Transcript
One Veteran that comes to mind particularly
avoided water for years and years
ever since he had had a traumatic experience
involving a ship that was sinking going down.
And so, what we did is we put
that on his list of things to do.
First, he was going to go approach the ocean.
And so, we took our time with it, and he approached the ocean,
and it was very anxiety-provoking for him at first
because he hadn't been around water in about 35 years.
When he got used to being just on the beach,
then we kind of said, "OK well, what would the next
challenging thing be that's not too challenging?"
And he said, "Well, I would love to be able
to take my grandson swimming.
This is something I wasn't ever able to do for my son,
and so I'd like to make it up by taking my grandson swimming,
but I'd be a nervous wreck."
So, we actually have a pool across the street from our VA,
so I took him over across the street, and we got in the pool,
and at first it was pretty difficult for him
being in the water and having to deal with the sensations
and the smells and the feeling of being wet
and also, the traumatic memory having to do with water.
It kind of came flooding back to him,
but after a while, his heart calmed down,
he was able to relax, he was able to swim around,
laugh, have a good time, even dunk his head underwater,
and all of that happened within about 45 minutes.
He took his grandson swimming, he was able to go to his
grandson's football games and actually sit in the bleachers
and not sort of wander around behind the bleachers.
He actually goes sailing with us every Friday, we take
Veterans sailing, and he's at the helm of his sailing boat.
We go out in the ocean, he has a great time with the other
Veterans, and we've got a great time with him.
I think for him, Prolonged Exposure
was really a life changing event.