SMITH: Iraq vet tells her story of PTSD in an effort to shed the stigma

<p>Sarah Paterson, Piner High Class of 2000, served with the Army in Iraq and suffered internal torments she didn't talk much about before now.</p><p>Sarah, barely 30, has begun to tell the world about the dark days of her struggle with post-traumatic stress. She's doing it because she can't bear to hear about all the fellow soldiers and veterans who are committing suicide.</p><p>Only days ago, Sarah and a fellow vet she served with in Iraq posted their personal stories of mental distress on a website they call Shedding the Stigma (sheddingthestigma.com).</p><p>Sarah said it's their hope that if active GIs and vets will begin to speak more freely about stress, depression and thoughts of self-destruction, “perhaps we can slowly strip away the stigma surrounding mental health issues, people will get the help they need and we will see a decline in suicide.”</p><p>Today, Sarah is the civilian executive officer to an Army intelligence program at the Pentagon. She recounts in her online story that her rage showed itself one day in a chow hall when she discovered there were no more Honey Nut Cheerios:</p><p>A fire burned inside me unlike anything I had ever felt. I wanted to scream, punch something or someone, to push over the bin of cereals. It was an anger that I had never felt. It took everything inside of me not go crazy right then and there. It was my breaking point.</p><p>She told how she came to learn that the problem was not the unavailability of her favorite breakfast cereal.</p><p>In reality my issue was about being mortared and shot at; it was about detainees describing in detail the atrocities they had committed against my brothers in uniform; it was about the endless videos of beheadings and pictures of dead burned bodies. It was about War.</p><p>She said in an email exchange from D.C. that she and her fellow vet were spurred to action by the cover story, “One a Day,” in the current Time magazine. It reports that there were 154 U.S. military suicides in the first 155 days of 2012 — 50 percent more deaths than were suffered in combat in Afghanistan during the same period.</p><p>Sarah told me, “It's been six years since I first felt the effects of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) ... It is something I never thought I would admit to openly and, up until now, have only shared the details with closest friends and family.</p><p>“However, when I read the article in Time I knew I needed to come forward with my story.” The former Piner senior class president said the new Shedding the Stigma site quickly drew more than 1,000 views.</p><p>“I finally feel ready to talk about it, and judging by the views on our site already, people are ready to listen.”</p><p>JENNIFER LAVIN, a 1990 Ursuline High alum, worked the royal wedding last year and now she's back to London for the Olympics.</p><p>Jennifer is a senior supervising producer for E! News. Said her mom, Maxine, “I wish I had her job.”</p><p>MAGS IS OK: Melissa and Mario Gonzalez still have a heap of hardship ahead three weeks after their home north of Santa Rosa burned, but at least their dog is back.</p><p>Magnum, a Yorkshire terrier, had run off from Melissa's parents' place near Piner and Fulton roads. The Gonzalezes and their kids were frantic until a nice couple seven blocks away phoned to say they'd found Mags playing with their dogs in the backyard.</p><p>ALSO BACK HOME are four of the five concrete garden dwarfs ripped off from Arthur Schattie's yard in Rohnert Park.</p><p>A neighbor spotted one of the hefty figures at the Jewels to Junk shop in Cotati. The shopowner gave Rohnert Park police the name of the guy he'd bought it from.</p><p>An officer went to the seller's house and found three more dwarfs. The man surrendered them and said he'd bought them at a yard sale.</p><p>It pleases Arthur to have six of his seven dwarfs back, though a happy ending awaits the return of Sleepy.</p><p>(Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.)</p>