No, you have my apologies.
Because of the physical security threats that accompany PTSD, whether it's a combat threat, whether it's a military sexual trauma scenario, whether it's search and rescue, or whatever happens to be the underlying cause of the trauma, oftentimes it involves a loss of personal security and with that comes trust.
In the military we're taught three things. When your HPA axis fires, you either fight, flight or freeze. Doing nothing is frowned upon. Running away is frowned upon even more, so we fight. That's why veterans become very aggressive when they become threatened. It has been bred into us. It's not that we're bad people. It's just the way—I'm sorry—that....
The military made us the way we are. I won't apologize for it. It's necessary. However, now that we've been made that way, when we are done we need to find a soft landing place for us to land on. That includes our dog. I trusted nobody—nobody—and that included family members. It was dark. It took a long time for me to re-establish some of that trust. Unfortunately, in my work in this space, I have dealt with betrayals, being told that we were going to do certain things on this file and we haven't, and it hurts and causes that. Now, however, because I have Thai—you saw her come in here and check on me a minute ago—I can function in ways that I hadn't in years.
I need to share this with you about another one of our service dog handlers. His wife was approached by neighbours after he had gotten paired with his service dog. The comment was, “My God, you have a husband? We thought you were a single parent.” I don't need to tell you anything else. That's what you need to know.
That happens to be one of Mr. Samson's constituents.