Transcript
I think about after three months of going
with sleepless nights, it started to wear me quite a bit,
and I went TDY to Washington D.C.,
where a bunch of photographers from all branches of service,
they get together once a year for the thing called
a DoD Workshop, and one of the mentors there
was a frog in Vietnam and also a combat photographer.
And he'd been my mentor for several years,
and he kind of pulled me aside, and he said,
"I hate to tell you Stacy, but I think you got PTSD,"
and was pretty straightforward about it and the first person
to be really candid with me, and it was really his actions
in being forthright with me and also helping me get care
that led me down the right path to get treatment.
I think deep down inside I kind of knew that something
was wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on what to call it
or why it was happening, and I was a little shocked
that he would know it before I would.
Several years later, I went on my last combat deployment,
and it was pretty rough, and I got wounded.
And it was really a year after I had been wounded that
the PTSD, for me, had kind of gotten out of control
because I had been focusing all of my efforts --
I had been focusing all of my efforts on getting physically
well and kind of let my mental health fall to the wayside.
And with the VA right there, I went and pretty much
asked to get into counseling, and I didn't know what to expect
or what the VA here or the treatment here would be like,
so I didn't go with any expectations.
And I got linked up with Doctor Darrow
and started doing Exposure therapy.