B.C. couple shows military families path to healing from PTSD

The melody Chris Linford picks out on his guitar is simple, even sweet. But when he sings the lyrics, a ghost begins to appear.

"Many years have passed by, and I still see your face," he sings. "I wonder what you'd be like and I recognize your grace."

Linford, 56, a former Canadian Armed Forces nurse who retired in 2014, learned to play the guitar and write songs as part of his recovery from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

The song is about a 10-month-old girl he tried to save when he served in Rwanda. She died when he inserted a feeding tube incorrectly.  

He has had to learn to forgive himself, even as he summons her memory.

In the kitchen of their home in the town of Sooke on Vancouver Island, Kathryn, 55, Linford's wife of three decades, listens. She has heard the song before.

More than that, she has lived a life with him that started out with love and joy, then became shrouded and dark.

Divorce and suicide threatened their family before they found their way through the damage caused by PTSD and back to each other.

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People they met were baffled. "They couldn't figure out why we were still together," said Chris.

They are sharing their story in the same week that a tragedy unfolded in Nova Scotia, involving a Canadian veteran who suffered from PTSD.

A new mission

In the last year the Linfords have joined in a new mission: giving hope and understanding to other military families struggling with PTSD. They're offering a five-day intensive course for couples — COPE, Couples Overcoming PTSD Everyday. It's aimed at helping them learn how to cope and how to support each other.

Chris also self-published Warrior Rising:  A Soldier's Journey to PTSD and Back, a book about his experiences.

Tim Black, a University of Victoria professor who specializes in treating veterans with PTSD, helped the Linfords design the course as a pilot project, and he's tracked the fate of the couples that enrolled in sessions over the last year.

"It's pretty modest to be sure, but it seems that even six months out what we are trying to accomplish in those five days is staying with them, six months after the fact, which is really big for us," said Black.

Rwanda and Afghanistan

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 10 per cent of veterans suffer from PTSD.

For Linford, it started when he was deployed to Rwanda where he helped create a field hospital, then watched as the brutal genocide in 1994 left an estimated 800,000 people dead.  

He was not diagnosed until nearly 10 years later.

After a year of treatment he was sent out again, this time to the base hospital at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

Linford tried to cope with a relentless stream of soldiers and civilians, bodies and lives torn apart by improvised explosive devices.  

His mental health deteriorated, but when he returned he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel running a health services centre on a base near Victoria.

 'Walking on eggshells'

Throughout his career, Kathryn supported him, moving a dozen times and raising their three children while Chris was away. But living with him was not easy.

"I was totally walking on eggshells. When the kids were younger, I often created an environment so everyone was on their best behaviours," she said.

"It was very tiring for me because I was always on guard to what the kids were doing, making sure they were quiet or if they came home with a bad report card I hid it for quite a while until he was in a better frame of mind."

Chris admits to what he labels "significant" outbursts of anger that he now understands were caused by his trauma.

'My head was back there'

Then there were the everyday tasks that most people take for granted, such as grocery shopping.

He would become increasingly tense as they approached the meat section of the store.

"And once I smelled blood, if the butchers were in the back doing their work, I could pick up the smell of blood very, very quickly," he said.

"I knew what it was because as soon as I smell the blood I would be right back in Rwanda. My head was back there," he said.

"And if you put a lie detector on me I would probably pass it saying I was in Rwanda. That's how profound an experience it was."

He would quickly leave the store, leaving his wife wondering where he was and what had happened.  

Wife's needs ignored

Chris was getting treatment and talking to a counsellor, but Kathryn felt her needs being ignored.

"I would notice myself getting angry and more resentful. And I literally felt myself just going down a hole and screaming,  'What about me?' and I really didn't see what was there for me," she said.

For the couple, the turning point came when Chris finally admitted to her he had been "fantasizing" about committing suicide.  

Kathryn said she was shocked and scared when Chris told her but it finally opened up communication between them.

She realized she too was a victim of PTSD.

'Mirroring'

Black, the professor, said Kathryn experienced "mirroring."

"Living with someone who is constantly vigilant, constantly on edge and constantly activated, people then start to take on some of those same symptoms themselves, simply because of the environment they are living in."

Black credits the Linfords with being honest and dedicated in trying to shape a program that would help others.  

"We are trying to shift the focus away from the person with PTSD to say this is within the family," said Black.

'PTSD is in the home'

"PTSD is in the home. So here are some tools and some education that all of you can use and kind of come together as a team to fight this thing together."

Among the skills they teach are how to communicate, how to fight fair and when to leave one another alone, said Black.

The Linfords, who have led the course several times, are ready to let graduates take on some of the load.

They are also hoping to secure permanent funding to expand the program nationwide.

They have been working unpaid to share their wisdom and experience, but they say it has become the mission of their lives.

Looking back on his years in the military, the retired soldier said all the pain and all the trouble had brought them to a better place.

"We had to do all that as a family, serving 33 years to be able to do this — to have the credibility and the background and the knowledge," said Chris .

Kathryn chimed in.

"It really is about both of us now."

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