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I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow.

Brad Seitz, US Marine Corps 2002 - 2005, talks about how he knew he had PTSD.

Transcript

I feel like I need to be prepared for everything.

I don't like getting caught, I guess,

with my pants down so to say.

Whenever I see bad weather

on the radar I just have this instinct to get everything ready

to go just so I'm not caught off guard.

I go through my house at night

and I'd make sure all the doors are locked.

I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow just

because I spent nine months of my life over in Iraq sleeping

with my M16 ready to fire and when I came home I just felt

like I needed that to be safe.

It was kind of my safety blanket and I needed to have something

within reach to protect myself.

I didn't realize at first

that that's really not what you're supposed to do

but after I went through with the VA and got help I kind

of realized that I could kind of let my guard down on some stuff

and kind of chill out a little bit.

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