PTSD Veteran "My shame was being alive"

Veteran Who Lost a Friend in Combat on Overcoming PTSD: "My Shame Was Being Alive"
Huffington Post
George Decker
Public Affairs Officer, VA National Center for PTSD’s Executive Division
Vicky Bippart
Producer/Director, VA National Center for PTSD
Posted: 06/27/2014

"When I get remembered, it will not have been for busting up a bar fight or even kicking in doors in Fallujah. It'll be for choosing the right path when it could have been so much easier to go down the wrong path, to let myself get bogged down by feelings of insecurity or anxiety and, ultimately, let it kill me," Laurent Taillefer said recently.

But when Laurent returned home from Iraq, where he served with the Army's 118th Infantry, he was lost in a deep funk. "When I got out, I was so sure that I was going to have a short life that I even found jobs that would create that. The guy I replaced, back when I was a bouncer at a strip club, had been shot. And if I wanted to be honest with myself, I'd say I kind of expected myself to get shot."

Laurent had been injured in Iraq and had seen some horrifying things there, but what had shaken him the most was the death of his close friend, Soto. "My friend had died in Iraq, and I was torn up ... we spent every waking hour together..." he said. "Soto was larger than life. After he died, everything was temporary; everything was so close to the end."

Laurent sought the company of fellow veterans, but hanging out with them didn't help him.
read more here