In my own case, which I'll use as an example, I tried twice. I didn't go to the hospital. The way I looked at it, if I jumped in front of a car, it would be an accident, my family would have the money, and at least I wouldn't be there to bother them. It didn't work--twice. I tried to do it so my family would be living after.... I'm sorry. It's not something that I talk about.
At least now I have a civilian psychologist I can call before I do anything stupid. Or I have my friend from UN-NATO. Every week we meet each other to take the pressure off.... I'm sorry. The problem with PTSD is that you can't control your emotions.
One of the big problems is that every day you live in hell, because you're back where your friends are.... Sorry.... Some days I'm stronger than this. Today is not a good day. I had a bad memory last night. I apologize for that. It's just the way it is with PTSD. Usually I'm a clown; I'm always a clown. And today is one of those days when it's hard to be a clown because my memories are coming up.
You know, one of the problems you're running with is that for a second, you had a choice. You cry and you go down when your friend dies, or you are not a coward, you're a man, and you do what you are trained to do, and you block it. After that, you can see people dying and you don't care. Twenty-six years later, after my friend died, it came back to me. I had two strokes because of that.
And the fact is that they say that there will be many new people who will come from Afghanistan. When I went there in 2005, I was there with a fellow from a war too. He was applying for it too, because as you get older, the walls you build to protect yourself against those memories fall down. That's what you are getting with those veterans now.
I was a stubborn mule for 26 years. I had PTSD. I was bad-tempered. My family had to live with it. That was hell. Now at least I know why I was the way I was sometimes. Those emotions were really bad. But you live it. You don't know about it until someone tells you exactly what you have--even though you don't believe it.
It's just a fact. We grew up proud. You are a man. Your friend dies, well, you don't cry. You have no time to cry. If you cry, you're a coward, and they kick you out. That's the way it was in the seventies. Now at least the kids have a chance to take the pressure off. When they finish in Afghanistan, they'll talk to them. For us, that didn't exist. If you went to see a shrink, you were out of the forces the day after. At least now they are doing something to take the pressure off.
For me, it's a bit too late--two strokes later--but at least I didn't kill myself. I lost three friends last year who killed themselves. They were with me. They won't know why they died. They just did it. So it won't go in the stats that they did it because of service; they just did it. It's that simple. They probably did as I did. You don't report it to anybody. You try to do it, hoping it'll work and your family will have money coming afterwards.
For me, it didn't work, thank God. They look at me and see that I'm too big for a car, and they won't hit me.