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[The therapy] allowed me to understand that I'm in America now.

Eddie Hoffman (US Marine Corps, 2001 - 2010) talks about what PTSD treatment was like.

Transcript

Doing PE, the prolonged
exposure therapy,

I would have a
problem driving,

seeing something on the
side of the road.

I would drive through
downtown Tampa

with the top off my Jeep,

scanning rooftops as I'm
driving, which

isn't very safe.

But just expecting there
to be somebody up there,

either looking
down a scope,

having a cellphone in
their hands,

something that I might
have experienced in Iraq.

And prolonged
exposure therapy,

the vivos that we would do,
all that,

it allowed me to understand
that I'm in America now.

I'm in Tampa, Florida.

There's not too much.

There's people out there
that may want to harm me,

but the likelihood of me
being a target

in the environment that
I'm in is very low

compared to where I was
before,

so this wasn't rational,

some of the thoughts
that I was having

and some of the fears
that I was having.

And the more I
experienced them,

the more I was able to
go about my daily life

without having those fears.

And when they did pop up,

I could rationalize it
pretty quickly in my mind

and then carry on with my
business without

too much worry

or even too much
anxiety over it.

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