View original article at Army Times

While deployed to Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division, former Army Pfc. Michael Nahas said he watched 14 people die in a 2008 explosion in Mosul.

A few months after returning home to Fort Carson, Colo., Nahas, on a heavy prescription of Xanax, tried to commit suicide in the bathroom of his off-post apartment by jabbing IV tubes in his wrists, intending to bleed out.

Miraculously, Nahas’ wife found him before he died and help arrived in time.

In a photo of the aftermath provided by his family, the tub, walls and floor are splashed crimson, and a bloody smiley faced smeared on the tiles eerily peers down at the carnage.

After his suicide attempt, Nahas spent time in an inpatient clinic and was diagnosed with PTSD, which should have led to the standard medical disability retirement process.

But in April, his battalion gave him administrative discharge for “adjustment disorder” and sent him back to civilian life — with no benefits.

Veterans advocates say Nahas’ case exemplifies a troubling new trend in the use of adjustment disorder diagnoses for mental health issues, including PTSD.

Adjustment disorder is a fairly broad label that is used, for example, as a quick and simple way to discharge boot camp recruits who find they just can’t cope with military life.

But some advocates say the services are misusing adjustment disorder to discharge some combat veterans who, like Nahas, may be traumatized by their wartime experiences.

The reason, they say, is cost.

Under a 2008 change in law, a diagnosis of PTSD is supposed to trigger an automatic 50 percent disability rating — along with lifetime medical retirement pay and health care benefits.

But a service member found to have adjustment disorder can be given a simple administrative discharge that carries no benefits — and no cost to the military.

Defense officials insist that budget considerations play no role in such decisions. But a similar scenario unfolded a few years ago when administrative discharges for “pre-existing personality disorder” began to rise, topping 1,000 in 2006 and 2007.

Congress enacted new rules in 2008 to curb use of that diagnosis — and discharges plunged to just 260 last year, according to data gathered by the office of Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., who took a leading role in effort to enact those new rules.

But simultaneously, discharges for the category of conditions that includes adjustment disorder began to soar, from 1,453 in 2006 to 3,844 last year — a spike of 165 percent.

Those trend lines have stoked fresh charges from advocates that the military is seeking to hold down its costs by shortchanging troops with mental health issues on health care and other benefits.

Even more egregiously, Nahas’ case shows that some troops already formally diagnosed with PTSD are being administratively discharged with no benefits — a violation of the law enacted by Congress in 2008. Some advocates say they know of hundreds of such cases.

Sadly, this only perpetuates the stigma of weakness that clings to mental health issues suffered by today’s combat vets.

Congress deserves credit for its 2008 move to swiftly address questionable discharges for pre-existing personality disorders.

Now, with the military’s suicide rate at record levels and mental health issues continuing to wreak havoc among troops, lawmakers must remain vigilant and demand an explanation from DoD for the rapid rise in discharges for adjustment disorder.

By Veronica Nett
The Charleston Gazette
See original article

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The suicide rate among military veterans has ballooned in recent years, in part because of overmedication of service members and a lack of support for veterans, advocates for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder said Thursday.

Psychiatrists sometimes prescribe drugs as a cure without an actual understanding of what the drugs do, said Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a psychiatrist and author from Ithaca, N.Y.

In 2008, the Army's suicide rate -- 20.2 per 100,000 -- exceeded the civilian suicide rate for the first time. The civilian suicide rate has held steady for years at about 18 per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Breggin and seven panelists addressed a crowd of about 50 therapists, social workers, members of the state Veterans Affairs department, in addition to service members and their families at the 2010 PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury Education and Awareness Conference.

Care-Net, a branch of the state Council of Churches, sponsored the conference at the Blessed John XXIII Pastoral Center in Charleston.

PTSD is the brain's natural reaction to extreme stress and traumatizing experiences, said Breggin, the conference's keynote speaker. Tramuatic brain injury looks just like PTSD, he said.

"There is no drug that improves the function of the brain," said Breggin, who said he will not prescribe psychiatric drugs as treatment for any disorder.

Psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants and anxiety medication, alter the chemical balance in the brain, disrupt the release of serotonin and, in many cases, have the same effect as street drugs, Breggin said.

Patients using psychiatric drugs have experienced psychotic and violent behavior, attempted suicide and are unable to think clearly, Breggin said.

Mary Lahas talked about her son, Michael, who she said stuck IV needles into his arms in a suicide attempt.

Her son, an Army infantry member, survived roadside bomb explosions, and witnessed the shooting death of civilians in Iraq, Lahas said Thursday.

He returned from his first deployment in 2008 with PTSD and TBI and suffered from headaches, anxiety, guilt, tinnitus and memory problems, Lahas said. He refused to seek help, she said, because he saw other soldiers ridiculed who did.

When he finally did seek help, he was given a "cocktail of death," that included antidepressants, anxiety medications and sleep aids, Lahas said.

"He was so overmedicated he could not care for himself -- eat, sleep or brush his teeth," she said.

The drugs and stress led him to try to take his own life, and while standing in his bathroom bleeding, he drew a smiley face on the wall in his own blood, she said.

Her son's wife found him and called for help. He was sent to a civilian clinic where he was diagnosed with PTSD. 

"We gave them a normal teenager and they gave back a broken soldier that looked like a concentration camp survivor," Lahas said.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated that more than 6,000 veterans from past and ongoing conflicts will commit suicide this year.

MSNBC Nightly News video A Veteran's Journey Through Coping with PTSD

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