I am starting a new multi-part mini series in my email.

It is all about my own journey of helping my husband and myself through a path of recovering his mental health and joie de vivre.

It’s honest, sometimes raw, a bit dark, hopefully inspiring, and its core highlights what is possible for healing.

And if you happen to be walking through your own dark place or you are helping another through theirs, know that you aren’t alone.

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I remember the day, clearly.

I was leaning against the counter, sipping tea.

“Susi”, Stew said, “I have a diagnosis”.

And just like that . . . there it was.

An explanation for the energy I had seen progressively gripping my husband over the past few years but had no way of naming.

PTSD and Hypervigliance.

It may seem strange, yet, I wasn’t saddened at all by the diagnosis.

I was relieved. And my own “deep knowing” was validated.

You see, while PTSD and Hypervigilance is not an uncommon diagnosis for a first responder like Stew, who is a retired firefighter, it is also not commonly spoken about.

It makes sense then, that for years Stew tried to hide this growing wave of darkness that was engulfing him like the flames he so often put out in his job.

And as with most things people try to hide, they have a way of poking up elsewhere, in more inconvenient ways.

Some are very obvious and others are more subtle or odd.

Even though I couldn’t necessarily tie subtle and obvious together, I trusted my deep knowing enough to see something was not right.

I trusted enough to be unequivocal in my request for Stew to get help.

Help that he clearly needed, yet as if to match my unrelenting intention, Stew was as relentless in avoiding any such help.

With the diagnosis, “It” was finally out of the shadows.

We had a name for the energy that had been transforming so much of Stew’s psyche and way of being.

We crossed a line and began an arduous and very non-linear path of healing and recovery.

If you have been following me for a while, it shouldn't surprise you that my plan was to come out better from this than how I went in.

It is part of my natural tendency. Use a crisis for growth and evolution.

As I look back on the various curve balls and traumas that we experienced, I have trained myself to mostly welcome the hard work and discomfort that is part of the healing process.

Because at my core I know . . .

Healing is Possible.

But . . . (and I am laughing out loud as I write this) . . . holy sh*t . . . with this experience, the level of challenge and hard has been nothing I could have ever imagined.

Mostly because this journey wasn’t - and isn’t - just my own. It has been, and is, Stew’s. And Stew’s and mine. And us with our 2 kids.

The multi-levelled biopsychosocial nature of this required every ounce of learning from those previous experiences. . . . and then some.

Stew’s physiological and emotional systems had been altered, and his inner knowing was so buried beneath it all.

He was so disconnected and early in his recovery, that I could not predict which version of Stew would show up each day.

But I didn’t give up.

I kept coming back to my own inner knowing, deeply tuning into and feeling for the guy I knew and loved . . . and distinguishing it from the dark powerful adversary that was gripping him. I had to see both.

The good news is that over the past couple of years, I have developed a refined skill for seeing the early signs (I call them whispers) that indicate an episode is coming.

Stew now welcomes my observations and is better able to tune in and ask for what he needs.

So we are, in a sense, on another side of it.

While it still exists, the dark energy is less of an adversary and more of a loud, unrelenting provocateur.

Stew’s physiology and psychology have healed tremendously providing him a new steady state.

There is an overall better sense of space and breath, and less hypervigilance overall for the both of us.

There is new opportunity.

If you have read this far, thank you. I hope this has been helpful in some way.

In my next email, I’ll share some of the key lessons and concepts we have learned and used that have helped us get here. I see them as leverage points for where we want to go next.

And if you have questions for me, thoughts or comments, I welcome them. Just reply to this email.

If you think someone would benefit from this email, please pass it along.

Much love,

Susi

PS. Please know, this is all my own story and experience. It is in no way a suggestion for how you or a loved one should go about a healing process. I am a body based BSc. Kinesiology and a frickin’ awesome Yoga Therapist, who has been through and healed through a remarkable sh*tstorm. If something resonates, please use it, and if not, then discard.