My PATHH to peace: Understanding the past to influence the future by bridging the gap between better and optimal

I often describe the last three years as the best of my life. In 2020 I finally raised my hand for help when I was more afraid of the darkness ending than the darkness itself. I wasn’t okay. A city I saw as heartless called Ramadi in war-torn Iraq stole my innocence as a young man and snuffed out the lives of many of my friends and Marines I led. Fifteen years after all the IEDs and firefights and mortars and rockets and snipers, the fog began to lift. Unfortunately, many of my friends never asked for help because they couldn’t, or it seemed unavailable, and were memorialized as annual suicide statistics.

Boulder Crest Foundation’s Warrior Progressive and Alternative Training for Helping Heroes (PATHH) played a major part in my newfound reality. The program — exclusively for combat service members, Veterans and first responders — is about making peace with the past, living in the present, and planning for the future using the science of posttraumatic growth (PTG). PTG is a science-based approach for transforming deep struggle into strength and growth. It was codified in 1995 after 10 years of research with trauma survivors. PTG is recognized as an effective nonclinical approach to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The basic but powerful premise: beyond SURVIVING the effects of your trauma, you can THRIVE because of it.

I attended the 138th Warrior PATHH class at Boulder Crest Virginia in August 2022. Seven days in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains changed me. Besides becoming a husband and father, PATHH was the most impactful, positive event in my life. In the 15 months preceding PATHH a wonderful Navy counselor guided me through the realities of my PTSD diagnosis. She helped me tremendously. Because of her efforts, I made it to within sight of where I wanted and needed to be mentally and emotionally. Unfortunately, there was a gap I had no means to cross. PATHH provided a bridge. Once understood and regulated, my trauma became an opportunity instead of a hindrance. It became my superpower.

PATHH built on an established foundation. Many of the elements and practices of the program were familiar to me. The Marine Corps had implanted them through harsh training and persistent operational employment over nearly 20 years. PATHH trained me to reinforce, repurpose, and redirect my hallmark Marine rigidity and discipline more effectively.

Additionally, PATHH removed a major obstacle I faced in obtaining mental health treatment. “They don’t get it,” I’d say to myself. The warrior class often erects a partition between ourselves and the civilian community. This can be a formidable barrier, inhibiting freedom from war, pain, and trauma many sorely need. PATHH dynamically and completely removed this obstruction. They got it — all of them.

PATHH was not treatment. It was not medical or clinical. It was training. All the facilitators were current or former service members and/or first responders and PATHH alumnus. The two former Marines who led my class were the real deal. Tales of guts and glory, violence and death, sorrow and sadness didn’t impress or scare them. My battle-hardened ego couldn’t dismiss them as academics who learned war from movies. They’d been there and done that — yet they’d both found the bridge and now were leading others across. They got it, they got us, they were us. We were safe to be vulnerable and grow together.

PATHH was no panacea. It was an opportunity that many needed and deserved. It was people like us, helping people like us, because they were once us. PATHH taught me that my past only defined my future if I wrote the story that way — I held the pen. The trauma of war was not the author of my life. PATHH taught me the power of the pen.

Learn more:

• I’ve experienced a decline in my health and wellness since being in the military and am interested in learning about Warrior PATHH: https://rly.pt/WarriorPath

• I haven’t experienced a decline in my health and wellness since being in the military but want to learn more about how to get involved in Warrior PATHH: https://rly.pt/BoulderCrest

• I have served in the U.S. military and would like to learn more about Veteran benefits from the VA: https://rly.pt/40H30Eo