Vietnam veteran with visible scars from RPGs and gunfire

Your Story: Suffering With PTSD

Posted: May 31, 2011 5:38 PM

By Rylee DeGood

Monday, we told you about a Vietnam veteran with visible scars from RPGs and gunfire.

But his wounds go much deeper, as he's lived over three decades struggling with Post-Ttraumatic Stress Disorder and has since written a book to help those in the same position.

"Since the beginning of man kind, warriors would leave their loved ones and gallantly ride into battle," read Tony Seahorn, out of the book "Tears of a Warrior" he co-authored with his wife. He continued. "Many returned victorious but often the scars of combat were deep. The injury to the soul became known as Soldier's heart, shell shock, combat fatigue and PTSD. War has it's price."

Tony's war experience started at age 21, when he was sent for his first deployment to Vietnam. "For those of us who have spent a lot of time in combat, you do see a lot of horrors, and there is a lot of collateral damage where innocent civilians, if you will women and children, are also involved in the after math of combat."

His wife Janet, helped in the authoring of the book, sharing her experiences of living with a man with a disorder she didn't understand. "She talks about the Jakyle and Hyde affect, there was this side of me she didn't understand and we really didn't talk about it," he said. "I was really feeling a lot of pain and hurting inside and all she saw was the anger and some of the anxiety that was very difficult to interpret.

He first saw the light at the end of the tunnel while going through a two year combat PTSD study with CU Medical Center. "That's when I started really turning around and understanding the bases for the nightmares, the anxiety, the panic attacks that I was able to mass for most of my life.

He said one of the most important things he learned during the study was sometimes the scars are so deep they will never quite heal. "I know once I learned that nothing was going to change as far as the hurt and the horrors of war and that what I had to do was work my way through it, then the process started falling into place."

read more and see video here
Suffering With PTSD