Military adverse childhood experiences: Ex-servicemen’s experience of military discharge and its impact on their sense of identity
Abstract: How service people make sense of their identity is suggested to be one of the key determinants to a successful military discharge (Ahern et al., 2015; Binks & Cambridge, 2018; Herman & Yarwood, 2014). Service people may be more vulnerable to transitionary junctures as they are significantly more likely to have experienced adverse childhoods than the general population (Blosnich et al., 2014; McCauley et al., 2015), something which is suggested to detrimentally impact transition success (Forster et al., 2020) as well as lead to identity salience difficulties (Carroll et al., 2017; Katon et al., 2015; Wong et al., 2019). We explored individuals’ sense of self during and after discharge by conducting semistructured telephone interviews with 10 U.K. ex-servicemen from significantly adverse childhood backgrounds (four or more adverse childhood experiences), using interpretative phenomenological analysis and a social identity theory (SIT) lens. Four superordinate themes were developed: abandoned in discharge, reborn into a foreign land, you never leave the forces, and us and them. Our findings highlight the role of identity in discharge, in particular the difficulties/importance in reconceptualizing self during this process. — Our study reinforces the importance of treating all ex-military service people as individuals in their own right, rather than relying on assumptions and generalizations. Although military discharge can significantly impact an individual’s identity, bringing up powerful feelings of abandonment for those from significantly adverse childhoods, each individual experiences this differently. Providing support on a practical, emotional, and psychological level before, during, and after discharge may aid ex-service people in navigating this potential traumatic and life-changing time.