My name's Nick.
I was in the Army Security Agency from 1968 to 1974.
I was stationed in Germany, Herzogenaurach, for 18 months
and Vietnam through 1971.
And then I will taught at the security school in Fort Devens
for three years.
When I first got to Vietnam, we were under attack that
first night.
And I was sleeping, and they had to get us on alert and put
us into a concrete bunker.
While I was sleeping, I didn't even hear the alert go off.
But the sergeant, staff sergeant that was there with
me, he grabbed me and led the way to where we
were supposed to go.
And when we got into the concrete bunker it was very
musky, hot.
And it was overcrowded.
That was the first kind of time I felt a twinge of
anxiety, if you will.
The next time I experienced it was when I was up
in north, in Fubi.
During that period of time, we were under mortar attack, or
rocket attack.
And we used to have to go into a trench line, which was,
again, very narrow, very congested, and it had a smell
to it, musky odor, if you will.
During those times, that's when I started
to experience panic.
It kind of went away.
I didn't realize that I was claustrophobic, even during my
military time.
Around 1994, I went to Charlotte Motor Speedway to
drive the NASCAR at the driving school.
And you're in a full face helmet.
They strap you in, and you don't move.
I mean, you're in a five-piece harness.
You become part of the seat.
Everything was going OK until they put the window net up.
And when they put the window net up that's when I realized
something was radically wrong, that I was getting this
claustrophobia, if you will.
And what happened was I started getting tunnel vision,
my breathing was erratic.
All that kind of just brought everything back 20 some, 23
years later.
Just brought it all to the forefront.
What led later on to me seeking help was as time
progressed my anxieties, my
claustrophobia, became more prevalent.
And at the Tampa VA hospital, I needed to get an MRI.
And I was scheduled for a CAT scan, getting in the tube.
And I just could not do it.
It was now affecting not only my personal life, but my
medical well-being also.
So I raised my hand at that time and
said, I got a problem.
I need to talk to someone.
And that's when we got an appointment with the mental
health folks.
When I got there, he said we're going to duplicate the
feelings that you had.
We wound up actually by doing different exercises in his
office, I could actually feel the shortness of breath, the
tightness, my throat getting dry.
The exercises we did at home were real simple.
And they brought the same feelings and stressors right
to the surface immediately.
We worked on those for a couple weeks.
Things like just putting myself in a linen closet,
wedging myself behind a sofa.
It was real easy things that I could do and yet duplicate
what it would be like to be in an MRI or in
the CAT scan machine.
We progressed baby steps, if you will.
And we got to the point where he thought I was ready to
actually do the CAT scan.
The stressors were there, but by using the tools that we had
developed in his office and in my home, I was able to
complete it on the second try.
If you just regroup and remember what you were taught,
it really helps.
It really does.