Episode 10: Angela Peacock, MSW

Akathisia Stories

In this episode, we hear from Angela Peacock. At age 18, Angela went into the United States Army, where she rose to the rank of sergeant. Five years into her service, the U.S. invaded Iraq and Angela was deployed to Baghdad. For a variety of reasons, the deployment took a physical and mental toll on her, and within six months she was medevacked out of Iraq to recover in Germany. A day after her evacuation, one of the soldiers in her platoon was badly injured, requiring medical assistance in the same military hospital where she was recovering.

[Angela Peacock] And he was like clearly traumatized; you know, it had just happened 48 hours prior. I don’t know how to explain it. I just felt, like, out of control. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to handle it. I just said OK, I can’t hear any more; I’ve got to go. And I just walked out of his room and I walked down the hall, and I didn’t have anything in my mind at that point, to, like, go get help; I just saw the sign; it said “Psychiatry,” arrow. I was like, I need to talk to somebody right now, and I just walked straight into the office and I was like, “My soldier just told me what happened; I don’t know what to do; I’m having a hard time as it is, readjusting to Iraq — or back to Germany. I feel like I almost died,” and then the answer was, here’s a prescription.

Angela Peacock is a former U.S. Army sergeant and subject of the documentary film “Medicating Normal.” Diagnosed with PTSD after one deployment to Iraq in 2003, she was overmedicated for it for over a decade and a half. She suffered from akathisia during a medically supervised taper and during withdrawal. Angie is part of the “Medicating Normal” outreach team, having already facilitated more than 150 post-screening panel discussions with communities worldwide. Her past roles include Veterans of Foreign Wars Legislative Fellow, Wounded Warrior Project Courage Award recipient, and finalist for Student Veteran of the Year with Student Veterans of America. She is a mental health advocate, writer, and YouTube creator who travels in her campervan across the United States with her service dog, Raider, in an effort to improve the mental health care system for veterans and civilians alike.