Reliving the event

Children laughing was a big deal for me,

because it reminded me, when we were on patrol,

you would always have the children

run out of the areas that they were in

asking the soldiers and marines for things.

And it would remind me

of the experience of being overseas, in country.

What it made me avoid was, personally,

my children.

When I hear them laughing loud,

when I hear them talking loud,

loud noises, let me just put it that way.

Loud noises from children laughing,

I would automatically, now I'm back in Iraq.

Just on the strength of hearing, not just my children,

but children period, playing.

So that was an automatic reminder,

"Ok, now you're back in it."

This is the way cold sweats always bothered me.

It could happen any minute, any time in the day or night.

It's according to where I was at and what I was doing.

If we were on a picnic, sometimes, I would get these

cold sweats through watching the landscapes of the trees.

I would think of these shells coming from

the hiding places, and they would land on the roads

we were on and knock out some of the trucks.

And right away, you'll begin to, you choke up a little bit,

you know, you probably lose your breath,

and that's the way you would get these cold sweats.

That was the main thing about that.

And then I used to get the shakes once in a while,

like I said, you were very cold, and you would shake,

and I'd have to put my hands on my knees

and control myself like that.

If not, I would begin to shake like a leaf.

The first symptom that I really noticed

was actually sleep deprivation.

I was having a lot of nightmares, but even

just falling asleep was tough.

The minute I would start dozing off, I would get

a surge of adrenalin or anxiety, and I would wake up.

And even when I did fall asleep, I would wake up with

night terrors or sweats, so I think that kind of filtered over

into my non-sleeping hours, during the day,

and caused me a lot of stress at work.

I think the stress of not knowing what was going on

within myself was what was the worst part of it all

and not necessarily the side effects.

I was very restless.

I couldn't watch the evening news, the national news.

I couldn't watch movies with a lot of military type death

and destruction and things like that.

And I started to really withdraw from people as a whole,

as well, I just wanted to isolate myself somewhere

because I just didn't, my head was just swimming.

I was just going in circles, it felt like.

Some of the things that I can do now

that I couldn't before,

I have been to fireworks displays.

I can go into crowded places.

There are times that I have to put

abort criteria in play with the family

if things get to the point to where

I just can't handle it anymore.

We'll pull out and come back and try it again another day.

But the number of times

that I have to do that has decreased.

But it's all about learning how to take care of you

while taking care of those you care about.

The therapy showed me how to

relate different things, and how to figure 'em out.

Like what is the possibility of a

Vietnamese jumping out from behind the corner?

It's, you know, forget about it.

It's not gonna happen.

Or, are you gonna end up in a firefight?

Or is someone gonna shoot at you?

It's possible, but highly unlikely

that, you know, I'm gonna walk out the door

and someone's gonna take a shot at me.

Or there's gonna be a sniper in a tree

waiting for me to come out the door.

I mean those, things like that are

what I use today and

I had no idea how to use 'em

until I went through the cognitive therapy part of it.

And, like I said, I constantly use 'em, you know.

'I bet ya I use 'em at least four or fives times a week.

So I don't know if it ever goes away.

I can't tell you that.

But I do know that I can deal with it a lot better today

because of the help I've received

from the Veterans Administration.

And I'm not lying to you.

I'm not getting paid to do this.

I'm doing it because I want to see other people

out there get the help.

You deserve it.

You don't have to live a life of hardship

and pain, you know, I did it.

Let me do it for you.

I did it for years and I'm not doing it no more.

I don't, I don't have hardships.

The only pain I get is physical pain but other

than that I don't have mental pain no more.

I don't feel like my head's gonna burst or I'm gonna explode

at my girlfriend or something.

I don't do that no more.

You know, timeout.

That's what I do, a timeout and it works for me.

So good luck.