Fox’s Trey Yingst Pens Heart Wrenching Op-Ed About the Trauma He’s Dealt With Since Returning From Ukraine: It ‘Has Altered My Life and Mind Forever’

The war in Ukraine rages on after a full year of violent combat. And one journalist is opening up about the trauma he’s been dealing with after reporting from the front lines.

In a heart wrenching op-ed published Sunday by USA Today, Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst revealed that he has been dealing with post-traumatic stress from his time in Ukraine.

“The past year, while covering the war in Ukraine, I have reported under incoming fire, seen lifeless bodies strewn across landscapes and experienced complex grief that I still process today,” Yingst wrote. “I know firsthand the rush of adrenaline that clouds your ability to process emotions.

“War changes you as a person. I’ve reported around the world, but the invasion of Ukraine has been especially difficult to bear witness to.”

Yingst shared that he doesn’t anticipate the trauma he has been dealing with will go away any time soon.

“I don’t regret staying in Ukraine,” Yingst wrote. “But it carried a cost. I decided I would stay, even when most of our crew pulled out. It wasn’t a question for me. I don’t regret my choice, but the decision has altered my life and mind forever.”

The correspondent, in his op-ed, said that he feels a responsibility to help “normalize the discussion around mental health,” and advocated for mental health resources — which he says his network has provided.

“Everyone talks about the live reports amid incoming artillery, the front-line packages and the brushes with danger,” Yingst wrote. “Rarely do we discuss what it feels like to get home from a months-long assignment and lie there in silence. We don’t talk about the nightmares, the survivors’ guilt or the loss of identity from getting too consumed by the story. That needs to change.”