Transcript
It was Memorial Day a few years back,
and I guess some people were shooting off some fireworks,
and one landed right on my front doorstep.
Me and my wife, we had all the lights out,
we were watching a movie, and I snapped
and just went into, kind of, "Infantry mode."
And I kind of threw her on the ground, told her to get down.
That initial fear, that healthy fear that everybody needs
to have in combat, that wasn't there anymore.
That lack of fear and then coming back from that deployment
and having even more severe anger issues,
personal issues, and really bad anxiety.
Well, "Hey, I gotta do something about this
because this isn't normal."
You know, when you start going to bars and getting in trouble.
You know, I was arrested once, that kind of stuff.
Then it's like, "OK, yeah, I need to calm down and figure out
what's going on and get myself taken care of."
I was suffering in silence,
and I was allowing myself to become more and more depressed
and less and less functional in my everyday existence,
so much so that my family became extremely concerned,
and they suggested that I go to the VA.
I wanted to die
because I couldn't get a job, I was in pain,
I didn't want to be bothering anybody.
My life was falling apart, my wife, my kids,
nobody wanted to be bothered with me.
Nobody would hire me, and I just felt hopeless
and just felt that, hey, I was just useless.
And I was like, "Man, I got to do something."
I actually had another soldier of mine who actually said,
"You know, there may be something wrong with you.
Your temper is very short, you've become very isolated,
you're not the same guy that I've known for six-plus years."
And then you start to think back, you know,
all the patients that you've had,
the questions that you've asked them,
the things that you've been told to look out for
just described yourself.
My son had just graduated from high school.
I was going to transfer my Post-9/11 GI Bill to him,
and I attended a seminar for Veterans
on how to apply the GI Bill to his program.
A VA liaison named Mr. Davis, and he took the opportunity,
knowing that he had an audience of Veterans,
to just talk to them about the VA program.
And he listed on the board,
if your life is heading down this, he listed:
you're about to get divorced, your finances are in trouble,
are you drinking too much...
He listed all these things on the board,
and just sitting there
I identified with everything on the board.
I sat in on an orientation session with,
I think it was 12 or 12 to 15 other military Veterans,
and I stood near the door because
I was ready to leave after about 10 minutes.
And as each person introduced themselves
and gave a bit of a scenario of some of the things
they were going through in their life,
I became more and more convinced.
And I said to my mind, "Oh my God, this is me, I have PTSD."