National Defence committee  I think it would be the continuum of services between the end of military life and the transition to civilian life. For us, that was the last straw in terms of my husband's suicide attempt. Something in the continuum is really missing. There is a grey area that is not being addressed and I think that's where the focus should be.

National Defence committee  Do not be ashamed of seeking help, because once you are in the system, you still get something good out of it. It needs to be demystified and we need to stop ostracizing people who dare to seek help on bended knee, as they say. I think that needs to be emphasized and families need to be involved in the process so that they can help you detect and solve problems before they become too big.

National Defence committee  First, there should be a way to detect problems. As I said earlier, members who return home after a mission are in a sort of grey area for a while. They will go see a social worker or someone who will conduct a short assessment, but that is not enough to detect problem behaviours.

National Defence committee  Yes, that's sort of what helped me understand things better. We took the time that was needed. I stayed there for a number of days and I trained with all sorts of experts. We think that post-traumatic stress makes people violent, but it is more than that. Something physical happens in the brain.

National Defence committee  Absolutely. People who are at a point where they are thinking about suicide aren't at all in a psychological state to seek help, let alone from their loved ones. It's impossible.

National Defence committee  I can answer that question. Indeed, agreements should be established with private practices to allow people to remain within a reasonable distance of their homes. Many of us have children and work. We also need to take care of our spouses who are sick. My husband, for example, can no longer drive in traffic because he becomes aggressive behind the wheel.

National Defence committee  Allow me to add something. OSISS-type peer support organizations, both member-to-member and spouse-to-spouse, should also be promoted a little more. This would be good. Programs like Bell Let's Talk are all well and good, but people don't want to talk about their mental health issues.

National Defence committee  I can't say it was a disciplinary thing. But I can say that it was pushed aside, that it wasn't always taken seriously. In our case, I sent a message because I feared for my husband's life. I had made videos of him behaving in certain ways, but I didn't get a response for several days.

National Defence committee  Yes, it's really taboo. My husband's diagnosis was made quickly. Once the valve opened, he never went back to work. We went to the hospital once, and he never went back to work again. I was asked to say that he had a congenital degenerative heart condition, so the chain of command wouldn't know he was being looked at for post-traumatic shock.

National Defence committee  I mentioned this during my presentation. Unfortunately, after I formed a support group of women in situations similar to mine, I found out that the social worker assigned to our case through the program had been taken off the case because her spouse was in the armed forces. I got a call after my husband's suicide attempt because I called looking for help.

National Defence committee  I would say that, if you don't live in Valcartier or somewhere else in Quebec, it's incredibly tough to receive services in French. For us, the problem started when my husband was transferred to Ottawa. We had to submit a number of requests so that he could obtain services in French.

National Defence committee  Yes. I will say that, further to his treatment, my husband signed all the consent forms for sharing information. In fact, we had an agreement with his military team. A decision was made with his health care team to stop further communications from going to my husband directly because it triggered him.

National Defence committee  Yes. Not everyone involved in my husband's case was ineffective. There was one person we could count on, a social worker at the Montfort hospital. She referred my husband to a civilian treatment program at the Bellwood facility, in Toronto. The program isn't administered by the Canadian Forces, but the program providers are used to treating people with post-traumatic stress.

National Defence committee  I think members' spouses and children should be involved in the process. The Canadian Armed Forces quickly seems to forget that a member is also someone's father, husband and son. Spouses, children and even parents of members should be involved. What's more, some sort of tool should be developed to validate the symptoms the member is experiencing.

National Defence committee  Thank you.