Dan Kildee: "I had a lot of tension."
Rep. Dan Kildee of Flint thought he was fine after the mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6 while he hunkered down in the House gallery. He wasn't. He started experieincing post-traumatic stress afterward. He needed help.
"I went home I thought I was fine. It was after I got home, and I started looking at some of the video from the event. I thought it was a few dozen people," the 62-year-old Democrat tells Hallie Jackson on "NBC "Nightly News" Sunday. "It was hundreds and hundreds of people, violent people, and that triggered an emotional and physical reaction."
"I had a lot of tension in my chest, and breathing was difficult. I became really irritable," he said.
A congressional friend, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, suggested he talk with Harvard- educated psychiatrist Dr. Jim Gordon, author of the book "Transforming Trauma." The doctor, sitting next to Kildee during the interview, tells NBC he realized the fifth-term congressman was experiencing post-traumatic stress.
They started having sessions nearly every Saturday.
"This is not something I ever expected to experience, not something that I anticipated," Kildee said. "But I'm just really grateful that we connected, and that I was able to get help when I needed it the most."
