strike operations during a period of Taliban resurgence.

His six-month deployment ended in early 2013.

Before leaving the Middle East, psychologists screened him for signs of PTSD and depression and he underwent a process the army calls decompression in the United Arab Emirates.

He arrived home to his wife Anna on Anzac Day.

But so did the anxiety and fears of war, morphing scenes of domesticity into nerve-tingling trials.

When Queensland LNP MP Brent Mickelberg, above with daughter Lara, arrived home to his wife Anna on Anzac Day 2013 so did the anxiety and fears of war, morphing scenes of domesticity into nerve-tingling trials.

Driving was the worst, he says. Scenes that are routine for everyone else – a patched up road, a dead animal lying on the bitumen – looked like telltale signs of a bomb.

The habits, feelings, fears and terror of war invaded his journeys through peaceful suburbs on the way to his new job in a bank.

Even when he knew there was no threat, he reached for a weapon.

After Anna became pregnant in 2014, the couple took their dogs for a walk. A child with a cap gun popped out of nowhere.

“I pretty much hit the deck,” he says.

“He was just three years old and started laughing me at me, which is fair enough but you’re still on edge and it’s only time that takes that away.”

Yet for Mickelberg, like many veterans, that time was what nearly what killed him.

Based just north of Kabul attached to a NATO Special Operations unit, Mickelberg’s team organised raids and strike operations during a period of Taliban resurgence. His six-month deployment ended in early 2013.

Three weeks ago, Mickelberg, who won the seat of Buderim for the LNP at last year’s state election, rose to deliver his maiden speech in Parliament.

Watching proudly in the public gallery, Anna, a former army and police officer, had no idea what he was about to say.

He started down a well-worn track for a maiden speech, praising his electorate, revealing his pride in serving the people and thanking his family with a special tribute to his mother who died of cancer in 2009.

Then, as Anna watched, he detoured deep into an area she thought they had left behind for good. It had felt like years since they had talked about the depression and PTSD that left him teetering on the verge of suicide after returning from Afghanistan.

“It was hard sitting up in the gallery watching it, trying to hold it together and not to cry in front of everyone, I was very proud of that,” Anna says.

Mickelberg says he didn’t tell Anna what he was going to say because he didn’t think he would be able to get through the speech if he had.

“It wasn’t something I really went in to lightly but I thought that platform, that opportunity was too good to waste on platitudes and that sort of stuff,” he says.

“I figured it was an opportunity to try to bring a bit of awareness to the fact that I had gone through that, and others had as well.”

Mickelberg’s struggles began immediately after returning from Afghanistan. He left the army and moved back into finance, working in a bank.

Anna, Brent Mickelberg’s wife, pushed him to see a psychologist, making sure he called and then going with him to the first appointment. “She was there and that was the circuit breaker I guess,” he says.

“There was a sense of worth to the stuff I was doing over there,” he says.

“It would have been on the front page of every newspaper, not just in Australia but across the world, and you come back and you’re sitting there doing an application for a bank loan.

“Your sense of worth, I wouldn’t say it’s diminished, but the meaning of what you’re doing, you feel like it’s just no comparison and instead you’re in this cycle of depression.”

He was one of the top performers statewide at the bank. But at home the facade crumbled. His dreams were filled with nightmares and he had persistent thoughts of suicide.

“I did’t want anyone to feel the emotional hurt that would come from that but you’re in such a bad place that you’re still thinking how do I get out of here,” he says. Anna, a family law solicitor on the Sunshine Coast, will never forget the shock of the day he broke down in front of her.

“To be honest, I can’t remember what we were talking about at the time, but he just crumpled. He’s a big strong guy and to watch someone like that just crumple, is devastating,” she says.

“I should have known. He was angry, he was withdrawn, he wanted to go back again … I guess that’s not what you want to hear after they’ve been away and you’ve been missing them.”

The previous day, he had also broken down and smashed his fist into a wall.

But this time, Anna was there. She pushed him to see a psychologist, making sure he called and then going with him to the first appointment.

“She was there and that was the circuit breaker, I guess,” he says.

“I kind of wonder what would have happened if Anna had gone to work that day.”

Mickelberg says he does not want to be the standard bearer for every veteran’s issue, however he sees gaps where a strong voice is needed, and will chip away at those issues.

“Society as a whole needs to accept that this is an injury that can be treated just like a broken leg,” he says.

“There’s a medical intervention that can happen, but if you don’t deal with it, just festers.

He understands how difficult it is for people struggling with depression and PTSD, for veterans and civilians alike, to reach out but hopes that with more awareness people can find help.

“You try to get through on your own but at a certain point you can’t, I suppose,” he says.

“You want someone to ask you for help or to help you, but you don’t want to ask for help. To me that’s sort of the key to it.”

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