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I was in the United States Army.
I was a PFC when I left, and I served in OIF from '05 to '06.
I was 24, I had had a kid, and I was newly married.
And I felt like it was the right time to try to man up
and do something good with my life.
When I came home, things had changed.
Things had changed in my relationship with my wife.
I was not the same person.
I just didn't--
I felt like I didn't fit in anymore.
It was like they wanted us to have a light switch.
You go over there, you're supposed to be this one
person, and then when you step off the plane, you're supposed
to turn that light switch off and be the person you was
before you left.
And it was nearly impossible.
There were times where you're just driving down the road,
and all of a sudden you see something, a broken up patch
of road, and then it does send you back.
It puts you right back in the Humvee and everything else.
You wake up with nightmares.
Sometimes you couldn't even sleep.
Loud noises would scare you.
It was just the thoughts were running rampant, and it got
the best of me at times.
When I came home, everybody was a stranger.
I could not talk to many people.
I secluded myself for nearly a year, where I never went out
of the house, I never dealt with anything, and I
tried to stay away.
My family would tell me constantly that I needed help.
I spent several times in the hospital with suicidal
attempts and stuff like that.
And then it just took one day for me to say, you know what,
I need the help, and I'm tired of living like this.
I had started going to the VA before, and then as things
started going downhill for me, I decided at that time that I
didn't want to go anymore.
That was when I got into that year of depression.
And when I decided to pull myself out, I went to the VA
and I said, I want help, and I want help in any
avenue I can get it.
We ran a lot of tests.
We tried to figure out exactly what was going on with me.
And we enrolled into a very important
program, the DBT program.
And it has helped me tremendously.
They give us the tools to actually combat
the feelings we have.
I have been in it since November, and since November,
I have basically done a 180.
That's the coolest thing about this group, is that when
you're in there, if another Veteran is talking about
something, nine times out of ten, the other Veterans in the
room are shaking their head like they know what they're
going through.
And there's a bond there.
We'll always be brothers or sisters.
But there's a bond there, especially when you're going
through the low times as well, knowing that
somebody's there with you.
And that's the greatest feeling in the world, to know
that you're not alone.
That they're not alone.
You're all in this together.