Domestic violence is an enormous public health problem in our
society today. Domestic violence among families of combat veterans is
also a significant problem -- if you take "significant" to mean,
"important to those it affects."
According to a fact sheet produced by the National Center for PTSD
(NCPTSD), part of the VA, domestic violence is "the most frequent cause
of serious injury to women, more than car accidents, muggings, and
stranger rapes combined."
Among veterans, studies show that "domestic violence rates among veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are higher than those of the general population. Additionally, according to studies, domestic violence rates among "active-duty military men (Heyman & Neidig, 1999), couples seeking relationship therapy (O'Leary, Vivian, & Malone, 1992), and Vietnam veterans with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Jordan et al., 1992) have been found to be higher than those from the general population."
One academic paper adds, making a crucial point, "Research has yet to study couples seeking relationship therapy in which the veteran has PTSD to explore how these relationships compare with other couples. Given the elevated risk for violence among these couples due to the PTSD, the treatment-seeking behavior, and the relationship distress, couples seeking relationship therapy are an especially vulnerable population." (And of course, couples not seeking relationship therapy might be even more under-served -- it's just they can't be as easily surveyed.)
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Casey Taft, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University, has recently been awarded a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to study this topic. From an article published by BU, announcing the grant, quoting Taft, and linked here:
"People who are exposed to trauma, and in particular those who develop PTSD, are at very high risk for aggressive behavior,” says Taft, who also works at the Boston Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the National Center for PTSD. “In one Vietnam war study, they found that among vets with PTSD, one third had engaged in physical violence against their partner in the past year. This rate was almost three time the rates they found among vets without PTSD. Since we know that current vets in Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to significant trauma and many of them have been on multiple deployments and they’re coming back with high rates of PTSD and other mental health issues, it would stand to reason that they would also engage in high levels of aggression and partner violence, though we don’t have the specific data to back that up.”
(Hence the study).
In the meantime, know that domestic violence can be "deadly serious."
Domestic violence is serious. Risks include death, serious physical injury, and psychological injury as well -- including PTSD and secondary PTSD. Just some of the psychological effects (often less obvious initially than the physical effects) are: depression and being at greater risk for subsequent suicide.
Again, according to the NCPTSD, "60% of battered women report depression," and "25% of suicide attempts by Caucasian women and 50% of suicide attempts by African American women" have been "preceded by abuse."
Some more sobering statistics about the magnitude of the problem:
- 20-30% of American women will be physically abused by a partner at least once in their lifetimes;
- 30-40% of women's emergency room visits are for injuries due to domestic violence;
- 30% of women killed in the U.S. are killed by their husbands or boyfriends;
- 50% of men who assaulted their female partners also assaulted their children;
- 3.3 million children witness domestic violence each year.
- 1.3 million women and 834,732 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually;
- 201,394 women are forcibly raped by an intimate partner annually;
- 11% of women in homosexual relationships and 23% of men in homosexual relationships report being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by an intimate partner;
- 503,485 women and 185,496 men are stalked by an intimate partner annually;
- 1-25% of all pregnant women are battered during pregnancy;
What to do if you're in crisis? There's a
National toll-free Domestic Violence hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
There's an excellent "Fact Sheet" put out by the NCPTSD, linked here; and
There's a "safety plan pocket guide," linked here.
The NCPTSD's fact sheet, they say, provides "information regarding the definition of domestic violence, the prevalence of domestic violence, the dynamics of abusive relationships, the effects of domestic violence, treatment for victims and perpetrators, and resources offering assistance."
There are also some good resources at other websites, including FamilyOfAVet.com, linked here.
