Intifada veterans seek mental help
Emotional dates such as Memorial Day lead more former soldiers to call mental health hotline
TEL AVIV - More Israelis call the national mental health hotline during stressful times like Memorial Day; many of those seeking help this year are apparently soldiers who had served in the territories and have had direct contact with Palestinians during the Intifada, a mental health official says.
Anniversaries and memorial days tend to heighten emotions, said hotline coordinator at Natal, the national trauma center for terror victims and soldiers.
"At this time there is an increase of hundreds of percents in the number of callers," she said.
Emotional scars
Haimov told Ynet more people who suffer from emotional scars inflicted during the Intifadah have been calling Tuesday.
"These young people experienced in person what we hear in the news. They feel guilt and pangs of conscience over friends they did not help and things they did," Haimov said.
Haimov told Ynet about a personal experience she had with one such case.
"I talked to a father who said his son had a traumatic experience in Gaza and would not tell the parents. He got called into reserve service, literally collapsed and left the country, and the father does not know how to get him back," she said.
3 types of callers
Haimov said the center receives hundreds of enquiries on any given month, but "this week alone we were approached by about 500 people and expect another 500 to call the center by the end of the week."
She also explained there are three main types of callers. "The first, people who suffer from post-traumatic stress as a result of past wars, who only dare to ask for help now. The second group is terror victims. People who were present in an attack or lost a relative," she said.
"The third group is the young guys who got discharged and had tough experiences fighting in the last Intifada. Them and their parents," she said.
