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The day my son told me...

Mary Martin, US Air Force 1981 - 2005, talks about why she didn't ask for help with her PTSD right away.

Transcript

The day my son told me I was

bringing the Colonel out all the time broke my heart.

I love him more than life itself.

The only other people I love more than him

are his little girls.

And I just didn't ever want to go back there

because I didn't want him to have to experience that again,

or my granddaughters.

I really thought I was depressed.

I really didn't think that PTSD was that big a problem

because I'd had so much

what I thought was good treatment for it.

But the VA uses specific tools that are paper-and-pencil tools

that have been used with hundreds of thousands of people,

both military and civilian, and there's a special form

for civilians, a special form for military people,

and they don't keep this information secret.

So, the very first day there, when I filled out the checklist

for PTSD symptoms and I filled out the checklist

for depression symptoms, that information was shared with me

immediately, and the tool was explained to me.

And so, I was shocked I had moderate to severe PTSD

and I had moderate depression.

And so I very much, I was relieved really

because I didn't like the person I had become.

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