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My poor wife...

Bill Talbott, US Air Force 1967 - 1971, talks about how his PTSD affected his loved ones.

Transcript

The PTSD affected my family.

A lot of mood swings, nightmares, as I shared.

I would get into a lot of fights in my dreams, and my poor

wife, I've broken her toe, I've given her bruises on her body.

Thank God I've never hit her face, but I've hit her hard,

sometimes, where she's almost in tears.

I've hit walls, put holes in walls.

My moods would change quickly, and I didn't recognize it.

I just thought it was me.

But prior to going in the service and everything, I was a very

happy-go-lucky, non-committal type of a person.

When I got back, I was a little bit more combative,

I was drinking a lot, and I was a changed person.

In fact, my mother made a comment to me when I got back,

she said, "I hope your mouth," referring to my language,

"I hope your mouth changes

because you're a very vile person right now."

I had a very hard time with that because I just didn't care.

And I didn't know what the problem was

until, later on, they found out part of it was my PTSD.

I was fighting all these problems that were

caused by my war years.

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