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When I got older was when he really started to isolate himself.

Olivia Jefferson (daughter of a Veteran with PTSD) talks about how PTSD affected her family.

Transcript

When I got older was when he really started isolating hisself.

He would just hang up the phone on me if we were talking

and just go in his room, or instead of arguing,

he just will sit there, and I'll just talk pretty much at him,

and he won't say anything.

It used to frustrate me, at first, but I just realized that

the PTSD as well as the way that he really is,

it kind of just clashed together.

He's not really a argumentative type of person.

He doesn't really like confrontation.

So having the PTSD, with him shutting everyone out

as well as not being confrontational,

it was just argument, after argument, after argument

that would just pile up and would never get solved.

So the next argument we have, as you can imagine,

it's bigger than the one before because there's still

the unresolved issues from the prior argument

that are now taking place with this argument.

So it was just one thing after another,

and then we'd yell at each other.

It'd be frustrating, and then eventually, he would just stop

and just sit there, or he'll just walk off and go in the room.

And after a few minutes or some hours, then, you know,

I'll take that initiative to go in the room

and check on him or to ask if he's OK

or ask if he wants something from the store,

just anything to break the ice, just to try to

get things back flowing the way that they should be.

And that was it, really.

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