A psychologist says Lionel Desmond would avoid dealing with his PTSD by trying to fix the stressful parts of his life.
Isabelle Gagnon, who treated Desmond at the Sainte Anne’s veterans’ hospital in Quebec, testified at the tenth day of the Desmond Fatality Inquiry in Port Hawkesbury Wednesday.
Gagnon says Desmond would fixate on one issue, which he believed would resolve his other problems.
“One thing that he could focus on today, or during the session, or during the week that, if he could solve this one thing, then he would feel better.”
She says Desmond spoke about the stressors in his life as often, if not more, than his trauma, and that lack of focus meant they couldn’t delve into his underlying PTSD.
Gagnon says, when Desmond first arrived, he was focused on his marriage, but that would frequently change.
“He would say, ‘if I can just fix this relationship. I want to live with my wife and my daughter again. I want this to go well, I want to be a husband, I want to be father, and then things will go well,” she says. “At some point it was, ‘I just need to find a new job, and if I find a new job then that will solve all my other difficulties, or I just need to sell my home, once I sell my house it’ll be so much less stress.”
Gagnon says it was easier for him to attribute his mental health issues to external stressors and avoid them, than accept them as their own problems.
