Sandra - Voices from the Street

This is a veteran's story. Over 30 years have passed since I was deployed, and only two years ago did I finally address the trauma and PTSD I have lived with since. In the decades between, my life was a slow suicide - an escape from myself, first through work and then through alcohol.

At 17, I joined the military and felt at home immediately. At 19, I was deployed to the Balkans and confronted with a reality I was not prepared for. When I came home, the decline began. A fellow soldier took his own life, and I was left with anger and emptiness. I fled to the USA, had children, and tried to build an ordinary life - but what I carried with me caught up with me constantly. Panic attacks, restlessness, and eventually alcohol as my only outlet: first wine, then vodka. I developed a functional level of intoxication that kept me going, but pulled me further and further away from myself and those closest to me. The addiction led to homelessness, and in 2023 I died for two minutes. That was rock bottom.

The turning point came when I sought help from the veteran centre - something harder for me than admitting the addiction itself. I met people who understood me, and I discovered that I was not broken, but untreated and traumatized. Today I live with my PTSD and the tools I have been given to manage it. I call it my demon - before it had taken over, now it is something I live with, not against.

On the tour we pass Marmorkirken, the Frihedsmuseet, Kastellet, the fallen soldiers' monument, and Amalienborg. I share what these places mean and symbolize for me.