Dear TNQ,
Back on April 27th 2010 at 6:27 AM I was on my way to work when a man changing his tire on his truck in the gore point on the freeway was struck by another vehicle and pushed him out in front of my vehicle where I hit and killed him, over the next 2 years I witnessed 8 fatalities involving vehicles where I was on seen before the emergency personnel the anguish I felt just driving was indescribable and the amount of stress and anxiety brought on from seeing all those accidents was hell. On September 14th 2011 I lost my mother unexpectedly and in January of 2013 my older brother died unexpectedly, with the culmination of all these events and struggling with PTSD since my accident in 2010 many times I was brought to the brink of ending it all and giving up I found myself pulling away from everyone and not want to talk to anyone, the depression mounted and the self-hate grew, but as I reflected on my family (kids) and also as I remembered all the horrible things our war vets particularly Marcus as described in his book Lone Survivor, and Service I drew strength from these experiences and the desire to not give up because I would never want my kids to give up on anything, so as bad as it was for me I refused to give up on my kids. As I would set goals and sometimes it was just making it through the minute, I noticed as I achieved these goals it would bring a sense of accomplishment and give me strength to keep working and pushing the next time the road was lonely and hard. I am proud to say your podcast has inspired me and helped me through some of the hard times and lift me up and keep pushing. I respect all of you and what you have done for our country. Through this experience over the last 8 years it has been a refiners fire and through sharing my experience with people I have met I have realized there are so many people that struggle in silence and too many are giving up I have vowed to share my experience with anybody who wants to hear it in the hopes that maybe it can help someone who is in need.