A chain reaction, not a character flaw
When people say a veteran "came back different," they usually mean it as character. It isn't. It's biology.
Service exposes the body to a stack of stressors at once — bad air, blasts, chemicals, broken sleep, constant threat. Each one knocks a system slightly out of line. Those systems are connected, so one thing tips the next. That domino run is the cascade.
Why the word matters: a chain can be interrupted. You're not broken. A sequence got started — and a sequence can be reversed.
Takeaway
Your symptoms aren't a character problem. They're a connected chain — and chains can be broken.