595 Warrior Wellness

There was a time when I believed I was too strong to break. For twenty-six years, I served in the military – deployments, Port Mortuary support, leadership roles, and the heavy burden of carrying others’ struggles. These experiences convinced me I could handle anything. The truth was, I wasn’t handling it at all. I was surviving.

Sleep became a battle. Some nights, I would lie awake waiting for the nightmares. Other nights, I drank to quiet my memories enough to rest. Outwardly, I kept up appearances: work, bills, showing up, insisting I was okay. Inside, I was exhausted. Years of trauma, guilt, anger, and loss had become impossible to ignore.

The Night I Almost Quit

Seven years ago, around one in the morning, I sat alone on my back porch with a loaded gun. I wasn’t seeking attention or making a cry for help. Honestly, I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. I was tired of nightmares, the memories, and shouldering an invisible burden. I just wanted it to end.

As I sat there in the darkness, I found myself talking to God. Through tears, I remember saying, “Lord, I thought I was stronger than this, but here I am again.”

Those words came from years of believing I should handle everything myself. I spent most of my life being the strong one. People depended on me. I solved problems and carried the load. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that strength meant never letting anyone see me struggle.

Sitting on that porch, I realized I wasn’t fighting nightmares—I was fighting myself. I believed I should have been stronger, able to fix it on my own, and that asking for help was a sign of failure. These beliefs were slowly killing me.

Looking back now, I realize that moment wasn’t the end of my story, but rather a turning point. It marked when I accepted I wasn’t invincible and recognized that facing the truth about my struggles was necessary for healing. The four words that would change my life hadn’t yet been spoken. It took me years to understand them. That night, without realizing it, I made the decision that made those words possible: I am still here.

The Lies That Got Me There

Lies are the stories we tell ourselves to avoid facing pain, anger, fear, and grief. We do not lie because we want to. We lie because we have been trained to. Admitting the truth can feel dangerous. It’s easier to say “I’m fine,” “It doesn’t bother me,” or “I can handle it” than it is to be vulnerable.

That night on my porch wasn’t the end. It was when I stopped pretending to be invincible and started facing the truth. My weakness wasn’t weakness at all—I had spent years believing lies disguised as strength. The most dangerous lies rarely look like lies; they look like discipline, self-reliance, and toughness, echoing things told to veterans and first responders for years.

“I should be able to handle this.”

“I have to carry this alone.”

“Asking for help means I’ve failed.”

“Nobody will understand.”

“If I can’t get back to the person I was before the trauma, what’s the point?”

I realized my struggle was with beliefs shaped by trauma, not trauma itself. Years of service equated to needing help with weakness. So I stayed silent and isolated, convincing myself that tomorrow would improve if I just pushed harder.

Recalling that night as if it were yesterday, the loaded gun in my hand wasn’t simply a weapon. To me, it represented freedom. As difficult as it is to admit, it’s true. At the time, it didn’t feel like giving up. It felt like an escape. A way to finally put down the weight I had been carrying for years. I was tired of the nightmares. Tired of memories. Tired of fighting battles that followed me home long after the uniform came off. Again, just tired of being tired.

As I sit here writing this, I can see how distorted my thinking had become. What I called freedom was really hopelessness. Trauma had narrowed my world until I couldn’t see any path forward. The gun wasn’t a ticket to freedom. It was trauma convincing me that my worst day would last forever.

I was wrong, thank goodness.

The pain didn’t disappear overnight. It changed. Healing happened, growth followed, and purpose returned. I finally discovered that the freedom I desperately hunted was never found in ending my story—only in truly facing it.

Choosing to Stay

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how’.” ~ Viktor Frankl

Putting the gun down didn’t solve my problems. It simply gave me another chance to face them.

The nightmares didn’t disappear the next morning. The memories didn’t suddenly lose their grip. The anger, guilt, and exhaustion that had followed me for years were still there. The difference was that I was still there, too.

For a long time, I thought surviving that night was enough. It took me years to understand that survival was only the beginning. Waking up the next day didn’t solve any of my problems or answer any of my questions. But it did give me something I desperately needed, another day.

One day led to the next, days piling up. I saw survival and healing were different: survival meant endurance, not stability. Adrenaline, necessity, and instinct fueled me for years. Healing came later. Moving forward wasn’t about getting over what happened; it meant learning to turn struggle into strength.

The problem was that healing required something I had spent years avoiding. It required me to ask for help. While asking for help sounds simple to most people, it wasn’t for me.

By then, avoidance was my closest ally. I didn’t hide from struggles, but I avoided them through work, busyness, and alcohol—anything to keep from sitting with my thoughts. Avoidance worked until it didn’t. It bought time, but never healed.

I knew if I wanted something different, I had to stop running. I had to become the buffalo. In my post, Run Into the Storm: A Warrior’s Way Through Struggle, I explored how buffalo charge directly into a storm rather than running from it. That’s what healing demanded of me. Not avoidance, not distraction, but engagement.

I had to find the courage to face the very things I had spent years trying to outrun. A quote that resonates with me when I think about that time comes from Joseph Campbell: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

I didn’t know it then, but asking for help would eventually lead me toward therapy, Warrior PATHH, Posttraumatic Growth, and a completely different understanding of strength.

Learning a New Way Forward

What followed wasn’t a straight line. It was years of therapy, setbacks, breakthroughs, and eventually discovering Warrior PATHH.

When I say setbacks, I mean therapy.

Now, before the therapists reading this get upset, let me explain. Like many veterans and first responders, I spent years bouncing from therapist to therapist. Sit on the couch. Tell the story. Talk about the symptoms. Leave with another appointment or another prescription.

Week after week, month after month, I felt stuck in the same cycle. I wasn’t finding peace or growth; I was only surviving. At times, it seemed the goal was just to keep me functioning, not to actually help me heal. I didn’t want to be told I was broken—I wanted a way forward.

Then my wife told me about Warrior PATHH. To be honest, I wanted nothing to do with it. In fact, I didn’t want anything, not another program, not another retreat, not another promise that things could get better. I had heard enough promises by that point.

Hope felt dangerous by then. Every disappointment made me expect the next one. Believing something could help meant risking more pain. Skepticism became my shield. If I expected nothing, I couldn’t be disappointed. I learned later it wasn’t wisdom, but fear in disguise.

But I signed up anyway.

Even after arriving, I wasn’t convinced. Part of me wanted to leave, and part of me was already preparing the excuses for why it wouldn’t work. I can see now that it was fear talking. Fear of being disappointed again. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of hoping for something different.

Something told me to stay, and I am grateful I listened.

Warrior PATHH didn’t save my life—the decision to stay alive happened years ago on my back porch. What Warrior PATHH did, though, was alter my perspective. For the first time, I learned to speak the language of trauma. I realized struggle wasn’t something to avoid or hide from. I saw that trauma shaped parts of me, but it didn’t have to define me. The greatest lesson? Growth was possible—not in spite of struggle, but because of it.

The biggest lesson I learned was that healing is not about becoming the person I was before the trauma. For years, I thought that was the goal. I wanted my old life back. I wanted to go back to who I was before the deployments, before the losses, before the nightmares.

But growth doesn’t happen by moving backward. Growth happens when we stop trying to reclaim the person we were and begin building the person we are becoming. That realization changed everything. I stopped measuring success by how much of my old self I could recover. Instead, I began focusing on how I could use my experiences, both good and bad, to build a meaningful future.

I learned that strength includes connection. Connection with other people, connection with purpose, and most importantly, connection with myself. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t just surviving. I was growing.

I Am Still Here

And so those four words – I am still here -mean something completely different seven years later. Seven years ago, they meant I survived another night.

Today, they mean I chose to keep going. Make no mistake, the struggle is still real. I still have difficult days, and I still wrestle with parts of my past. There are still moments when I catch myself walking toward those dark places. The difference is that today I recognize where those roads lead.

As for my growth, I know how to face struggles rather than run from them. I know how to ask for help, and I know how to lean on the people who walk beside me. Most importantly, I know that growth is not the absence of struggle, but what we choose to do with it.

The relationships I have with my mentors, my friends, my family, and the brothers I have met along the way continue to remind me that I never have to walk this road alone. Today, when I say, “I am still here,” I don’t mean that I survived.

I mean that I am still growing.

Still learning.

Still serving.

Still writing my story.

And no matter how difficult the struggle becomes, I know there is always the possibility of purpose, connection, and growth on the other side.

To the Person Reading This in the Dark

Whether it’s two in the afternoon or two in the morning, I want you to know you’re not the only one who has walked that road.

Writing this wasn’t easy for me. Healing isn’t a finish line, and there are still parts of that season I’m working through. I still struggle with parts of my past, and there are days when I find myself heading down those same dark paths. The difference today is that I recognize where they lead, and I have people who help me find my way back.

I share this story because silence almost cost me everything. For years, I carried things I wasn’t willing to talk about. I convinced myself that handling it alone was a strength. It wasn’t. It was isolation. And isolation nearly won.

Asking for help wasn’t a sign that I failed. It was the moment I stopped pretending I could outwork, outrun, or outdrink what was happening inside me. It was the moment I decided I wasn’t going to let my past write my future without my participation. It remains one of the hardest and best decisions I’ve ever made.

There is no quit button in me. But I’ve learned that strength isn’t pretending you never wanted one. Strength is choosing to stay when every part of you wants to leave.

If you’re struggling right now, please reach out. Call someone. Text someone. Walk into a room where people understand. Veterans and first responders carry unique burdens, and there are people who have dedicated their lives to helping us carry them. You do not have to do this alone.

And if you’ve found yourself thinking about hurting yourself, ending your life, or simply disappearing because it feels like the only way to find peace, please tell someone. Make a call. Send the text. Walk through the door. What feels impossible tonight may look very different tomorrow, next week, or next year. I know because seven years ago, I was sitting on a back porch, convinced I had run out of options. I hadn’t.

And if you don’t know where to start, reach out to me. The Reach Out tab on this site is private, and I personally review every message submitted there. I can’t promise I’ll have all the answers, but I can promise I’ll listen. Sometimes the hardest step is simply telling someone what you’re carrying. If that’s where you are right now, send a message. I’ll get back to you.

The goal is not to become the person you were before the trauma. The experiences you’ve lived through have changed you, and that’s okay. Going back would mean leaving behind the lessons, wisdom, strength, and perspective that came from surviving the struggle. The goal is not to reclaim an old version of yourself. The goal is to build a stronger, wiser, and more authentic version of yourself from where you stand today.

You may be exhausted. You may be angry. You may feel lost or disconnected from the person you once were. But if you are still here, your story is still being written.

Seven years ago, those words meant survival.

The four words that eventually changed my life were simple: I am still here.

Today, those words mean more than survival. They mean possibility. They mean purpose. They mean another chance to choose growth over surrender. If you are still here, the struggle is not the end of the story. It may be the beginning of growth.

Until next time, struggle well, my friends. And remember, struggle is a terrible thing to waste. Let it become part of your story, but never the end of it.

~ Grim

---

Additional Resources:

Interested in Warrior PATHH?

Warrior PATHH is a peer-to-peer Posttraumatic Growth program for veterans and first responders who are ready to stop merely surviving and begin growing through their struggles. It isn’t therapy, and it isn’t about fixing what’s wrong with you. It’s about discovering what’s possible because of what you’ve been through.

If you’d like to learn more about this program or explore whether it’s a good fit for you, use the Reach Out tab to send me a message. I’ll be happy to answer your questions or connect you with the right people.

Recommended Reading

One book that had a profound impact on my understanding of struggle, purpose, and growth is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl survived the Holocaust and discovered that even in life’s darkest moments, we still have the freedom to choose our response. His work helped me understand that while we cannot always control what happens to us, we can choose what we become because of it.

If you’re interested, you can find my review of Man’s Search for Meaning in The Vault.