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We check the right box just to get out of there.

Timm Lovitt, US Army 2001 - 2006, talks about why he didn't ask for help with his PTSD right away.

Transcript

When you're outprocessing through the military,

they give you a piece of paper with a whole bunch

of questions and boxes to check.

And sometimes if you check the wrong box,

you're staying a lot longer.

And we understand that, we realize that,

and so we check the right box just to get out of there.

And I think not only is it this kind of Spartan mentality

that we have to have, that we have to be untouchable

but when we check that box, the right box, I think we begin

to kind of believe, "Oh, you know,

there's nothing wrong with me.

I didn't experience that.

I'm not experiencing it."

And so, we kind of buy into our own kind of BS.

And after the fact, we begin to realize

that there's something else going on.

Going to treatment really opens that option back up and says,

"Maybe, you do have Posttraumatic Stress.

Maybe, you do have a Traumatic Brain Injury.

You know, maybe it's not that.

You just have an emotional disorder

but maybe it's actually these injuries."

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