Read Stories > Family Concern Prompts Air Force Engineer To Seek Help

Dave’s mental health journey taught the Air Force Veteran something about self-awareness: It may take someone else, like a family member or friend, to help you recognize that you are experiencing mental health issues and need help. These friends and family members are also often the first to notice the beneficial effects of treatment. 

“It’s the people around you—the people who are most affected by my mental health—who are noticing the differences,” Dave says. 

They want to listen and offer solutions to help

Spurred to seek help  

When Dave first came back from Iraq, he would spend a lot more time outside than he used to, often by himself, for activities such as long bike rides or hikes and camping. “I just felt like I could control the environment; it was quiet and peaceful, and it really gave me time to reflect,” he says. 

But in other environments, especially with a lot of people or loud noises, high levels of anxiety could surface. “I start to get tight,” he says. 

Dave didn’t think his behavior had changed, but his wife noticed something was not right. She started conversations about it with Dave and encouraged him to seek help. 

Dave sought and obtained mental health care, but he didn’t take his wife’s concerns seriously at the time. “I really thought this was her issue and that she was having trouble dealing with me because I had been deployed,” says Dave, who served in the Air Force for nearly 3 decades as an astronautical engineer. 

It would be years before Dave returned for therapy. Again, members of his family were the driving force. 

“My children really started to have an issue in dealing with me when I was feeling a lot of anxiety, a high state of anxiousness. And that translated into me being short-tempered with them,” Dave says. 

At that point, Dave says, he thought: “Wait a second. It can’t be my children’s fault; it’s got to be my fault.” That’s when Dave decided that his wife had been right all along and that he needed to give therapy another try. 

Finding ways to manage anxiety disorder 

From the day of his first visit with a therapist—after those encounters with his children—Dave’s view of mental health counseling changed. “All they [the therapists] want to do is help,” he says. “They want to listen to what’s going on in your life. They want to tell you, ‘This is not exceptional. This happens to a lot of people.’ And they want to offer you solutions.” 

Dave’s therapist presented him with options after diagnosing him with generalized anxiety disorder. One of them was cognitive behavioral therapy. However, frequent in-person visits would have been difficult for Dave, who was still on active duty and serving as a commander. He decided to try medication instead. 

Dave said he had to again rely on family to let him know if the treatment was helping. “It happens so slow, and I just think I haven’t changed,” he explains. But 2 to 3 months after he started on the medication, Dave recalls, his wife came up to him and let him know, “Honey, I notice such a difference.” 

Now Dave encourages other Veterans to overcome any reluctance to seek mental health support. “My biggest recommendation is to get past those initial barriers and then, once you do, the next time you go, you don’t even think about it,” he says. “You just go right through those steps because you know by the time you get the chance to sit down in the room with the therapist that they’re going to make your life better.”