In my head, all I was thinking was gun, gun, gun, gun, gun.

I was with my nieces at the mall,

one of the places I don't like being,

but they wanted to go, and I wanted to be the uncle to,

"Let's go take them and be with them,"

because I missed a good part of their lives,

and I wanted to be a part of it again.

So I gathered up the courage and went to the mall.

And while we were in the mall,

a lady was coming towards me in a hurry,

and she dove right into her purse,

and the first thing I did instantly was,

"I need to protect my nieces."

I started scooting them behind the pillar, started moving away,

and I instantly went reaching for my hip and realized,

"Wait, I don't have a knife or a gun."

And this happened in, like, three seconds,

and all she did was, in my head all I was thinking was,

"Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, gun,

she's going to pull a gun on me,"

and all she did was get her cell phone.

In that instant, I went, "Whoa,

what's going on, what's wrong with me?"

And I had to leave the mall, they were looking up at me like,

"Uncle, what's wrong, what's wrong?"

And I'm like "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," and I went back

and I was like, "Here you go, I got to go home."

And I went home and I was just terrified for a while.

At that moment, I knew what had happened to me in Iraq

was really bleeding over to how I was dealing with

trying to focus on always dealing with defense mechanisms.

Through therapy, I learned that you have to accept that.

But if you control it, so when I go to a new place,

the first thing I start doing is, in my head I go,

"OK, this is my exit, this is how I'm going to get out,

this is what I'm going to do, done."

It takes 30 seconds in my head, and then the rest of the time

I'm there, I'm able to enjoy my time.