Sharing your stories with others helps

Robert:

In fact, the more you talk about it, the more honest you are with yourself in terms of being healed on your way to recovery, and once I heard that I thought it was a revelation. Then, I enjoyed hearing the other soldiers admit and some of their problems. It became like I looked forward to going and hearing some of these stories, and then we could at the same time knew that what we said was confidential and that we were in an environment where it was confidential, and when we left we were still soldiers, but at least we were getting help, and I thought it was ironic that sometimes when I would go you know, out on the weekend or what not and I would listen to other guys who were not in the program. From time to time, I would recommend to them that they needed to talk to somebody.

You know, I said, "look, sometimes you can't keep this to yourself." Just coming out with us, having two beers or smoking a joint or whatever, and I'm not smoking, I'm not drinking but I'm just sitting there. We're just playing pool or something, you still need to talk to somebody because at that point in time it made me realize how many more soldiers needed to talk to somebody.

And so from time to time, I guess that's what kind of got me into the help, kept me in the helping professionals I realized that sometimes you can be more wounded in your head than your body.