OPENING UP

Congressman: I Got Post-Traumatic Stress From Jan. 6 Riot

Rep. Dan Kildee has been seeing a trauma psychiatrist weekly since the insurrection.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) says he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and has been receiving weekly counseling. The Democrat, who was in the House chamber when insurrectionists tried to break in, said he initially thought he had weathered the violence just fine. “It was after I got home, when I started looking at some of the video from the event... I had thought it was a few dozen people. It was hundreds and hundreds of violent people, and that triggered an emotional, physical reaction,” he told NBC News.

Kildee said he started experiencing chest tightness, irritability, and anxiety—and ultimately reached out to trauma psychiatrist Jim Gordon, who has taught him meditation techniques. The congressman said he is speaking out now, three months after the riot, in hopes of helping others who endure PTSD in silence. “Most people who experienced trauma don’t experience it in real time on every network across the world. They do it privately, quietly, painfully, silently, alone. And so if I can speak to them, that’s what I want to do,” he said.