MILITARY LIFE

A FRESH START: Depression affects everyone it touches, but there is hope. When outside factors improve or circumstances change, along with medications and counseling, normalcy can once again reign.

DEPRESSION THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

BY MARGIE HARDING

As the wife of a Vietnam veteran, I've witnessed the dark moods of PTSD and depression, which made him angry or jumpy without warning, causing him to lash out at the children or me. I've seen him get lost in his thoughts, warning those who recognized it, to just leave him be. I didn't understand what it was back then; I suspect neither did he.

He often talked about the treatment he received after he got back from Vietnam, even while in the hospital recovering from bullet wounds. He, along with other returning veterans after that war, were treated badly, like they were criminals or horrid people who deserved nothing more than disdain and disrespect. It didn’t seem to matter that these men and women were not only fighting for their country, but for the very people who had the right to protest the war and treated them vilely.

The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me" is wrong. Words can create scars worse than any physical beating. Physical injuries heal and eventually the pain subsides, even if you can still see the out