Physical and emotional pain after Desert Storm

Physical and emotional pain after Desert Storm

Mary:

I had Desert Storm Syndrome and they didn't call it that back then and so a lot of us went to different diagnoses. There's constant pain. You go in and out of fatigue. There's memory loss. I visited the mental health clinics several times. I was diagnosed with depression. They were just wonderful, the people that I talked to, very supportive, very understanding. I used to go grocery shopping at 2 a.m. in the morning because I did not want to be around people and I've talked to many Veterans who are exactly the same way and developed the same life skills as far as being away from people, because we just are so emotionally raw, that we just can't handle it.

Keeping your back to the wall, you’ve heard that many times, that was something that I didn’t, didn’t even realize that I was doing that. Crying at certain times of the year, um, I had triggers that I didn’t realize I had and once I identified those, life got so much easier, but it was educating myself and doing a lot of acceptance of the fact that I was wounded in other ways besides being shot.