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I do have a lot of nightmares.

Edward Rentas, US Army 1999 - 2010, talks about how he knew he had PTSD.

Transcript

I do have a lot of nightmares.

They have to do with what happened

out there, most of them.

Like the one that I always remember is, I was in the back

of a truck, we were moving away.

We were going in a convoy but I'm the last vehicle.

I was always the last vehicle out there.

And I see they're shooting rockets at me, I'm in the back

of the truck and they're shooting rockets at me

and I see rockets coming at me about to hit me

and then hit the ground.

But they kept getting closer and closer

and closer until I wake up.

And my wife sometimes says I'm loud or I talk

in my sleep and she knows.

She tells me, "You just had a nightmare."

And I don't sleep.

That's if I get some sleep and I don't.

I go downstairs and I wait one hour, it's one, two, three,

four o'clock in the morning.

She goes to work.

I sit on the couch and then I start feeling very sleepy

and I sleep for about 30 minutes, maybe an hour,

I'm back up and that's every day.

They gave me Ambiens for it.

I was taking Ambiens, two at a time, it wasn't working.

In Afghanistan I was drinking a lot of NyQuil.

I was buying five and six bottles a week.

One bottle would last me two days, maybe three.

I just chugged them because I had to get some sleep

because we were going to be on the road the next day.

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