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The biggest trigger for me is smell.

Jeremiah Civil, US Marine Corps 2001 - 2005, talks about how he knew he had PTSD.

Transcript

The biggest trigger for me is smell.

There are several smells that instantly take back memories

and pictures and full on gruesome stories

that I don't want to go into.

But yeah, so there's been several times

where either there is a dead animal,

beef jerky is not a good one for me.

[laughs] I have pictures in my head

and I have scenarios running back through my head

of people I had picked up and in gruesome areas and yeah.

Those flashback and it makes it difficult and at the same time,

they're not experiences I want to necessarily share

with the people around me, especially at the time.

And so it usually means I'm out.

[laughs] See you later, and that can be difficult.

That can definitely be quite difficult 'cause you don't want

to look like some crazy person that's flipping

out over some beef jerky at a convenience store, you know,

pushing people out of your way.

[laughs] So that could be difficult

and it takes some explaining I guess sometimes to people.

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