A Lanarkshire veteran living with post traumatic stress disorder is calling for a fairer representation of the condition in films and television.
Today (Monday) marks National PTSD Awareness Day and David Dent, a former critical care nurse in the army medical services, says there are too many negative connotations of mental health in the media.
The 55-year-old believes it has led to those affected being judged wrongly by employers and society in general.
New research undertaken by Armed Forces charity Help for Heroes reveals the extent to which veterans and service personnel’s lives are impacted by the inaccurate portrayal of mental-health conditions suffered by veterans in films and on television.
Storylines often portray veterans as ‘broken’, angry and unable to fit into society because of mental health issues such as PTSD.
This causes a damaging and false association being created between veteran mental health and dangerous behaviour.
An investigation carried out by Help for Heroes shows how misconceptions about veterans, perpetuated in the media, are having a direct and detrimental impact on veterans’ relationships, careers, and self-esteem.
A total of 87 per cent of veterans, who responded to a Help for Heroes survey, said inaccurate portrayals on screen are likely to make the public think military veterans with mental-health issues will do something reckless or dangerous.
In a new campaign, the charity wants to redress the current narrative described as "overwhelmingly mad, bad and sad" and ask for a more accurate representation of mental health conditions in storylines in TV and film.
David from Law Village, near Carluke, told Lanarkshire Live: “There's a segment of television and media that will portray people in a negative light.
"They tend to portray veterans as someone who has got a problem, and I think this creates a degree of unconscious bias in some employers, health care professionals, social services and society in general.
“It makes them think, do we want to take the risk of taking this person on, will they be off sick all the time, will they start ordering people around? I see this happening all the time.
"It's almost like there's a higher threshold to get across there, but then once veterans are in employment, organisations that employ them really see the value.”
David is a companion of the Chartered Management Institute and teaches at two university business schools.
He was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours list for services to veterans, students and people with disabilities in Scotland.
The Lanarkshire veteran sustained a blast injury whist serving, that resulted in shrapnel injury and a brain injury.
He then had a traumatic back injury when providing medical cover for bomb disposal, damaging his lumbar spine and his neck, which has left him with severe chronic pain.
He has also been treated for PTSD and the associated symptoms, such as anger, anxiety and depression.
“Quite often when I see veterans on television, particularly in drama programmes, I think there's a really unhelpful negative connotation", David added.
"I think there's a broader idea around people with disability in general, where it's either hero or zero, when actually most people are in the middle somewhere.
"Organisations increasingly need to pay attention not just to diversity, equity and inclusion across the board, but specifically focus on disabilities of all kinds because this is one of the most under-supported areas in employment.”
Research carried out for the charity by YouGov, shows that UK adults are very likely to select negative words when describing military veterans with PTSD, such as burnt-out (59 per cent of UK adults), unbalanced (35 per cent), a danger to themselves or others (30 per cent) and explosive (29 per cent).
Conversely, very few selected positive words such as happy (two per cent), successful (three per cent), calm (two per cent) and motivated (three per cent).
With the same survey showing that more than 60 per cent of UK adults have no connection with the Armed Forces, the majority of the British public are likely to base their perceptions of military veterans on what they see on TV and in film.
Colin Preece, psychological wellbeing manager at Help for Heroes, explained: “Damaging veteran stereotypes portray characters that our veterans cannot recognise and don’t want to be associated with – this can prevent them from taking that first step in asking for help and moving on to lead a better life."
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