28_Cary (Veteran)

Normalize PTSD

Cary grew up giving back to his community and has continuously found new ways to do that. He was looking for emergency beacons to downed aircrafts as a kid, retired from the United States Air Force’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), and is now a volunteer fire fighter.

I had the opportunity to be stationed with Cary at my first duty station, Luke Air Force Base. I have nothing but fond memories of him and always valued his insight. Cary’s story is so relatable to me. Both the PTSD issues and TBI. I am looking for professionals and subject matter experts for TBI to speak on the topic a bit more. I will hopefully be releasing an episode on that soon. That embarrassment that Cary talks about from his memory issues is something that I struggle with still. I hate feeling like I’m broken and can’t remember things. I have like 2 million notes in my phone, I have three note books, my house has so many sticky notes it looks like that dude’s car that parked in the handicap parking spot on YouTube. Getting my PTSD symptoms under control has really helped me give more energy and time to the memory issues. Cary talked about cognitive rehabilitation and I had no idea that was a thing. I will be looking into that more too. I started reading more and that has helped so it makes sense how training our minds or “working them out” helps them stay sharp.

Resources Mentioned:
Exercise
Strong support structure
Stop drinking
Find a purpose that makes sense to you
Therapy
Amazing significant other

We would really appreciate a share and like on IG, FB, Youtube and Twitter. I am always looking for veterans or first responders who have battled PTSD to share how you have raised the quality of your life to shorten that journey for others. Additionally if you support, provide services for these groups, or have extensive knowledge of benefits available for these groups please reach out. I would love to have a chat and share that knowledge with the community.