Transcript
It wasn't just my choice
to serve my country, to wear the uniform.
Everyone who's close to me also serves, also pays a price.
It's hard to live with somebody that's miserable.
It's hard to live with somebody that's broken on the inside,
and it's hard to live when you desperately want to help
the person you love but you don't know how because
the person you love don't even know what the hell is going on.
Families suffer a great deal when mom or dad come home
just lost with PTSD, absolutely.
My ex-husband, he used to tell me
that his wife never came home,
just this zombie in the house.
The love is there for the family,
but with PTSD it's hard to feel it.
It's hard to feel the excitement,
the joy, and every part of that.
And there's so many moments, you know, in my son's life that
I want to connect with, but I can't.
But again, through the treatments
and through being open and honest about who I am
and starting to feel comfortable with myself,
I'm starting to live
and feel all those emotions with my family.
My wife was put through, of course, the alcoholism, the drugs,
the violence, rages, the anger.
My sons grew up with this.
They felt lost.
They tried, and my friends tried to reach out and say,
"What can we do to help you?"
And I'd just look at them and say, "You don't get it.
You don't understand what I'm feeling here."
"Well, just talk to me."
"I can't talk to you."
That's what happens,
and that's how it rolled on for 30-plus years.
PTSD affected my relationship with my wife.
She was to the point where she was no longer in love with me.
It was, my symptoms were getting severe enough for her,
I wasn't myself anymore.
I was someone else.
If you have a family, it becomes a family issue,
and family members start taking it on.
Is that the kind of issues that you want for your kids?
I didn't want that.
Today my kids are fairly well-adjusted.
They haven't forgot the turmoil they've been through,
and they went through a lot.
We talk about it.
There was a time in my life my children didn't talk to me,
had nothing to do with me.
Today, I have a good relationship with all of them.
Today, I'm "Grandpa" to their children.