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Hello there my beautiful lovely internet friends, welcome back to my channel. It is delightful to see you here where today we are gonna be talking about ptsd, post-traumatic stress disorder. And yes, I am a little overly animated at the beginning of this video because I did just eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese all by myself. And yes, this is coffee. I've mentioned more than once in passing on this channel that I've dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as ptsd. I was diagnosed a number of years ago, but I've always brushed over it. I've never talked in depth about what that has been like, how it still presently affects me, and what led to that diagnosis, like what actually happened. On screen right now, you're gonna see a few content warnings of some subjects we will be brushing upon in this video. If you do not feel like hearing about any of these, click the link down below. I have placed a very cute puppy video just for you instead. As we dive in here today, I do want to give a big thank you to our sponsor Surfshark. I really appreciate sponsors, especially on videos like this talking about mental health because generally they get demonetized. So a quick word about this, I'll be sharing some of the information I've learned about them as we get started. Surfshark VPN is a service that allows you to safely and securely browse the internet to your heart's content while keeping your identity and information safe. As we all know from the office, identity theft is not a joke, Jim, and it really isn't a joke. Identity theft is a huge issue, costs people hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and using a VPN can help keep you and your information safe. Now, if that's not thrilling enough for you, it also allows you access to a lot more entertainment. For instance, if that show you love is no longer available on Netflix, just change your country through your VPN, connect through Germany or Japan, and suddenly because entertainment is licensed differently in different countries, you're able to watch that show again. I would highly recommend using them as I use them myself. Now, if you use the link in the description down below, you can get 83% off. That is quite the deal. I appreciate you giving it to my audience, Surfshark. So stay safe on the web, check it out down below, and let us continue with the video. So if it's alright with you, I'm gonna sip some coffee, and I'm gonna tell you my story. The year was 2010 when I returned back to Colorado from a school I was attending in Indiana because of health issues. When I got back here, I was very lost, very lonely. I loved it out there. It felt like home. Colorado was not for me, but I was stuck here, and I ended up getting involved in a house church that people I had known for a long time were running. Pretty soon after starting to attend regularly, I struck up a friendship with one of the leaders. He was a good few years older than me, and we started chatting and hanging out, and he was a really interesting guy. He was very hard to get to know. He was very mysterious, which at that point in my life was something that was kind of attractive, because like, who are you really? Let me get to know you, right? So this friendship turned romantic very quickly, and from the very first moment that we were actually alone together, there were red flags, like him not respecting me saying no to things, because at that point, I was a sheltered little Christian girl, and even kissing felt like going too far, but he was a leader. He was someone I saw as a pastor. I trusted him. I understood that, you know, men struggle with this kind of thing, and it was probably something I was wearing or something I was doing, and so that was my fault. We had a conversation about it. It's not gonna happen again. He's gonna listen to me the next time I say no to something. Okay, great, but as you might know, that's not how these situations go, and so as time progressed, things got worse and worse and worse. My boundaries, my physical boundaries, were never actually respected. He continued pushing and pushing and using a lot of spiritual and emotional manipulation. It was a very bad relationship with a very messed up power dynamic that got increasingly more, especially sexually abusive, as time went on, and oh so very spiritually manipulative. And the thing was, at this point in my life, my faith was my entire world. Like, following God was all I cared about, and serving Him, and serving His people, and so that was very much used against me. I'm gonna spare you and me from having to relive all of the details, but a long story made short. In October of 2011, he raped me, not for the first time, but the circumstances surrounding that particular instance finally became clear to me that something was really wrong. I felt like something broke in me. I remember literally driving away and feeling like I had split down the middle, like there was a piece of me that was like, that's totally fine. Everything's fine. It's a misunderstanding. You probably did something wrong. Then there was another half of me that was gutturally screaming, something is wrong. And I'm really grateful that in that one moment, I was able to listen to the side of me that was screaming and did recognize something wasn't right here. I didn't recognize the extent of it, but I was aware of it enough to exit that relationship. Trauma is a very funny beast. I look back at the first few weeks and few months after the worst of what happened, and I was unbelievably not okay. I was unbelievably not okay. I did end up going to the police. I did press charges. Nothing came of it because as I was told from the district attorney, juries don't really believe women in cases like this and you don't have hard evidence, so we're not going to do anything with it, which was very disappointing to say the least. Now, another piece of the story is that later I found out that I was by no means the first person that this guy had assaulted. He had six other restraining orders against him, which is a lot of restraining orders. Two convictions of domestic violence was literally in the midst of the first one. And that was in the midst of another sexual assault case against a minor. Like, we're talking legit sociopath, scum of the earth. But looking back, I am so incredibly glad that I was able to exit that relationship when I did. And there aren't words descriptive enough to tell you how broken I was, in the weeks and months following that event and leaving that relationship. Like, I was a different person. I legitimately considered getting a gravestone tattoo with that date because it was so significant to me that I was no longer here. The Jo before that moment was dead. She was gone and now I was here in this horrible, awful world that had just been exploded for me. I was previously of the illusion that the world was a safe place, people were good, God would always take care of me, everything was gonna be alright, and suddenly all of that was called into question. The community that I had at that time did a good job of trying to support me but was not equipped to actually get me what I needed. I had a lot of very poor experiences with people telling them what had happened and having my experience denied or minimized, having my feelings minimized, being told to get over it. I was very involved in this whole thriving alive community and suddenly I wasn't. Suddenly I was different, I was an outsider, I felt that way. And as time went on pretty quickly I was thinking about ending my life like all the time, like every single day. Sincerely the only reason I didn't is because of this dog you see right here. I got a German Shepherd because I felt very unsafe and also I love dogs and she is the... greatest blessing of my life at that point. And someone needed to feed her so I kept coming home and not driving my car off a bridge, which I'm very grateful for. And so eventually I started going to see a counselor. Not too long into our sessions together she asked me if I'd ever heard of something called ptsd, post-traumatic stress disorder. And I said isn't that what soldiers get from war? And she said yes, sometimes. And also it's what a lot of sexual assault survivors experience as well. At that point I was having nightmares just about every night. I was hyper vigilant to oh my god an extreme I think of some of the things that I did and some of the things that I thought and how ridiculously on guard and aware I was in every moment. And I almost have to laugh because it was so extreme. It was understandable given the experiences that I had. I started suffering from significant depression and panic attacks and felt so isolated and disconnected and just dead inside, but also feeling everything at the same time. So after a number of our sessions together she said you know you have post-traumatic stress disorder, this is what you're dealing with. And at that point it was honestly kind of a relief to hear because I felt like I was losing my mind. I felt like I was a crazy person and being able to have a name for the state of mind that I was in was amazing. Knowing that other people experience things like when they saw a certain color or someone smelling a certain way, we're suddenly back in the worst moment of their lives, and just started to panic. Like I was glad to know that flashbacks are actually a thing that happened to people and I wasn't the only one. ptsd made me isolate a whole lot, which is not super helpful when you're trying to heal from something. However, it felt like it kept me safe. Staying inside and not being around people and not talking to people and being in a controlled environment with my German Shepherd next to me. Like I was still stuck with my brain, meaning that I felt like I was in hell, but at least I didn't have to deal with all the additional input and the triggers and the tension and the things I needed to be vigilant about and so I isolated, which was a very dangerous thing to do with my brain in the position that it was in. And a big part of surviving that was the friends who didn't ditch me because I didn't respond to their texts for weeks on end. I remember napping a lot at that time in my life, which might sound like a weird thing to mention, but my brain was so constantly overwhelmed and in like hyperdrive that I was so exhausted. Like we're not meant to feel like we are in imminent danger most moments of the day. So I was not able to feel my body in particular, but I also didn't have a whole lot of desire to actually be attached. Like the numbness was overwhelming but not being numb was too painful, so it's kind of a double-edged sword. So I got that diagnosis of ptsd and what that has looked like for me over the years has shifted quite a bit. It frustrates me sometimes that being triggered is such a commonly used term now that is no longer associated with trauma, but the way that it was used when I was diagnosed anyway is it had to do with actually having a trauma trigger as in something that brought you back to the moment of trauma. Feeling all those physical sensations, you know the panic, all of that. And in the beginning there were so many of those for me. Seeing people who I knew knew him, pure and just utter panic. I was like the most trusting person in the world before this, but after I was suspicious of literally everybody, and I do mean everyone, that one has taken a long time to work out of and I will be honest I am still pretty guarded. Even though to most people I appear like a fairly open book, it is still hard to to not kind of always have a little bit of a wall between me and other people. The nightmares that I had the first few years in particular were horrific. You probably know this, but when you can't get good sleep it affects the rest of your mental health and so I almost think the nightmare portion of ptsd is one of the most brutal ones because there's nowhere that's safe. Like the world doesn't feel safe when you're awake, but it sure as hell does not feel safe when you're asleep because your brain just attacks you with these subconscious demons. One of the most horrible things I could ever say about ptsd is it gets better. It gets better with work and with time. And I did put in that work and I have taken that time and I am a significantly better place than I was. I can't even begin to state how different of a person I feel now than even three, four, five years ago. It was only this past October, I made a video about this, I'll link it, that I was able to go back to the city where that happened alone and felt okay. It's like nine years after. A few months ago out of absolutely nowhere I had a really bad trigger where my husband did something playful when we were in our kitchen. We were literally just like joking and playing around and he said something and like, like that. All of the sudden. I'm not sure if this will make sense but it literally saw our house as the house where those things happen to me. Like we have hardwood floors everywhere but like I was seeing pink carpet and I realized I could still see that the floors were wood but like my brain was telling me they're pink carpet, get the hell out of here. But honestly that's the only significant flashback I have of ptsd. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I can see the I've had in like a year. Aside from that, I have small moments of getting very overwhelmed with the subject or the topic. People say something that's particularly insensitive. Occasionally I have a very difficult time, but I'm at a place now where the nightmares are pretty well under control. A lot of my triggers are worked out. We're good there, but the hypervigilance is one that's very difficult. Like being aware of every door and every window, every entry and every exit, always knowing where my back is, being very aware of who's in the room, who's out of the room, knowing if someone comes up behind me, freaking out if I can't tell that they're there. Like that hasn't quite gone away. So when anyone asks me about healing from or getting better with ptsd, there are two things I always recommend. The first is a trauma-informed therapist. Worked amazingly well for me and I was grateful to have access. And secondly, a therapy treatment called EMDR. It's eye movement desensitization. EMD, eye movement desensitization. The R stands for something as well. I'm going to put it on screen and look like an idiot as I'm saying this. But it is this ridiculous sounding thing where you're like moving your eyes back and forth, following a light bar and maybe holding things that vibrate in your hand at like, as you're going back and forth, as you're kind of processing through some things. And oh my God, it worked incredibly well to dampen the severity of some of the flashbacks that I was having and start helping me feel like a real person again. It was amazing. And aside from that, figuring out my identity as this new person, because I do still feel like to some extent there was the before Joe and the after Joe. I realized we're the same person. I realized that Joe didn't die, but I lost so much of my identity and my community and who I was, not only with what happened, but everything surrounding the relationship and a lot of things that happened after leaving that relationship, that it's taken years to figure out who I am, what I like and what I don't like, things that bring me happy and things that don't bring me happy anymore. Just who I want to aim to be. And that has been discovered by lots of experimentation and trying new things. I fought an MMA for two years and that was incredibly healing to me. And I've done jujitsu and, and I've done a lot of other things. And I've done a lot of yoga and art and rock climbing and a lot of journaling, some coding, a lot of time hanging out with animals, just trying to figure out what makes me feel alive and what's worth staying alive for. This could be a whole video in itself, but the relationships, specifically my marriage, especially in the beginning, I really had to fight for because ptsd is just a beast. It is an absolute agonizing thing, especially when your trauma is related to a relationship and you're in a new relationship that is healthy, but you still have tons of happy. And I've done a lot of triggers and it's not the new person's fault, but it's, it's, it's a challenge to work through. And Brian is an absolute rock star and has really honestly helped me through so much of this. Finding safe people to talk to is also so important. And let me tell you, when I say that that takes a while, I really mean it can take a while. It took me years to find people who were really like my people, who were really safe for me to be around, to talk to, to actually be authentic, to say real things. Like people who were there to support me. I had some very good friends who have been with me through the whole thing and they are incredible. For a long time there, I found it really important to connect with other survivors of this type of trauma so that I didn't feel so damn alone and weird and broken and crazy and talking to people who have been there, talking to people who are a little bit further along in their healing process, talking to people who are maybe just coming out of something like this and realizing that you have something to give them, you have something to offer them because you've healed a little bit. I will say people tell me all the time and are very generous, uh, telling me how inspirational I am for, you know, going through the loss of my limb and how I've gone through that and all of that. But, but I cannot tell you, and you guys have seen on this channel how difficult that's been in some moments. I cannot tell you how much harder it was to survive that trauma, the aftermath of that trauma, the ptsd, the depression, the suicidal thoughts, the panic attacks, the nightmares, the triggers, the flashbacks, so much harder, so much harder than losing a limb. And I think part of that is probably that I gained a lot of skills, and the process of healing from that, that I was able to take with me into this other major deal of losing my leg. But people look at amputees and are like, wow, that's so heroic to, you know, still be living life like that. Or wow, that's really inspirational. But man, people who can survive and fight through mental health challenges are, in my personal experience and only my experience, it's so much harder, so much harder to do. One of the best things that was ever said to me about some of the symptoms of ptsd, as I feel like I'm losing my limb, I feel like I'm losing my mind, is that you're having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. When humans experience these life-altering, mind-changing events that leave us with mental and or physical scars, it is very understandable that our minds and our bodies are changed, that we have reactions that might not make sense, reactions that might not make sense to us or other people, but are understandable given the trauma that we have gone through. Learning to accept that allowed me to have some compassion towards myself, and instead of berating myself for this trauma brain that I was living in, it started to allow me to see myself as someone who got very hurt and was simply healing. Like I said, I definitely still deal with some of the symptoms of ptsd depending on the day, depending on the time, depending on the year, but it is no longer the thing in my life. It's no longer a controlling force or factor. It's something I'm aware of and occasionally pops back up and I have to process it and cope with it and continue on. The first number of months, and I would even say the first couple of years, I was very convinced that I was, always going to feel this way. I was always going to feel so empty and terrified and unsafe and vigilant and have nightmares and triggers and just feel like an alien and feel horrible, just awful. And it's not true. That's not true. If you find yourself dealing with something, whether it's mental health, physical health, whatever it is, and you find yourself in a really dark mental space, I can tell you from personal experience, I promise you there is a way that it can get better. It can take time. It can take hard work. It may take trying a variety of different things, but you are not going to feel this way forever. It really does get better. And you just have to keep going to sleep and waking up, doing one more day, one more step at a time, working slowly but surely forward, and you will find your way out of the muck. Thank you so much for listening to my story. I truly, really appreciate it. You guys mean the world to me, all of you. It amazes me that you'd be willing to take however many minutes this video is, maybe 20, 20 minutes out of your day to listen to me. Thank you. I hope you're doing well. I hope you're taking care of yourself. Big thank you again. Thank you Surfshark for making this video possible and to my patrons, my incredible, gracious patrons for supporting this channel. And to you watching this video right now, you could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else, and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes, and that means the world to me. Thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you, and I will see you in the next video. Bye, guys. The more you love, the more you live.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd

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opensmile/ptsd_dataset/validation/PTSD/Sexual assault   MST/vidm169.pt


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My name is Kyle. I was in the Marine Corps. I served as a field radio operator from 2002 to 2006. My dad was a Marine. He did 20 years. Seemed like a good life to me, so I kind of just followed in his footsteps really. It was right when I was graduating high school, was around the same time that 9-11 happened. 9-11 was really the thing that pushed me over the edge. Partway through our deployment to Okinawa, it was, oh actually we're going to Iraq. I ended up in Fallujah, the last insurgent hotbed is basically how they described it. It really is like a dangerous situation. All of the bad guys have been kind of concentrated into this one city, and that's where you guys are going. So it was kind of ominous going in there. Kind of expected there to be some heavy casualties, and there was. It affected me quite a bit. When I first came back, I was drinking pretty heavy. I was just kind of generally more irritable, having more kind of like outbursts. I thought we would get out and be heroes. People just canned us these great jobs. Marines are too stiff, was what I kept getting told. So finding work was tough. Got into a bar fight on my birthday. I got arrested, and by 2009 I ended up in a mental institution. Four-year sentence. Out of that came a connection to the VA. The VA did pretty much all of my mental health. I was in a mental health hospital, and I was in a mental health hospital. My mental health was really kind of what I needed. With ptsd, there's a lot of stuff to sift through. That was my introduction to mental health. I had the psychiatrist there at the outpatient clinic. I had a psychologist there. Did a whole lot of regular cognitive behavioral therapy with a therapist, a little number one. There were some other Vietnam veterans and a Korean War veteran who kind of took me under their wing. And, you know, we're like, look, like, you're lucky that you only have a four-year sentence. You only have, you know, a very short time in here. You've got exposed to see, like, what, you know, reality can be like for veterans. Without the mentor there encouraging me, I would have been totally resistant the whole time. Like, it was just kind of like collectively all of it builds on top of each other. Here's what the VA can offer. Use that as a blessing. Now I fill my time a lot with weight training, mountain biking, and snowboarding in the winter. A lot has changed. I have a master's in criminology, and then I'll be done with my Ph.D. in sociology. I bought a house. I used my VA loan. I bought a house, and I'm renting out all the rooms to other veterans and watching them, you know, turn their lives around. I've got a son now. I have a three-year-old. That's like the center of it all. That's like just what gives you, like, the meaning for life. Taking him hiking and, you know, fishing, just introducing him to playing with cars and Legos. That's just like the center of it all. That's like just what gives you, like, the meaning for life. Taking him hiking and, you know, fishing, just introducing him to playing with cars and Legos. The little kid hobbies have become my hobbies, too. Just the opportunity to be able to open the door and walk outside and look up at the sun. That ability is something not to be taken for granted. I did really get lucky, so I tried to, like, maximize that. I'm still trying to hold on to that. Let people reach out and grab you and pull you up. Seek help before it gets too far. We're still trying to get you to come. Okay, I am well off, but maybe I'll make America pay for it, even at the age of 70. What I want to say that's already the office I used to be a huge fan of compared to my dad started, is that you have to know how powerful your love for God is, youraph Central Sanโ�k pour tryin, That there is an extraordinary, Second Blood, how incredible your love, Your stimulation in the creation in this village is. Legos is so steak and sweet. Thank you. Oh, thank you, salmon!
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


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My name is Lawrence. I was in the Marine Corps, served during the Vietnam era in 1967 to 71. Getting out of the military, that was the easy part. Acclimating to civilian life, that was extremely difficult. I always felt that I hadn't really left Vietnam, and I remained in that attitude, that mode for, it's got to be 20 years. The major issue that I had was anger. I was anger all the time. I couldn't connect with anybody. I couldn't connect with my first wife. I just couldn't trust anybody. I didn't want to get hurt by losing somebody again. There was just a constant battle going on within me, with my own mind. There would be times when I'd be talking to somebody, and I'd be seeing a firefight in my mind's eye. It made it very, very difficult to remain calm. I had absolutely no control at all over my life whatsoever. After my first divorce, I started drinking, but I gave that up as a bad idea because it just made things worse, not better. Then I went on to a second marriage, and I'll imagine I managed to destroy that too because I hadn't learned anything. It was seven or eight years. It was a really bad year. The economy was going south. Work was slow. My mother had passed away. My second wife wrote me a letter and told me she wasn't coming home. She wouldn't tell me to my own face. And bills started piling up. Things just got out of control. I just couldn't handle it anymore. I tried to commit suicide. That's when I moved to Key West and stayed with my son. Because I needed somebody to kind of keep an eye on me. And from there, things just got better. When I was at the VA, I was diagnosed with ptsd. I had no idea what it was. Nobody ever talked to me about it. I didn't believe it. It took about six months to digest the idea and kind of get used to it, to see what really it was, what it was all about. It was uphill from there. It really was. They helped me out tremendously. They really did. I went to a program in Miami, a ptsd program. It was an intensive program for four months in-house. Once you know what ptsd is, it's easier to deal with. It's always easier to deal with something when you know what it is. So they teach you that first. You discussed everything. You were with other veterans, so you were safe, and you knew you were safe. And everybody there, they genuinely, genuinely cared. They bent over backwards to help. I felt hopeful for the first time in 40 years. I actually felt hopeful. And I was really glad that I had gone there. I try to get as much therapy as I possibly can. If it's available, sign me up. I'm going because this is my life, and they're willing to help, and they're offering the help. I'm taking it. They have phone numbers you can call any time of the day or night because they have a crisis line. You're never really alone, ever. Even if you live by yourself, if you live in the woods, you're still not alone because they're always available. I can't tell you how thankful I am for the VA and how happy I am that I actually went there and got the help that I needed. And if you're a veteran out there and you need help, don't put it off. Get the help you need. We just think those guys are really great for our fellow veterans. You can't tell us why. Don't give them leeway if you think these things are being told directly. They're people that are as frustrated as we are. I know I've just gotten Economy if this is令 gold digger aletter subbetran that's a tournament. I'm going to provide a referral tag for you. I wouldn't like to be aментvo given that these people are justicken who they are. How that I've worked,
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


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My name is Laura Hendrickson. I served four years in the Marine Corps in San Diego and Beaufort, South Carolina, between 2003 and 2007. I think the biggest thing is being at home by myself. Like, I would, just every time I was by myself, I would get sick, like physically sick and scared. And I wouldn't take showers if I was home by myself because I would, the whole time I was there, I wouldn't close my eyes. I would think like, oh my gosh, there's somebody, they're going to come in my bathroom and they're going to get me. And so it was like, when everyday things, it's like I can't do what normal, like activities, and it's frustrating for me because I didn't really understand it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand how it all related together. And so I knew like I don't want to be held back in my life. So I definitely, I just wanted to get help. I wanted to change. I wanted to be able to, you know, have, be free from it and be able to do things that everyone else around me was doing. I do have hope for the future. I definitely feel a lot better about it now. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm happy. Another one of the main reasons that I went through the treatment and stuck with it was because I'm, I want to have kids. I can't wait to have kids. But the whole thought of letting somebody else watch them and letting them out of my sight. Like I just feel like I'd be really obsessive and controlled about it. And I don't want to be like that. I don't want to not, you know, quit my job because I can't stand the thought of my kid being out of my sight. So I'm definitely like feeling better about that and more comfortable thinking about the situation. So I definitely think things are going to get better. I just finished the prolonged exposure therapy three months ago and I've seen a huge difference and it's given me the strength and confidence to take my therapy to the next level. And I'm currently in couples therapy with my husband, sharing my experiences with him to grow our bond so that, you know, he can better understand me and I don't feel so alone in my situation, feeling misunderstood a lot of the times. So it's really, really helpful. It's really helpful to be in that with him. And I also still see my own therapist and dealing with how to control my emotions whenever things start to get personal. I tend to take things more personal than the average person. So I'm still working on it. ptsd has affected my life by making relationships pretty difficult. For me. I have a really hard time trusting and letting my guard down and just being myself around people. I have a really hard time making friends because for all the same reasons I just, I feel really uncomfortable meeting new people and, you know, not really having the confidence, like feeling like I'm just like not valued as much as others around me. Right. Right. Yeah. around me, so it makes it really difficult, but I'm working on that. For seven years I blamed myself. I thought, what could I have done differently? Should I have fought back? Should I have said something immediately? But in this situation, people don't understand that there's so much fear. You don't know what this person's capable of doing to you. And so I carried that with me a long time, thinking I should have done something differently. And through therapy I was able to learn that there really wasn't anything else that I could do differently, considering the situation I was in and the safety that my body, my body was in. I was trying to stay safe. I just wanted to live. I didn't know what he was capable of doing. So therapy really helped me understand that it really wasn't my fault, and it's not your fault. And they can really help you come to agree with that. I would often think, it's my fault. Or I would take my situation and say, I'm sorry. You know, my situation's really not that bad compared to this person's. Because look what happened to them. At least this didn't happen to me. And I would kind of, you know, minimize the impact and think, oh, should I waste these people's time? Like, it's, my situation's not that bad. I would often feel like it was my fault somehow. Because I was blamed for so long for it. I've always thought of ptsd being like for deployments or war, and I never really thought of myself as having it. And after seven years of therapy, I finally had a doctor point out to me that, you know, it would be really good if I went through this treatment, and it really was. It's definitely difficult to bring up suppressed memories. It was really hard at first. It was actually really hard the whole time. It did get easier. You actually record yourself, and then you listen to it, so it, in some way, tricks your brain into accepting it, because it's really hard to attach yourself to the situation. After suppressing it for so long, you kind of feel like it wasn't you, or it didn't happen to you, but, you know, it forces you to accept that this did happen to me, and, you know, I'm going to be okay, and it's going to get better. Suppressing it, pretending like it didn't happen, it just weighs really heavy on you, and it doesn't get better that way. I'm scared. I'm scared to go anywhere by myself. I would, I sleep with the TV on. I'm constantly checking the windows and doors, thinking that there's somebody watching me from outside. When my husband would leave, I would automatically think, like, someone's going to get me, and I would be completely paranoid the whole time I was by myself. And. I would have nightmares if I slept. I would get up in the middle of the night not being able to go back to sleep. My nightmares were all about being attacked and being followed, and it was really difficult for me to do much of anything. I would recommend anybody with ptsd symptoms to seek prolonged exposure treatment. It was really helpful, and it gives you confidence, and at first it's just baby steps, but with each thing that you accomplish, you grow confidence, and, you know, at the beginning of treatment I never thought I would ever sleep without the lights on, or without the TV on, and now I actually have a hard time sleeping if the TV is on, and I just remember how good I felt. And I ran to my husband, I slept without the light on last night. And it's just little things, you know, but it's huge. So I'd highly recommend it. It was great for me, and I know it could really help others. I'm married now, but I still, it's like I just want him next to me all the time. Like, I just feel like I constantly need protected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that something's going to happen to me, even if it's driving, I think, oh my gosh, I don't want to go to this store. I could be in a car accident, or be in a car accident, or, you know, and I make him drive me, and it does, it gets tiresome for him for sure. But he's really supportive and, you know, helps me with it. And, you know, the little baby steps of, you know, since I did treatment, I can sleep without water. without the light on and it was a huge accomplishment, which doesn't seem huge to other people.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
I just finally went to a good friend of mine that used to work for the VA, and she told me, you have ptsd. And I said, I don't know what that is. And when she told me, I said, there's no way. I said, my dad and my uncle and my grandpa all went to war, and they took it like a man. Why come I can't? And that was the way I looked at it. You know, I'm too much of a man for that to have affected me this way. So I was in denial until finally I just didn't have anywhere else to go. She guided me towards the Veterans Administration, had me lined up for an examination with a psychiatrist. We had groups where they tried to get us to talk about it, and when it come to my turn, I said, no, I don't have anything to say. And finally, after so many years, I was able to start contributing a little bit to the group. You know, I started coming out of my shell. My house was in ruins. I started fixing it up a little bit, and slowly I got more motivation to do things.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
My name is Bridgette. I was in the Army. I really felt that serving my country and having an opportunity to travel was going to be a good opportunity. When you're in the service, the structure is set pretty strong. If there are any difficulties, you have someone within your chain of command that you can go to who has either the resources that you need directly or somebody that they can direct you to. When you get out, not only do you lose that level of structure, but then you also lose that level of resources. I didn't have any family. I didn't have any friends. It was basically just starting from scratch. By that point, I had a small child who had a very severe illness, so I was just trying to navigate through all of the different systems and work and transition out. So it was tough. It got bad pretty quickly. And there were a lot of things that I had to deal with. There were periods of time when I would recoup, but then there would still be that transition where I would have some difficulty. I've been classified as chronically homeless. Right now I have housing, post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury. All of those things were there. Taking the skills that I had and applying them to jobs in the community, that was difficult because here I came from the military. And I had to go through all of that. And then trying to say, well, here are my skills and this is what I can do. And people were like, well, how do we fit those skills into this situation? I ended up at the VA out of severe distress again. At that point, I was married and we had insurance, but my medical care had started to just basically eat up all of our money. It just became too much. And so I figured, you know, maybe I could go to the VA. And at least get my prescriptions. Once my health began to deteriorate, my marriage deteriorated as well. And I basically ended up homeless again. I found out about the HUD-VASH program through one of the social workers at the VA. They really worked with me to get me some type of financial resources, get me the kind of care that I needed for my daughter. You know, these are outside resources. But they plugged me into the information so that we could get it stabilized. The VA has the supportive part where they come in and they have the social workers come in and help you get the resources that you need so that you can keep your housing. I think initially, you know, I was pissed off. You know, because here I was all these years, I mean, short of going to a witch doctor. I mean, I had pretty much done it. I was like, what is wrong with me? I'm not connecting. I'm not talking. I'm not understanding what's happening, why I feel this way, why I'm struggling, why is this so difficult? You know, why is going to work every day difficult? So I was trying to still take, you know, ownership of it, that it's something I wasn't doing, something I needed to do. And so they kept saying, you know, this isn't your fault. These are the things that happened, and these are all the events that took place. So now, you know, you have to just get some help. You know, come in, talk to somebody or whatever. Your quality of life doesn't get better until you begin to implement things to make your quality of life better. I am currently using vocational rehab through the VA. I'm on the independent living program. And I know this sounds funny, but my conditions are so severe right now I'm not in a position to go back to school or to be working at all. So, you know, what they're trying to do is get me to a point where physically, I'm, you know, able to do more and getting out more. If I can just reach one person and say, hey, you know, don't take your life. Go get services. Go talk to someone. You know, reach out. Because everybody's not always going to be able to reach to you. But just reach out and just start asking questions. The help is there. It may be a little bit challenging to get the help. But take the energy that you were going to take to do something negative, to do something positive for your life.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
My name is Specialist Robert Tucker with the Vermont National Guard. I was deployed to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan from December 10, 2009 to December 10, 2010. My MOS is a .45 Bravo, which is Small Arms and Artillery Repair. When I was over there, though, I did a lot of different things, from driving in convoys, resupply convoys, tower guard, prisoner guard, combat logistics patrols, pretty much anything. I was kind of my company's go-to guy. I got suggested that I should probably go see somebody when I was in Indiana. That was our demob site. So when I got home, I went to the VA. And then when I went and talked to the doctor, he asked questions such as, you know, do you ever drive by things that remind you of possible triggers, you know, things like that. I mean, the doctor knows what questions to ask. I mean, you're not going in there blind. He knows what he needs to ask in order to diagnose or not diagnose, whatever. But, yeah, it actually teaches you a lot about yourself. Because I think I probably still wouldn't know that I had it. And I think knowing is probably one of the more important things about it. Because, I mean, you can't prepare if you don't know what to prepare for. I would say it is a relief to know. It's kind of like you don't have to wonder anymore. The behavioral health person that I talked to was kind of like asking about, you know, what... He was the one that was asking me, okay, what happens to you when you see a bag of trash on the side of the road? What happens to you when you hear something in the night? Stuff like that. And I thought that was probably one of the more beneficial meetings that I had that day. Because that's the one that actually pointed out these things that I thought were normal. And are really... I mean, it's normal for somebody that's been through what we've been through. But it's not normal for somebody that hasn't. You know, it's not normal for regular home life, I guess you could say. If you don't want to go, nobody can force you. It's something that you have to do on your own. But... But... If you don't go, you're going to be struggling like this for the rest of your life. If you're struggling, ask for help. It's there. And it's free. The resource is there. You know, if you're drowning, somebody throws a life ring to you. It's a free life ring. Take it. It's simple as that. When you come home from a deployment, I think it's like five years you have of free VA medical care for any combat-related illness, injury, blah, blah, blah. I would say it's not very wise not to take advantage of that five years of free medical care. What's the worst that's going to happen? I already said, you know, one of the few things that's going to happen, they're going to say you don't have it or you do have it. And if they say you do have it, you're going to have it. You're going to have it. And if they say you do, I'm pretty sure you already knew that. So if you have free medical care, it's foolish not to take advantage of it. I know there's a lot of people that had a lot more significant experiences than me, and there was a lot more that had a lot more traumatic experiences than me. But I guess what I'm trying to tell people is it doesn't take a whole lot to really, I mean, especially if it's your first, I mean, this was my first deployment. I mean, I'd never experienced anything like it before. So, I mean, next time I deploy, maybe it won't bother me as much. But to go from, I mean, I went right out, I joined right out of high school. So I went from high school to the workforce to deploying. So, I mean, I don't really have any traumatic experiences to compare to except for that. Whenever you get off of a deployment, you know, everybody, you go through this. You go through this out processing kind of thing for a few days. And they do medical checks, they do dental checks, they do mental health checks. When we went to behavioral health, they asked me a series of questions. And I didn't really think anything of it, you know, being agitated all the time, easily agitated, not being able to sleep. You know, nightmares. I didn't think anything of it. I just figured it was normal. And they had suggested that I, you know, make an appointment and see somebody else. And I was like, okay. And I told my squad leader what was going on. And we said, all right, we'll make sure you get to your appointment. And I went to that appointment with a psychiatrist, I think is what their title was. And, yeah, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. And, yeah, we talked for a while. And they had me do a, you know, one of those check sheet type tests. And they said, wow, you actually, you know, talking to you and looking at your score on this, you actually scored pretty high. And I says, really? I was like, that's kind of a shock. I didn't feel any different. Because I guess when you're over there, you kind of get wrapped up in what it's like over there. And it's kind of like a new normal. I didn't feel like I had a problem. I still don't feel like I have a problem. But I know that little things, if gone unnoticed or unattended, can turn into big things. When we were over there, I don't know if you guys heard about it or not, but the May 19th attack on Bagram Airfield was the largest, most significant, attack on Bagram Airfield since its existence. And one of the major attack points happened probably 200 yards from where I sleep or slept over there, I should say. And waking up at 4 in the morning to the sound of an AK-47 firing is very awakening, I guess you could say. Yeah. The AK-47 makes a very, very distinct sound. There's nothing like it in the world that I've ever heard. When you hear AK-47s firing, it's enough to—I'm a pretty sound sleeper. I mean, I can pretty much sleep through—well, I can actually say I've slept through rocket attacks. But to wake up to AK-47s, it's like, wow, you know they're pretty close. And that startles you. So I, you know, we get up and the attack was in the middle of it. The Apaches are flying over there firing the 30-millimeter guns. And that's pretty awakening. So now, you know, things—you know, you hear a bump or something at night, and it's like, okay, what is that? I actually have a firearm that I sleep with next to my head. I sleep with next to my head with a flashlight on it. And that's the first thing I go to. I grab that. I mean, it might sound a little extreme, but it's just how it is. I can't sleep without it anymore. So that's kind of—I just sit there and listen. You know, what was normal back home isn't—is weird when you're over there. You know, anything from, you know, taking a shower without shoes on. You know, that's weird over there. You don't do that over there because it's all public showers. So you wear flip-flops for health reasons, you know, normal like you would in any gym or anything. But, yeah, everything that was normal at home is weird over there, you know, just walking down to the kitchen to get something to eat. You know, you don't do that. You got to go to the DFAC and at scheduled times, stuff like that. So you get used to what it's like over there, and that's your normal. So then you come back home, and people expect you to be what you were like back home. But it's not like that because you're still over there, you know. Once I got back home, you know, I was driving. I mean, I did a lot of driving when I was over there. Um. Almost every day. And, uh, so driving here is a lot different than driving over there. Over there you avoid every pothole you possibly can because who knows what's inside of it. Here, usually a pothole is just a pothole. Um. A bag of trash or something beside the road here is usually a bag of trash. Over there, who knows what's inside of it. So you swerve, you know, stuff like that. I, for a couple of months, I did that here. Even still, I kind of look at things like, well, what's that? Your heart races, or mine does anyway. My heart starts to race. Um. Things tighten up. Muscles tighten up. Um. But I actually start looking around. Like, almost like I'm looking for a trigger man. Um. Stuff like that. And, you know, I try to swerve away from it. You know, get on the other side of the road, stuff like that. Um. But, yeah, little things like that. And it's like, ugh. It's not normal, I guess, for here, you know.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
I'm Jeremiah Civil. I got out as a corporal. I served in the United States Marine Corps and I served in Iraq as mortuary affairs for eight months. I didn't want my experiences to hurt or affect my family and a lot of those I didn't want them to know about. I mean it was almost a promise I made to myself leaving you know this is a horrible experience I'm gonna leave over here and I'm not gonna take it back with me and it's not a promise you can keep. It's not a promise you can keep. I had been put on probation at a job for popping on a UA and for coming into work drunk. All issues and so I had a mandatory AA meeting that I had to go to and it was at one of these AA meetings that um, it was a Vietnam vet that it was after after the meeting was over and I had actually shared and he came up to me and talked to me. He basically was like you know I heard some of the things that you said in there and you know I can relate. I was you know I'm a Vietnam veteran and I had lots of issues coming back and one of those was alcoholism and that's a part and parcel to ptsd and he was like you know maybe this isn't exactly all that you know this is a symptom of something maybe something bigger maybe maybe you could still look at the alcohol you know alcoholism piece but you know there's a there's a second piece to this and you know there's help he had he and himself gone through the whole claim process and was being seen at the VA and all that kind of stuff and it had a rough time himself. But had had gotten there and and and had said that you know it can be a rough process but that there's people that know the way through it and that you can you can find your way through it. It ends up being better for the better. I knew that I was going to go into a session with my counselor and I knew it was going to be a rough one and I knew the kind of things he was going to ask me about and get me to talk about and you know it freaking heart's beating you're racing like crazy. Even an hour before you even get to your visit because you don't want to talk about this stuff but you know you're going to have to and then you do and it's a huge relief. It does provide some relief even though it triggered me in that in that fashion and took me an hour to calm down and be okay. You notice after that that hour or so of being triggered that you get some relief you get some you know and the more that you do it the better and better it ends up being. And so sometimes sometimes you in a safe environment in a controlled environment sometimes it's good to trigger yourself and to force yourself into those uncomfortable positions because it's what it's where you grow. The biggest trigger for me is smell. There's several smells that instantly take back memories and pictures and full on gruesome stories that I don't want to go through. But yeah so there's been several times where either there's a dead animal beef jerky is not a good one for me. I have pictures in my head and I have scenarios running back through my head of people I picked I picked up and in gruesome areas and yeah so and then those flashback. And it makes it makes it difficult and at the same time it not experiences I want to necessarily share with the people around me especially at the time and so it usually means I'm out. See you later and that can be difficult it can definitely be quite difficult because you don't want to look like some crazy crazy person that's flipping out over some beef jerky at a convenience store you know pushing people out of your way. I've been doing that for over a year. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. I'm trying to get out of the way. So that can be difficult and it takes some explaining I guess sometimes to people. I would say for people that are on mortuary affairs or even any non combat related MOS ptsd still happens it doesn't have to be just combat related and you can see that you end up with the same symptoms they might be different in some ways. I would say for people that are on mortuary affairs or even any non combat related MOS ptsd still happens it doesn't have to be just combat related and you can see that you end up with the same symptoms they might be different in some ways. and that's ok. But for people that are having issues, it doesn't matter if it's combat related or not there is still a lot of traumas in that, but for people that are having issues, it doesn't matter whether it's combat related or not there's still a lot of traumas in that. over and we get over all of that completely holy of course I you know. If you're supposed to go to and we recognize really brave and interesting environment I've ever seen it I think. back okay whether combat or not but for people that are having issues I mean it doesn't matter whether it's combat related or not there's still a lot of traumas in that you know when you're when you're picking up the bodies of of your friends that you might have seen several hours before or comrades that you know are in the exact same position where you're going out into that hot area that you know this guy just got killed here when you're picking up civilians or kids or things like that yeah they're gonna they're gonna have some effect and it's ptsd is more of unprocessed information unprocessed things that you're you haven't had the time to fully sift through and you don't want to because it's painful and so you lock it somewhere in the back of your head and that doesn't have to be combat related that can be you know a lot of different experiences and unfortunately a lot of that happens in war and it doesn't have to be shots fired you feel weak you know I wasn't out there pulling a trigger or getting shot at every day like some of these guys and some of them are fine and they're not having the issues and and I am and so you know what's weak about me you know what's wrong with me yeah it it took a bit to to realize and get over that probably you know took me going to group and talking to other guys that had had a whole bunch of combat experience and hearing them say I don't know how you made it through what you did you know and part of that to us is a bit of survivor skill when you when you see good men what you see is hard good you know not weak and you know these guys wouldn't be having these problems die and they have family and kids and they had their life together and going well. And you come back and you're like, I made it, and I'm for whatever reason having all these issues, and I feel like I'm a dirtbag and I'm weak. And all those get muddled into the same thing, and it makes it harder to let that stuff go. Treatment has been huge. Treatment has definitely, definitely helped me. Treatment has turned my life completely around. I am a lot more comfortable in my own skin. I don't have the same amount of symptoms. I would encourage anybody to try all sorts of different things. There's lots of different stuff out there. You know, there's EMDR. I never did that. There's Native American Sweat Lodges. I did that, and that was wonderful and huge. There's group therapy. There's, you know, individual counselors. There's all sorts of different types of therapy out there and available, and it's just finding the right one for you. Some people might not be into the Native American Sweat Lodge thing. They might think it's hokey, and that's fine. Cool. That might not be your thing. You know, like I personally, I didn't want to do the EMDR thing. For me, it sounded hokey. You're going to make a little clicking noise next to my head and flashlights, and it's supposed to cure me. It's just not. It's just not. It's just on your individual feelings. You know, 90% of the work is your work. You know, the other 10% is what particular treatment you're taking. You know, really the treatment's on you, and you're the only one that can really make those choices and let those types of things go. And so it's just whatever treatment you can utilize. Whatever works for you. I drank a lot, and I partied a lot, and did a decent job of covering it up, and I didn't really kick in. You know, I could have the nightmares. I could have the other things, and it was okay in my party lifestyle, and it was okay. It wasn't that stuff causing it. It was the fact that I was drinking so much, and, you know, I was partying, and, yeah. So, yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Yeah. So the signs didn't really show up until a couple years after being back, or, you know, if they were there before, but, you know, I made a suicide attempt. And so that was a wake up. I got fired from a job, and kind of lost it from there, and was having nightmares like crazy, and couldn't talk to anybody about it, and didn't want to. I didn't want to tell anybody about it. I hadn't, at that point, decided that I was going to say anything to anybody. And so at that point, the signs were pretty close and in my face. I think sometimes they bite you in the butt, and that's when you got to realize, you know, you got to take, kind of swallow, swallow a little bit of your pride, and realize that, you know, getting help is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. And it doesn't mean that you're weak, and it doesn't mean that you're a failure in any means. It just means that you need help understanding what happened so that you can reprocess it. And you can come out with not only a stronger point of view, but now you have all that life experience behind you, too, that other people just don't have. And get put back on a stable road. And, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'll be able to use your experiences to your advantage, rather than letting them pick you apart. I actually turned to alcohol. It was a great cover-up. And so it wasn't quite as much of an isolation. It was sort of, I guess, an isolation because you can't really have deep friends in that sort of a fashion. And it's really easy to get rid of friends, and it's really easy to push people away, all of which I did. So it could be isolation. Later on it turned more into that. The drinking and the partying only lasts so long before it becomes serious issues. And that's what it did for me. It started causing serious life issues. Constantly losing jobs and all sorts of stuff. Not being able to keep friends. And so at that point that's when I did start to isolate. And I pretty much lost all my friends. I ended up getting married, which was a very, very tumultuous marriage. But other than that, other than my wife, I pretty much didn't have any friends for quite a few years. Didn't want to go out to crowded events. Didn't want to have too much of a social life. For the same reason I was talking about before. I don't want to have to try and explain to my wife. I don't want to explain it to people. And I didn't want to have to go over my experiences every single time. To try and let somebody know. So it was much easier just not to have friends. ptsd definitely took a toll on my marriage. It's difficult to work on personal issues inside of a relationship. And it's really difficult too to explain those things and explain those experiences for someone who's not in a relationship. I've never been in a relationship with somebody that wasn't there. And has never experienced that kind of a life experience, I guess. Never in the military. Never, you know. So for her to try and understand. I didn't actually get with her until after I was out of the military. So a lot of the stuff she didn't understand. And a lot of the stuff she didn't understand. And a lot of the stuff she didn't understand. A lot of the issues that I was having. With alcohol. With all sorts of other addictions. And with outbursts of anger. And not being able to sleep. And not being a very stable person. There's a lot of things that she didn't understand. And had a hard time understanding. And at the same point I wasn't necessarily the most understanding person myself. So it makes it really tough to be in a relationship. And be able to work on those kind of issues. And so yeah. It definitely took a huge toll on my marriage. I'm pretty happy about my future. I'm going to school. I have my associates. I got another two years. I work with a non-profit for veterans coming back. I'm really trying to do everything I can to force myself to branch out. And force myself to not isolate or avoid. And to talk about it. And to talk about it to lots of different people. And to try and help other guys that are coming back. I was probably one of the first. I've been back for six, seven years now. Which is a long time. And it feels like just now I'm kind of turning that corner. Of being able to be okay. And be alright. And so I think my future looks really bright.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
My situation was that we were on mission. We were heading north. The truck in front of us hit a roadside bomb. There were no survivors. I had injured my back, my head, and my arm. The passenger that was sitting in the seat where I was supposed to have been sitting had injured his entire right side. I said, that's something I've carried with me, and I'll always carry with me. I was diagnosed with ptsd when I came back in October of 2004. I started having nightmares. They had to put me on sleeping pill for that. They had to put me on anxiety medication for it because I was having panic attacks daily for it. I found out the sleeping pill wasn't working. I started having breakthrough dreams. I didn't want to work. I didn't want to leave my house. I didn't want to do anything. I was getting in trouble at work. One day, I just, I guess you could say I went off, and I cussed out my NCO, my platoon leader. And he was going to write me up, and my first sergeant stepped in and said, no, she's going to go see the psychiatrist. I found a counselor that said, okay, you can't do this anymore. You've got to face what's really going on. And now I've got a great support team. I am doing better, and that is due to the one-on-therapy that I get. It is due to... the VA doctors here that I see in D.C. I owe a tremendous thanks to the counselors that I've got. Everybody should take the chance and seek out their VA system. I think that's one of the most important things. I can't stress it enough.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
We have an expression in the military which is no plan survives first contact. You can train for anything all day every day but it doesn't happen in real life the way you prepare for it. If I'm looking at a specific moment in time March 11th 2013 is when my life would take a pretty substantial change. I was a kid growing up. I was a kid who was a little kid. I was a kid who was a little kid. I was a kid who was a little kid. I was a kid who was a little kid. Growing up I moved around a lot which as a child is difficult. You know constantly being the new kid in school. Getting picked on a lot. I was a small scared kid. I was a small scared kid. Deep down I was striving for strength. Athletics was kind of my anchor in life. It was something I could always depend on to be there. And with that did bring the confidence that I was looking for. And it was through sport that I met my best friend, my brother, Jonathan Rizzo. John was the type of guy that everybody John was the type of guy that everybody liked. liked. Through elementary, junior high school and high school we maintained our friendship. He was an athlete but also an intellect. He was just on the route to success in a variety of different avenues. And it was the summer between freshman and sophomore year he was murdered. And um... That obviously had an impact on me. I think I was looking at myself as a failure. I accepted the responsibility to look out for him and not let anything happen to him. And I failed at that. And what that did to me, even on a subconscious level, I would not know for years to come. And then a couple months later, 9-11 happened. I'll never forget where I was in that moment. I was walking to my dorm. I turned on the television and obviously the same thing as on every single channel. The towers were burning. And uh... It was in that moment that I knew I wanted to enlist. And I felt confident that I wanted to serve in the Special Operations community. And I felt confident that I wanted to serve in the Special Operations community. Not only did the Army give me the chance to go straight into the military. Not only did the Army give me the chance to go straight into the military. Not only did the Army give me the chance to go straight into the Special Forces. It was the one that I was drawn to most. It has a very wide array of core tasks. Unconventional warfare being at the top of that. So I made the decision and enlisted. My first deployment to Afghanistan was a nine month deployment. And uh... Our mission required us to do a variety of different things. From getting on armored gun trucks to conduct missions. From getting on armored gun trucks to conduct missions. To getting into a Toyota Corolla in plain clothes. And driving through downtown Kandahar. And driving through downtown Kandahar. The first engagement is one that people typically never forget. For me it was based on my training. My body was basically just responding accordingly. We train in a variety of circumstances so that we are able to react. And respond really without much thought. It just becomes instinctual. But on my second combat rotation to Afghanistan. Some of the key decisions that I made was against our training. My training told me to do one thing and I did something else. Which is not something that I'm proud of. So throughout this deployment we were working with the conventional Afghan National Army. We were working with the conventional Afghan National Army. We were working with the conventional Afghan National Army. We were getting ready to do a joint mission. As we were getting ready to end the mission brief. I began walking towards my truck. As I'm walking away I hear rounds being fired off from directly behind me. I realized that someone was decisively engaging us. And I snapped my head around. I honed in on the shooter. And it was somebody who I had been training and working alongside of. He had gotten up on the truck mounted PKM. PKM is a Russian machine gun. And began shooting at the group. This was the initiation of a complex ambush. We also began receiving fires from outside of our camp as well. So this was a coordinated attack. I processed the information. And my training tells me to move to cover and eliminate the threat. Which I had rehearsed and trained for hundreds and hundreds of times prior. I don't do that. I don't do that. The reason why I don't do that is because one of our infantry soldiers that was there with us. Young kid. First deployment. Was no more than 15 maybe 20 feet in front of the shooter. And he was basically frozen during headlights. I recognized that and I decided to put my body in between him and the shooter. And that was when I was hit the first time. Fell on top of him. And as I'm laying on the ground I feel myself get hit another time or two. Into my right leg. I drag him and myself to some cover. One of my teammates eliminated that threat within our actual camp. We're still receiving some harassing fires outside the camp. And this point is the time I first got eyes on my injury. I ripped my pant leg open. And my leg it's just bone and tissue and flesh and a lot of blood. Apply a tourniquet. Wrench it down. Lock it in. The bleeding doesn't stop. Grab a second tourniquet. Slap that on. Wrench it down. One of my teammates got to me. And the look on his face pretty much said it all. He breaks out another tourniquet. He slaps that on. And as he's applying it to me I'm telling him to get away from me. I'm telling him to go work on somebody else. I'm convinced that I'm going to die. And I was relatively content with that. You know if I was going down then along the way. I was going to die. If I was going down then alongside my boys is where I wanted it to be. I was okay with that. As I laid there. Three tourniquets on my leg. Bleeding out. I'm thinking. Have I done everything I can do? So I pulled open my first aid kit. I grabbed some gauze. Balled it up. And I wedged this thing up into my leg. Now I'm rubbing my hand by broken bone. My femur had been shattered. And this searing pain is like launching through my body. And trying to eject out of my eyeballs. And at some point right around there I went unconscious. And I came to and I was being loaded onto a helicopter. Flew me to Bagram. Brought me to surgery. They hacked off my leg. To try to minimize the amount of damage my body was trying to recover from. It took about five or six days for the medical staff to stabilize my body enough. To put me on a plane to fly me to Walter Reed. Went straight to the hospital. Went straight into the intensive care unit. And in there I had around 30 surgeries on my leg until they got a hold of the infection. And I managed to survive. I accepted the fact that I was an amputee pretty easily. It's kind of amazing even to me. To how fast. My mind shifted on getting back to work. I desperately wanted to be back where I felt like I belonged. But I was in Walter Reed for about a year. So I had a lot of time to look back on that incident. And ask myself the question why. Why did I do something that is counter to my training. If I'm looking at a catalyst that propelled that within my decision making process. It's losing my childhood friend, Jonathan. And that failure I felt with his death. And that love superseding me doing what my body is trained to do. I did what I did. Out of love. And that is a decision that I have to live with. It really wasn't until I started making some substantial progress. You know, a year into the process of recovery. That I realized it was much bigger than me. I was trying to go back to a team. A team. That being the word. Trying to go back to a team. I was confident that I needed to do it. Things were looking like I had an actual shot at getting back. But as someone who took pride in the physicality of what we do. To go so far in the other direction. That was tough because how do I increase my value otherwise? You know, there's a lot of tasks and activities that are asked of us. That require more of an intellectual approach. I honed in on those. So I'm sitting in an office reading cultural dynamics of the Middle East. I'm improving my foreign language capabilities. I started pursuing my master's degree in psychology. All ways to increase my intellectual stock. So I'm making gains and I'm making progress. And eventually I got back to my unit. They were just as fired up as I was. And then once we deployed on that first trip back as an amputee. I was able to employ those different skill sets that I had learned. But it was not this I got to the top of the mountain. And now it's all downhill from here. I insisted on projecting strength 24 hours a day. Right? I would do anything in my power to avoid being seen without my prosthetic on. And I realized very quickly there was a whole variety of things I needed to be able to do. That I had not prepared for. Things that you don't even consider to be a challenge. I was a two legged guy. Simple small things like getting in and out of a military vehicle. Now was, okay how do I even do this? There's another ridge line that I now have to climb. And that started pretty much immediately. So in between operations or other training I would work on things like that. I would just try different techniques. Different foot placement. Different hand placement. Find a method that I think works. And then just drill it a million times. Eventually had my teammates out there. Video taping me. I'd go back and watch the reel. And see where I can maybe make up a half a second or two. I'd be on a stop watch. I was competing against other teammates that were doing the same thing. And this is literally us getting in and out of a truck. Over and over and over and over again. And I realized having my teammates to rely on and to compete with. That's a gift. The more I showed how comfortable I was with something that I originally perceived as weakness. That I was able to see that it impacted those around me. They were taking things to a higher level. Knowing that that was having those types of effects just made it easier for me to showcase those vulnerabilities. That was where I became not just fully comfortable with it. But proud of it. I'd like to think that that had positive effects upwards and outwards. You know it's highlighting that it's not a sign of weakness. To need assistance for something. You know the stigma associated with being in the military. It's this hyper type A competitive environment. And we often times have difficulty accepting help from anybody. No I got it. I got it. And you'll hear that a hundred times a day. That's what we are comfortable doing. No I'm good. I got it. That's the easy route. The hard route is recognizing that you need help. Whether you're trying to pick up a bunch of boxes. Or you're having suicidal ideations. Recognizing it for one. And then having the guts to seek out support. That's hot. That is reserved for the bad asses of our community. Because it's difficult. Those people. Are the ones I look up to. Because they're going the hard way. And that deserves respect.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
Everything happened so fast. I was only in the military for three years and a month. I did two combat tours to Iraq. My first deployment consisted of Operation Steel Curtain, and that's where we cleared five different cities just kind of on foot, kicking down doors, firing firefights here and there. My second deployment was more of a vehicle patrolling deployment where we operated out of a FOB, out of a forward operating base, and we patrolled 12 to 16 hours a day and kind of had a mission. And ultimately that ended in injury. The events that happened to me on both tours weren't traumatic until after I was out of the military. Then when I got home, I was in the military. I was in the military for a couple of weeks and a half. I was in the military for a couple of weeks and a half. I got home, I could look back on all the things that happened and it was just like, wow. It hits you like a ton of bricks. I spiraled downhill for a really, really long time. How did you feel when you were diagnosed with FOMI? I was diagnosed as soon as I got out. I don't think that I really realized how bad it was until two events. I worked at the University of Phoenix and we did a team builder on two occasions. On the first occasion we went bowling. I remember it. I remember the first time I went to the field. I was just so nervous. I remember it so vividly that a friend of mine, I was talking to her with my back to the alley to that where people were bowling. She looked up at the screens above my head and it was her turn, but her facial expression was like, oh, it's my turn. To me, so many times I see that facial expression on people when it's like a duck situation or look out behind you situation. I literally... I dove on the floor and was ready to kind of engage like an enemy target. Everyone just kind of looked at me. It was really embarrassing. My heart was going a thousand miles an hour. There was just so much emotion just in that one moment. How did you feel when you were diagnosed with FOMI? I was comfortable the whole time, which is rare. For a really long time, I could actually just sit back and relax and not really feel anything. I was just so nervous. I was just relaxed and not really thinking much. That hasn't happened in a really long time. I usually have a million things on my mind even though I look calm on the outside. Inside, there's usually just a lot going on. I'm sleeping a lot. I haven't had a full night's sleep since 2005. What's the most difficult thing about FOMI? It's kind of like what happened to me didn't happen. When I think about it, I don't get comfortable and all this anger and rage and stuff doesn't come up anymore. I have this urge to take over the world now. I have this desire to read, which is absolutely unheard of in my world. Absolutely unheard of. I don't think you understand. Put some pep in your step. It's a feeling that I've never had ever.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
Here I was about to literally get into, you know, a shootout with a couple of strangers who knows how it could have gone. And I'm not at war. I'm in McKinney, Texas. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. My name is Alan Shabarro, former Green Beret with 3rd Special Forces Group. And currently run my own gym in McKinney, Texas. Combat base, Texas. Shabarro Jiu-Jitsu. I was raised overseas. My father was a DoD civilian. We got to travel around to different places. Italy and France and Germany, Austria. And moved back to the U.S. when I was 18. Joined the Army at 19. Ended up going to Fort Jackson as a lightweight vehicle mechanic. My first duty station was over at Fort Hood. That's how I got started in the Army. So, beautiful Fort Hood, Texas. The first enlistment that I had was just over three years. And I really enhappyed the structure of it. But I didn't feel like I was serving a purpose in any way. Used the GI Bill, get out and go to school. And so, nice job. In 1999, I ended up getting out and transferring down to Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. Texas State University now. While I was going to school, I was in the reserves as a drill sergeant. So, I was doing my drills here in Texas. And then didn't really have any inclination to go back in active duty. I wanted to get my degree and see where it takes me next. And shortly after that was 9-11. And that changed me forever for sure. The only focus I really wanted to do was get back in the fight. I started the process getting me to start going into Special Forces. At the time, I made a lateral transfer. I ended up going back in active duty. A few days later, I was on a flight out to Baghdad, Iraq. It was a fast-track express lane, I guess. It was kind of an eye-opening experience. To say the least, being moved in so quickly. Within that first week, I got in my first firefight. It was still very surreal. I remember getting on Target Road. Everyone around me is just still so calm. We start hearing like, you know, pings on the vehicle as we're getting closer. Super wired, you know, head on a swivel, looking around. And everyone else is just kind of like, one guy was sleeping next to me. You know, just super calm about it. I was still brand new. I was new to everything. And, you know, just trying to make sure that I didn't mess anything up on that. But I just looked behind and said, you're the new guy? I said, yep. You know, don't fuck this up. Got out and I was like, okay, that's my motivation. So let's get out and do this. When I stepped out, I took a little about five, six steps forward. And it was a very, it was the first time feeling this or hearing it. But it was like a crack of the whip, like right above my head. And I didn't know what that was. I looked up and, you know, as soon as I looked back down to start moving forward, it was a round that went like about 10 inches away from my foot. And I just froze. I didn't know what to do. Should I, you know, go and follow the guys in? Should I just go and, you know, as they had me as security and, you know, stay by the vehicle, get back on the gun, but, you know, was it really going to go there? So there's so many things. And I know it felt like an eternity. It felt like an hour. I was trying to make decisions, but I'm sure it was just a few seconds. But what broke me out of it was my ended up being my first senior Walker booth. He just runs up and just starts shooting and he's yelling out, you know, I'm going to come at you like a spider monkey, boy. And then my buddy Todd goes right behind me and goes, shake and bake, motherfucker. Shake and bake. Running into it and firing at him. It's like what the fuck is wrong with these guys? We're in the middle of a goddamn firefight. damn firefight where we were like getting, you know, contact before we even made it to the target. And they're cracking jokes as they're in the middle of it. I just snapped out of it. All of a sudden, everything was just crystal clear. I just understood exactly what I needed to do, where I needed to go. And to me, I looked at these guys like titans. I mean, they've been, most of these guys have been in six, seven deployments with the SIF, you know, 10 deployments total have been Afghanistan, Iraq. It was definitely, you know, a very high pace, something I just continually went and kept doing in one school after another and training. And there wasn't much time to think about anything else. So I really actually enhappyed it. So when I first got out, I was still having mixed feelings whether I should be in or not. Everything was slowing down. So this is, 2009 was my last deployment, no more action. And so it was like someone just literally just turned his spigot off. There was nothing, you know, going on or they didn't want us involved in that. I almost instantly missed all the guys on the team. You know, when I was even driving back, I was talking to them, you know, just, it was a bittersweet moment, definitely, because it's something where, and opening up a jujitsu school was, it was something I definitely was looking forward to. But it was a hard-heading transition. I didn't have the people around me that knew what I was talking about. And I was very hesitant to talk to people about, you know, the things I was going through. And I was very hesitant to talk to people about, you know, the things I was going through. And I was very hesitant to talk to people about, you know, the things I was going through. Because I knew they wouldn't understand, just personally. So I tried to just constantly do more work and just try to keep myself busy. So I wasn't thinking about that. Anytime I'd lay my head down to sleep, I would be just staring at the walls, you know, just looking blank look for hours. And those little thoughts started coming back. And I think the most monumental experience where I knew that I had a problem was 2011. So about 10 o'clock at night, and it was later because there was no business open. It was an industrial disaster. And I was like, you know, I'm going to have to go back to the industrial area. And they were doing construction on that road. And there was a white pickup that came up right behind me. And it went right up to my bumper and then backed off to run up again. And of course, spidey senses start kicking off and you start going into, you know, tactical mode in a sense. And I passed my school went about a block up. And I pulled in and spun back around real quick. Made sure that you know, I had around the chamber and stepped out one foot. And I was just waiting for the first person to come out. First person that stepped out was going to get it and then follow up with the second. I was still perceiving threats, all threats is life threatening. They just stopped and I was just kind of waiting to see which one was going to come out first. The only thing that I was really thinking about was who's going to get it first. They ended up just backing out and going down. Never saw him again. What was odd, and what made me realize that there was there was something wrong was no matter what firefight I was in before, no matter what the situation was, no matter how many close encounters every single time my adrenaline would just burst. That was that was definitely something that was really off. Just that was my first indication that something's off. This isn't this isn't right. It took me a long time to actually go to seek out help. Even longer to go to the VA. From my very first deployment, we were given Ambien to sleep on the flight. And then while we're there, because we're only doing night missions, you have the time zone change. We're doing pretty much 98% of the missions at night. So it's hard to make that sleep pattern fit and stick. Ambien is the cure for that. And it worked great. And then when I got back, it was 30 days worth of Ambien and then continued on. Starting in 2007, I was taking Ambien every night to go to sleep. But the problem was, I was still sleepy in the morning. I couldn't really focus. I couldn't just think straight. So I got on Adderall. I was up to about 90 milligrams of Adderall a day and was taking two Ambien, Benadryl and six pack of beer and just hoping that I could get just a few hours of sleep. I was very thankful for that. My health was secondary. This is what I need to focus on. So that's how I stayed on that constantly. It just got worse and worse. I needed to find out, Why am I feeling the way I am and why this constant anguish just hovering over me? Because to this day, I don't have any regret or any remorse of the things that I've done. The things that I've done were necessary, are absolutely necessary. You're thinking about the mission, you're thinking about making sure that you do your job and you do it to the ability where makes sure that everyone goes back home. You're either an asset or a liability. You're either an asset or a liability. There's nothing else. So getting what so home was important for the most part. And suddenly one day, I felt so helpless and I felt that I had to 한 in between and I felt that I'd dropped the ball on that and got you know other people injured or killed and realized I was holding on to that like it was my fault well what if I would have done this if I would have taken ten steps to the left or two steps to the left versus one step to the right would that have changed things would that would have mattered you know and that that spirals you know it's a downward spiral it just keeps getting worse and worse because then you start thinking maybe it is my fault maybe I did screw this up and I just start feeling like I was sinking and sinking and sinking and it was just getting worse the more I sank the more dark thoughts that I had and you know until you hit rock bottom and you feel there's nowhere else to go that was a close call one night and you know glad I made it through that and moving forward from that was just making sure I didn't I didn't want to become a statistic that was actually when I started coming forward and started talking to people and by that time it was you know five six years after I got out you know five six years after I got out you know five six years after I got out you know five six years after I got out you know the stigma had kind of changed you know the stigma had kind of changed you know the stigma had kind of changed and people were starting to recognize and people were starting to recognize and people were starting to recognize that so best friends Johnny Wilson yeah that so best friends Johnny Wilson yeah that so best friends Johnny Wilson yeah he got out of third group around the he got out of third group around the he got out of third group around the same time I did like days apart he was same time I did like days apart he was same time I did like days apart he was definitely someone I could just you know definitely someone I could just you know definitely someone I could just you know without hesitation talk to and it didn't without hesitation talk to and it didn't without hesitation talk to and it didn't matter what it was I just felt matter what it was I just felt comfortable telling them about certain things and you know whether it was talking or whether it was no talking or sometimes that we just had a few beers and without saying a word but it was um it was it was a release in a sense you know the advice that i would give um to someone that was in my situation is don't wait um it's it always seems like especially if that alpha mentality like if you just wait it out you know it'll go away or you know shake it off rub some dirt on it walk it off whatever you need to do it's just it won't it'll get worse and i'll just get worse and worse before you know it you won't be able to do anything about it and talk to somebody you trust more than anything else um that's what definitely helped me out find that find out those people and they're out there and sometimes they're not even all veterans you have the support of those people and so it made a lot of sense you know and i just like we should definitely be able to do this you know and spread this you know to other veterans and we did we managed to put things together and actually made it happen so i'd love to take the credit for all this but i definitely can't it was it was an accumulation a bunch of great people you know put together five years later that we have you know over the last year and a half and a half and a half and a half and a half and a half and a half 300 affiliations nationwide we've put almost you know i think it's just under 100 of the veterans through the program you're definitely seeing the uh the program growing and foundation grows so i couldn't be happier about it so one of the best things that actually came out of we defy foundation was uh being able to get the attention of other military forces for example riorg jiu jitsu foundation was kicked off in england and was actually able to go out to england with chris howder one of the first non-brazilians to get their black belt and we did a tour england and was able to actually just kind of spill the beans on everything that was going on how to get it set up and basically created a mirror image a wheat of five foundation and england for the british soldiers now they have a phenomenal program going they're getting a lot of support so much that they started influencing you know other countries as well and so now there's a veteran grappling which is a Australian based, pretty much a mirror image of RE-ORG and WE-DEFY. Amazing to see it in the U.S., but it works so well that other countries are picking that up and other forces are using that as a way to assist them, you know, their veterans in, you know, coping and reintegrating back into civilian life and dealing with the things that they had to deal with. That was my solution, that is my solution, and I'm going to ride that out as long as I can. The very first thing in order to get any of this started is finding, you know, making sure that you have an understanding of yourself, recognizing that you have a problem, and moving forward to do something about it. Absolutely.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd


<video>
<audio>
When I was over in Vietnam, I was over there in the 70s and 71. Then when I came home, you know, I knew it wasn't the same because before I went over there, I was happy-go-lucky, laughing and everything like that. When I came home, even to this day, I don't smile. I didn't talk about Vietnam. And I thought that I would spare people because, you know, Vietnam was not a nice place. When I came home, I know that I started drinking more. And also that I couldn't really hold on to a job. I couldn't have a successful relationship with a person. I would maybe be with them for about a year or something like that and break up, a year, break up. And my job, I couldn't have anyone, like, bossing me around when I did go to restaurants. So I was a little bit more of a boss. I had to have my back up against the wall looking so I'd be able to look at everything. I just keep thinking somebody is after me. And I figured there was something wrong. I had a short temper. I kept yelling for, you know, no good reason. And so I went to the VA, and what they did is they said, well, do you have ptsd? And I said, you know, I don't even know what ptsd is, so I don't know. And they get you. They get you familiar with what ptsd really is and how it's going to affect you and why it affects you. And it was pretty nice to know that there's a reason for what I was doing. I would definitely recommend any veteran go and try to get help. It is very much better knowing the reasons why you're like you are and also to be able to work with someone. Work things out.
Above is a video along with the transcript of a patient undergoing clinical evaluation. Based on the patient's expression and behavior throughout the video, what is the diagnosis? Answer with one word from the following:
ptsd
no ptsd

Answer: ptsd