Chicago Public Radio

Therapists Use Internet to Treat Reluctant Veterans Produced by Gabriel Spitzer

Military members are trained to rely on themselves, to ignore doubts and emotions. In combat, those skills might save a person’s life. But that training can make it hard to readjust to the civilian world, and to seek help when it’s needed. A group of Chicago entrepreneurs is trying a new way to get those veterans into therapy. They’re using something most vets readily understand: technology.

To survive in war, you have to get into a certain mindset. Trouble is, when you come back, it’s hard to get out of it.

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MONTES: I was just overwhelmed with the normalcy. Everything is normal here, like, you know, the buildings are still in tact, there’s nothing on fire.

Angel Montes returned three years ago from stints in Baghdad and Fallujah. He was having a hard time sorting out his feelings. Or even the idea of feelings.

MONTES: The only feelings that I was capable of knowing I felt was anger, or happy, or…that’s pretty much it.

He tried to settle back into life with his wife and kid, but things weren’t the same.

MONTES: In the military we’re really rough with each other, especially if you’ve been deployed for a long time. I felt like, sort of like an animal with human beings, trying to relate to them.

Montes eventually did get help, though it took his wife putting her foot down. He’s what psychologist Eric Proescher calls a reluctant help-seeker.

PROESCHER: I don’t care how much the leadership says look, it’s OK to have mental health problems. There are so many other messages that undo that in our culture, that whatever our industry has done to destigmatize it, I don’t think it’s been very effective.

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