Yates has been called brave. He has been described as bringing light into the darkness around Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But writing this book about his own horrendous struggle with PTSD gave his life meaning, using his considerable skills as an experienced journalist.
Now living in a small Tasmanian town, Yates had been a journalist, bureau chief, senior editor and finally head of mental health strategy for Reuters, the world’s largest news provider, for 26 years. During his postings around the world, reporting on the Bali bombings, the Aceh tsunami and the aftermath of the war in Iraq, he saw more than his share of death and destruction, including what Wikileaks later called the ‘collateral murder’ of two of his Baghdad staff.
It was those deaths that caused Yates the greatest guilt, as he believed he had not done enough to protect them from US helicopter gunships; nor to question the US military in the aftermath.
He was diagnosed with PTSD in early 2016 and later told he had ‘moral injury’ as well. That has been defined as damage to a person’s moral foundations, either perpetrating, failing to prevent, witnessing, or learning about something that deeply transgressed someone’s moral and ethical values.
Bingo, said Yates, when he read that.
Admitted three times to Ward 17 at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne, he documented his interactions with staff, talking to them about his shut-down emotions, unpredictability, super-sensitivity to noise, great anger and agitation, making life difficult for his beloved wife and their three children.
He bares his soul in this book, with no topics taboo, quite often disregarding advice from staff to slow down as he devours books and literature on PTSD. Was Yates obsessive about what had caused his PTSD and moral injury? Probably. But he also became determined to show the world that the most critical factor in trauma recovery is the quality of someone’s support network, particularly their employing organisations.
He claims that there are many journalists with PTSD, imprisoned in their experiences.
‘Ask any journalist who reported from the Middle East. It broke their hearts,’ he writes.
This is an important book, not just for people diagnosed with PTSD, but also their family and friends, and especially their employers. How Yates found a kind of peace in a memorial service for the two Reuters employees killed under his watch in Baghdad, including a letter he penned to them, makes moving reading.
Line In The Sand may be a difficult book to read for some people, and it has no magic remedy for individual PTSD, but it does document in finest journalistic style one man’s battle to manage his mental condition and to raise awareness about it.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
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