For years, seeing a young girl – particularly a young African girl – would bring images, sounds, even smells from Rwandan refugee camps flooding into Sammy Sampson’s mind. It would also bring a wave of shame and guilt because of all the people he couldn’t help while peacekeeping as a Canadian soldier; and then depression would set in.
Sammy joined the army at the age of 17. During his 21 year career, he was deployed on seven different operations that included combat deployments, as well as significant time spent on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions.
It is the time that Sammy spent in Rwanda, peacekeeping in the wake of the country’s civil war, which has affected him most deeply. Working amidst the crowded refugee camps, Sammy did as much as he could but the overwhelming devastation and the huge numbers of displaced people meant that not everyone could be helped. In order to get through, he adopted the attitude that “you can only do the best you can.” Yet he was deeply troubled by all the people he couldn’t help: those killed in the genocide, sick and wounded refugees, and young children orphaned, without anyone to care for them.
When Sammy left the army – medically released due to a spinal injury – he was experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He had bad dreams, isolated himself from others, and could go into what he calls a “funk” for weeks at a time. But he didn’t see this as a huge problem; he considered it part of developing as a man. Then, in 2012, he became a father and everything changed.
“All of a sudden my PTSD kicked in at a level I had never experienced before and it became overwhelming.” Sammy explains that he started to picture the awful things he’d seen in Rwanda happening to his daughter. “Everything just kind of stopped in my life. I couldn’t sleep. These rolling thoughts would snowball out of control, becoming more and more significant over time. . I wouldn’t even get to the depression, it was just constant fear and stress and mostly second-guessing a lot of the decisions I made in Rwanda to not pick up the thousands of children in my arms and carry them out of there.”
“Recovery is being given the tools to cope with my life. I don’t think anybody is going to be able to wipe Rwanda or any of the other operations from my mind. I think the best that we can do is to come up with ways to help soldiers like me cope with the things that we’ve seen and the things that we’ve done. I think the only way we can get there is to forgive ourselves.”
He knew he had to seek help right away. “I had completely committed to being a great father and husband so I had no other choice. Somebody had to help me out of this.”
Sammy reached out to the Operational Stress Injury (OSI) Clinic at The Royal. “When people talk about it, it’s this beacon of hope but you wonder if it’s for you.” Almost immediately, a team effort began with social workers, nurses, and doctors, all helping Sammy move towards recovery – “I felt a lot of attention, I felt a lot of care, I felt a lot of concern for my mental health.”
Part of his treatment was exposure therapy. Sammy was recorded telling stories from his experiences in Rwanda and he would listen to them repeatedly in order to become more comfortable with the memories – “Turning on the recording device to hear my voice was probably the hardest thing I did that day, every day.” The team also helped him address his sleep issues and worked on calming his hypervigilance.
Although Sammy was making progress, guilt about several experiences in Rwanda continued to plague him until a breakthrough moment in his treatment changed his perspective. Sammy was asked to imagine telling a private working for him in the army that the traumas he’d experienced were his fault and that he would have to assume responsibility for them. This made Sammy realize the truth of his own blamelessness. “Once I freed that from my mind I was able to start getting on with my life.”
With this new insight, Sammy continued his therapy and today he is in recovery. The key to his wellness is that he now has the tools he needs to manage his PTSD. “The images are there but I’m able to tell myself now that it’s not my fault. I still may have some challenges but it’s not putting me out of service for days on end or even hours on end.”
Most importantly, he can now be the father he wants to be. “I can’t thank the team at the OSI Clinic enough for giving my daughter and me the relationship everybody deserves.”