Stricken with PTSD

Heroes Remember - Canadian Armed forces

Stricken with PTSD

Transcript

You know it’s hard because in those days when we did missions and we would come back home we weren’t prepared in advance. So one day you would have a gun pointed at you and the next day you are being shipped back home and that adrenalin that you had is still there. How can I manage to get rid of this adrenalin and come back to a civil way of living, it’s pretty hard. It’s unbearable. You know later on in my years when I had my children; my children couldn’t do anything around me because it always startled me. They always scared me and they never wanted to bring friends home because of the way I was acting. My real self, the real George always remained over there. He never came back and something that my wife says today, she says, the George that I knew stayed down there; he never really came back because of all the suffering I have, the nightmares that I have. The fact that we were not prepared. A psychologist was not seeing us when we came back or psychiatrists. We didn’t know how to deal with the atrocities that we have seen over there. Just the fact to know that we could find a way of getting our adrenalin down would have been sufficient but it’s hard to come back home. It’s really hard to come back home. You see dead bodies - it’s either him or you there. You look at the person and say well that could be me right now. That means my children are home by themselves with my wife. It brings lots of thinking and worrisomes and you think you are doing good when you come back. I never knew that I had something wrong with me until my wife pointed it out to me. For me I was normal and everything but for her I was the completely opposite than what she had known before. The worst of it all was my children. They’re the ones that I find that they have missed a lot. They have missed, they didn’t get the father that I wish I would have been. Go out and play baseball with them and go out skating with them or going to the zoo. These are all things that I haven’t done with my two boys and it hurts me every day. Even today it hurts me.

Description

Mr. Villeneuve openly shares his personal experiences with his illness and the effect it has had on himself and his family

George Villeneuve

George Villeneuve was born February 4, 1964 in Ottawa, Ontario. At 17 years of age, he made the choice to join the military and became a part of the Infantry 031, Royal 22e Regiment as part of a Recce Platoon 3rd Battalion. In 1985 he travelled to Cyprus as a driver for the Operational Service Officer. Following this tour, Mr. Villeneuve accepted tours to Bosnia and Golan Heights holding occupation as driver. After years of service, Mr. Villeneuve was medically discharged from the army with PTSD. He has accepted assistance for his condition and has welcomed Vardo - a service dog and true companion into his home. Mr. Villeneuve is enjoying life again and resides with his family in Ottawa.

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