Freed hostage Gerco van Deventer could take time to reintegrate after six-year ordeal, say experts

When paramedic Gerco van Deventer arrived home in South Africa this month, having been freed after being abducted in Libya six years ago, his mental health battle was likely far from over.

While Van Deventer and his family circle the wagons so they can heal, Monique Strydom, who was one of 21 hostages held hostage by Abu Sayyaf rebels for 127 days in the Philippines in 2000, spoke to TimesLIVE about her ordeal and the time it took to heal.

“I can't really imagine what he must be going through though I may have a small inkling. Our 127 days do not really compare to six years. It must be a horrible adjustment,” Strydom told TimesLIVE late on Thursday afternoon from the US, where she is travelling.

She believes therapy is an important first step.

“We had a wonderful therapist working with us, but in spite of the good work she did the triggers never really went away, you just learnt to manage them.”

One example was a 2015 holiday to neighbouring Namibia.

“We were camping in the bush as part of the celebrations of Namibia's independence when they started exploding fireworks. The next think I knew I was crying and hiding in the bush.”

She was instantly transported back 15 years to her nightmare on the Philippine island of Jolo in 2000.

“My therapist later explained to me that triggers like the firework explosions, the bush and being in a strange country became this perfect storm.”

Strydom goes quiet for a second.

“When you are a captive you constantly live in fear. Your fight or flight instinct is activated. The most simple trigger will instantly take you back to that. I have learnt to recognise the results of triggering as the historic past. To survive I must force myself back to the now,” Strydom said.

“Everything is impacted. I struggled with concentration. About two months after our release we went to see a movie and I lasted 20 minutes. I just couldn't focus.”

She believes Gerco will need support while he is struggling through his trauma.

“It was tough coming home, because nobody here really understood what we had gone through. Only our group of hostages knew that trauma.”

Clinical psychologists Louis Awerbuck and Hanru Niemand said Van Deventer will “probably” need help.

“Without consulting someone it is always difficult having conversations like these, but in most cases like this I would expect some complications,” Awerbuck said.

“In the first case we must ask what Gerco is expecting. That should not be too complicated to answer. His wife, family and other loved ones were probably the sources of hope for him during his captivity.

“If they were still in place and waiting for him when he arrived home that would be a major complication avoided.”

The more difficult question would be what the six years in captivity did to him.

“We are talking mentally and physically here. Without knowing too much about his situation when he was held captive I supposed we could surmise he was not held in very pleasant circumstances.

“Six months is not six years. While some people might endure six months without too much trauma, six years is another matter,” Awerbuck said.

He agreed with Strydom.

“I suspect while Gerco was held hostage, he would have existed in a permanent state of fight or flight — or anxiety as people would call it.

“This state would influence his blood pressure and other physical processes and you must understand that none of this will stop just because he was freed.”

Niemand, who is based Cape Town, believes the isolation of captivity could be a key issue.

“We are social creatures as humans. Being held with very little contact with the outside world could be an enormous influence on our state of wellbeing,” he said on Thursday.

“With any prisoner being released there is a struggle to adapt. For a certain time you lived in almost isolation and were told what to do every step of every day. Suddenly you have to reintegrate with society again.”

This adaptation and reintegration can bring its own stress, he said.

“The released person will probably still be anxious and his fight or flight instinct still on, which could cause trauma of its own.”

TimesLIVE