What Post Traumatic Growth & Curiosity Taught Me About Living a Purposeful Life
(Potential Trigger Warning)
Nearly 30% of the 3 million Post-9/11 combat veterans and active first responders struggle with post-traumatic stress (PTS), depression, and/or anxiety. Additionally, up to 20 veterans die every day by suicide, and we lose more first responders to suicide every year, than in the line of duty. Profoundly impacting individuals, families, and communities, for generations!
What if you could transform a traumatic experience into one of healing and growth, and live a life of positive possibilities, service, joy, and purpose...would you?
In March 2021, I had an opportunity to find out when I attended the first week of The Permission to Start Dreaming Foundation’s WA Warrior PATHH (Progressive and Alternative Treatment for Healing Heroes) 18-month program, in partnership with The Boulder Crest Foundation.
Reflecting back, it was such a profound, healing, and transformative week for my fellow PATHHmates and me!!
For over 40 years of my life, I lived with low self-esteem, high functioning depression, anxiety, and PTS. Internally, I felt insecure, introverted, perfectionistic, sad, lonely…and suffered years of suicide ideation!
I grew up with untreated PTS, due a childhood trauma, that I repressed until my late 20s; which made me forget much of my childhood.
The trauma and negative beliefs I picked up in my childhood (i.e. I am not good enough, I have to be perfect, I am not lovable, etc.) fueled a need to seek external validation and to please others, perfectionism, and attempts to meet unrealistic standards. Which led to exhaustion and burn out on several occasions.
Add to that, I also grew up in a military family (along with my own ~25 year career) and moved over 22x times in my life! Starting over in a new place every couple of years made me feel like an outsider. Fearing rejection, I tended to isolate myself...which made how I felt, worse.
While I am proud of my military service and did well; I experienced continued trauma patterns through exposure to combat and not processing the loss of life I witnessed.
Have you ever felt like you couldn’t escape the trauma, drama, or challenges of your life; or tried to bury the pain, yet found yourself repeating the same mistakes?
My experiences, and my childhood, fueled my need to be perfect and attempts to meet unrealistic standards (that I set for myself). This led to burn out on several occasions.
Starting about four years ago, I experienced some additional major life stressors that added fuel to the fire:
😳 My spouse and I retired from the military after ~25 years and moved across country. It was a HUGE life transition...the sense of culture, identity, and camaraderie was suddenly gone!
😳 I accepted a new job, directly supervising ~50 folks and supporting 10K+ members, without a transition period, or any time off.
😳 My then 17+ year 2nd marriage continued to unravel (we spent 9 years apart due to our military careers) and while we sought marriage counseling 2x before, we kept falling into old patterns.
😔 I still had unresolved grief and loss over infertility and never having kids.
😔 I continued to have health issues (endometriosis pain and two precancerous growth incidents) which led to a full hysterectomy). Overnight, I was plunged into the “joy” of menopause and horrible symptoms.
😞 I continued an unhealthy yo-yo weight gain/loss pattern and was considered borderline obese.
😞 After 1.5 years, due to stressors in my life, I resigned from my job and attempted to find part-time work…without success.
😩 Lastly, after 19.5 years of marriage, my husband asked for a divorce.
So here I was…twice divorced...starting over at forty-nine (personally and professionally). I was jobless, stressed, overwhelmed, depressed...and masked my pain by eating and drinking too much.
I fully bought into my depressed and suicide ideational thoughts (and the worst my inner critic had to spew). I told myself (on numerous occasions) if I were to JUST DIE…IT WOULDN’T MATTER…because I DIDN’T MATTER!!
I’d hit rock bottom and in contemplating suicide; but I remembered a promise I made to my parents that I would never put them through that grief. I had lost my way; however, deep down I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling this way. I decided I needed to try something else.
One day while reading personal growth and development books, I came across a shocking statistic: We have over 60,000 thoughts a day! 95% are repetitive, and 80% of our repeated thoughts are negative!!
WTFO (What the F*ck Over)!! It dawned on me I’d spent the majority of my adult life constantly replaying my dramas, listening to (and believing) the negative thoughts of my inner critic!
In that moment, with images of all the negative things I had focused on whizzing by in my mind…I asked myself, “Did I want to spend the rest of my life living like this?” From the depths of my soul, a feeling so strong welled up and I yelled, “F*ck No!”…and startled my dogs!
In that moment, I realized I didn’t want to react to life any longer.
So I started working on three areas in my life: Purpose (my calling/why), Passion (love of self, others, and service in the community), and Play (energy to enjoy life); by focusing on my mindset, mindfulness, gratitude, forgiveness, selfcare, and self-acceptance.
I was about a year along in my healing journey and had wonderful success with some alternative modalities (such as Emotional Freedom Techniques, a.k.a. Tapping, one-on-one coaching, and a neuroscience trauma release method). I was even feeling comfortable attending a veteran’s support group. Up until this point I had avoided them because I discounted my traumas and experiences in the military.
Due to some volunteer work at the PTSD Foundation (a local organization helping veterans, first responders and their families); I became aware of, applied, and was accepted to the Warrior PATHH program.
Y’all, my experience was profound and so healing!! Even more inspiring was witnessing the joy for life return to my fellow PATHHmates’ eyes after the first week of the Warrior PATHH program!! I highly recommend Warrior PATHH!!
It is an 18 month program for combat veterans (who have deployed or supported a combat zone) and first responders (law enforcement, fire fighters/EMS, health care workers, or intelligence agency personnel) who have been dealing with deep struggle in their lives; and through the peer-led program, discover their profound strength, come to peace with their experiences, learn to let go, grow, and find their WHY and HOW in life again.
Through the peer-led program, we learned there are layers to trauma, and our healing journey will have ups and downs. It is part of how we learn, grow, and succeed. We call it struggling well, an element of post-traumatic growth (PTG).
We learned how to respond to the struggle and see how we can learn from and turn them into opportunities for growth. We learned numerous wellness practice, tools, and resources, and have access to an excellent support system. We also learned the importance of sharing our stories and being of service, so others know they are not alone.
Bessel Van Der Kolkata in the book, “The Body Keeps Score” highlights that neuroscience studies have shown we can actually change our own physiology and inner equilibrium through holistic and alternative ways.
Veterans and first responders who attended the program have experienced significant and long-term reductions in symptoms, including: 51% reduction in post-traumatic stress symptoms, a 41% reduction in anxiety, and a 56% improvement in post-traumatic growth!!
The success of the Warrior PATHH program is inspirational given the number of veterans and first responders suffering from PTS (especially for those who may not be finding support or healing in our traditional medical or therapy models)!
Warrior PATHH is truly life changing!!
Three years into my healing PTG journey, and one year post Warrior PATHH, I can honestly say I love my life, every day! My health is better than it has every been. I have been able to rewire my body/brain from constant fight or flight to seeing the positive and possibilities in life. I’m in genuine alignment with who I am. I also feel a passion and purpose for life.
My purpose and mission these days is to support others to know they are not alone!
You can take your life back, regardless of what has happened, or where you are at in life. You can create a joy-filled, peaceful, and soul-filled life. You can be the hero in your story and discover what lights you up in life!!
If you are struggling, please reach out for support. There are resources available. If my story resonated with you, please share so others know about Warrior PATHH and that they are not alone. If you know of additional resources, please share in the comments. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving a comment, please email or message me…I’d genuinely love to hear from you!
(P.S.) My hope for the future is for this program (or through a partnered program, like they are doing with traumatic brain injury via the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network) opens opportunities for non-combatants veterans to attend, because the need is so great! Per the VA: approx 11-30% of veterans experience PTS; and 55% of women (38% of male) veterans experience a military sexual trauma while serving.
If you’d like more information on Warrior PATHH: