Ali

Being a cop was my calling; it was exactly where I belonged. After too many close calls, a decade of shift work, and the emotional trauma of the job, I took time off to be a mom and military spouse; my husband was in the special forces group and figured I would return to the police force within a year. When our daughter was six months old, she suffered a severe nontraumatic spinal cord injury due to a rare illness. That ended my career, and I became a full-time caregiver. I was angry about not having control over losing my career and identity. I took it out on my family. I felt lost without the one place I belonged: law enforcement. I didn’t realize that I was hiding behind other people's trauma and living in a state of hyper-vigilance, on the edge of exploding. Now, I felt like I had nothing. I envisioned how much better my family would be if I were killed alone in one of those tragic car accidents, I had seen so many times.
 

Then, my husband Cody went to Camp Southern Ground’s Warrior PATHH and started healing. He returned from the program as a different person, meditating daily and engaging in the practices he was taught. Now, my trauma was front and center. Rather than embrace what worked for him, I fought back and was angry and combative with everyone around me. One night, I lost it. For the first time, I exploded and physically tried to hurt him, the one person who loved and supported me through it all. I hit rock bottom, and my teenage son was there to see it all. It was time to get help. Warrior PATHH was truly my last hope. My husband asked me to promise to give it everything I had. I took a deep breath, walked into Camp Southern Ground, and committed to trusting the process and being honest.

I pulled out skeletons and trauma from that damn closet that had dust from as long as 32 years ago. Having my trauma all out there, while terrifying, was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I wasn’t judged, I wasn’t pitied, I was simply loved and supported. I live life now, confident that I can only control myself and my responses. I respond and rarely react, and that’s been a huge game-changer.

 

Warrior PATHH worked for me because I gave it everything I had, and the people in the program made a huge difference. I’ll be honest: if my husband hadn’t gone through before me, I might have held back and probably would have never gone. But because of him, I trusted the people and the process. Because I saw it save him…, and then it saved me, too. I don’t say this lightly; this saved me and my spouse. It saved my family.