CSUEB student veteran has new mission: battling misconception of PTSD

• September 9, 2011 5:00am

Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and of the war in Afghanistan that followed. About 5,200 soldiers deployed to Afghanistan in the initial months following the September 11 attacks, including Cal State East Bay student Jeremy Profitt.

As the troop deployment has increased, so has the number of soldiers who return home with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Jeremy Profitt served in the army in both Afghanistan and Iraq and came back with PTSD. Now he has a new mission: to clear up misconceptions about the illness.

Priscilla Yuki Wilson spoke to Profitt for her news story on KALW. Read transcript.

Profitt says everyone handles PTSD differently, but everyone who’s been in combat deals with it, “I think that anybody that deploys, whether you fired your weapon or have done anything, it will alter your life because of the stuff you see. If you come back from a deployment and don’t feel differently, and you think everything is the same, you’re wrong.”

He is studying sociology at Cal State East Bay and works at the VA in Palo Alto. He finds writing and talking to be therapeutic, and he hopes one day to run for political office. He's seen his symptoms gradually improve, but there's one thing he still struggles with daily.

KL