As I reflected on Alan's story, a couple people went before I came back to reality. I worried my story had no merit compared to Alan's, and we were just getting started. Anxiety was wrecking me like nothing else, and I knew, as much as I hated it, that my anxiety wasn't invisible. 

The next voice I listened to belonged to a man called Jay, who was also a soldier and medic in Iraq and Afghanistan, who later became a motivational speaker and life coach. He liberated a terrorist-controlled city almost single-handedly by helping friendly citizens. He said he prayed to God every night before sneaking into the city in disguise, and God guided him every night for months.

He started by helping treat a mother who lost her arm to an explosion, and eventually he was delivering small bags of supplies to ally citizens, who used those supplies to take back their city. When Jay went to the mother with a prosthetic arm, she grabbed his arm and whispered, "You saved my life... Now, I must save yours... You have been discovered by the enemy. You need to get out and stay out, because they are after you."

Not two nights later, the city was liberated from the terrorists, and Jay returned home, where he was showered with medals and praise. But he said those never compensated for the PTSD he ended up with, which is still a great struggle nearly 20 years later. 

After hearing that story, I began to really panic on the inside. I didn't think I was a hero to anyone, and I have certainly never been to war. My story is definitely not nearly as heroic or miraculous as Jay's, nor is the PTSD I suffer from nearly as severe... Or so I thought.