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my name is Andrew O'Brien I am an Iraqi War veteran and I attempted suicide after coming home from the
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war now it had a lot to do with Iraq but it had a lot to do with my childhood as
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well I felt like I didn't have a family no one to care for me I remember my mom being a stripper I remember her bringing
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guys home all the time I remember living in hotel rooms or motel rooms I remember
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her always telling me to be a man and stop crying when I was 8 years old and I remember I mean I remember all this
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stuff and it was just all those memories coming in at one time on how rough my life was and how being raised with her
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was so horrible and then doing Iraq and then so it all led to my suicide attempt I found out that in February of
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2013 they released the suicides for um 2012 for veterans and it was 22 veterans a day and and one active duty Soldier a
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day and so um I found out that we are actually killing ourselves more than the enemy is killing us in in war so I wrote
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a book called welcoming your soldier home and after I wrote the book uh I decided I was going to tell my story of
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my suicide attempt and to kind of help people feel normal cuz I felt like I was alone whenever I attempted and uh so I
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told my story went on YouTube got my first invite through Twitter to go speak in New Orleans and after that I met this
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mother who just lost her son to Suicide he's 21 years old I saw her crying and I
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I decided I wanted to do something to stop families from having to go through this so the biggest thing that I say to
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soldiers who are struggling like I did who are getting to that point of not knowing if they can live their life
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anymore um it's that when you come home from war you're always going to be a different person and you're never going
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to go back to the exact same person that you were before but this new person doesn't mean that you are a bad person
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doesn't mean that you can you can't be someone good you just have to relearn yourself and relearn that this new
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person is just a whole different person but you can still go on to do great things with your life take care of your
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family and it does get better but you've got to get help