Skip to content

I wasn't happy with myself. I felt like nobody should be happy.

Joe Duarte, US Army 2002 - 2006, talks about how he knew he had PTSD.

Transcript

Why is everyone so happy for these stupid

Easter and Valentine's Day and Christmas?

I thought it was nonsense.

And it wasn't until I started loving myself again

that I started really being able to enjoy them.

And that's when I realized that, you know what, like,

I would cause fights over what my wife was wearing,

I would try to control everything,

and everything had to be perfect,

and if one thing went wrong, I would freak out.

And so those are the things that would happen

during these holidays, these times.

Or we'd go Christmas shopping and my wife

would blow, like, a lot of money on kids' stuff

because she, my wife, found joy in seeing other people happy.

And I didn't because I wasn't happy with myself.

I think the only time you can really be happy

for somebody else is if you can be happy for yourself,

and because I wasn't happy with myself, I felt like,

"Well, nobody should be happy."

It really threw a wrench in our relationship,

and now it's getting better.

Published At