Army veteran Dylan Sessler comes on the podcast to discuss his journey with PTSD and how to change perspectives, transform yourself, learn the power of speaking your truth and how to defy the darkness.  Dylan is the author of Defy The Darkness a story of suicide, mental health, and overcoming your hardest battles. 

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

https://dylansessler.com/home

https://anchor.fm/the-dylan-experience

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098R5FG5S

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-sessler-69a29b19a/

Battle Buddy Podcast Links:

https://linktr.ee/battlebuddypodcast 

Transcript from Episode 54 with Dylan Sessler:

Keith McKeever 0:06

with Keith McKeever. Welcome back to another episode of battle buddy podcast, I will have Dylan sessler with me today. And we're going to talk a little bit about PTSD. In Dylan, he's got a book about the darkness of life. But I'll let him tell the title and tell what the book is about and about itself. So welcome to the show, Dylan.

Dylan Sessler 0:27

Thank you, Keith. I'm glad to be here. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just happy to be here.

Keith McKeever 0:33

Go ahead and tell us first a little bit about your story. Who is young Dylan? What got you into the army? Would you do catch up to where you are today?

Dylan Sessler 0:42

Yeah, you know, it's, it's a long story. So I'll try and shorten it up quite a bit. You know, when I was six years old, I lost my dad to suicide. And it was quite a, it was quite a traumatic thing for me. Obviously, a father's relationship with a son and Sons relationship with Father is quite important at that age. And so was having two parents, and I lost that, right. And it was a, it was a moment in my life where I felt, you know, when my when my dad left that morning, I felt like I knew he wasn't coming home. Right. And I don't know, if that's a, just a child's intuition of like, you always think your parents are never coming home again. But it certainly felt absolutely different than every other situation I've ever been through. And so a lot of awareness for a kid of that age. Absolutely. And so when when that happened, it was, it felt like a remarkable amount of guilt was laid upon my shoulders are remarkable about of regret, and even shame, with how, with how his family, his side of the family actually approached suicide, right? It was a it was a dark secret, it was one to be kept and not to be talked about. Because the religion was brought into it and looked at it as as in, if you were suicide, you went to hell. And so from that moment on, it was a, it was very, it's very difficult for me to process through any of that, because we couldn't have a conversation necessarily. Not only that, but now my mom's a single mom, and she's trying to take care of two kids and support us and get us through. And you know, like, we all, I think, at this point in our lives, if you are an adult of any kind, you understand that your parents can't really necessarily be perfect. They they do the best they can with what they're given. And my mom certainly did, she did the best she could. But we didn't always have a perfect life. Right. And beyond that, you know, we she got in a real relationship with another man who, what she didn't know is he abused me, and then also did the same to other people, my family. And so it was, it was a very difficult situation overall. For myself, in particular, because that was the next male role model I had my life and it was abusive, right? It was, it was physically abusive to the point of, you know, I'd go to school and I couldn't sit on my butt because that's where he would hit me, right, he would hit me from the small my back all the way down to my calves, to a point where I couldn't actually sit down, I had to sit on my hip. And it's just a really, not necessarily the physical pain wasn't the bad part. It was the psychological kind of representation of what that meant for me after I lost my dad, right? Because now I have this, this new man in my life, and he's teaching me how to be a man. And what that really taught me was to completely negate the idea of pain, right? Get over it, get through it, suffer, right? suffer in silence. And that mentality really drew me to the military, because war is war. We all know that. And when you really dig into war, the necessity for suffering and silence is absolutely necessary has a purpose. And because of the nature of my dad's suicide, I chose to kind of craft four rules for my life and it was don't ever drink alcohol because he was an alcoholic, don't do tobacco because he was also addicted to alcohol, or I'm sorry, tobacco, don't do drugs, because he also had issues with drugs and then don't commit suicide. Right? So it wasn't I was actively trying to not be my father. But in all of this, right, but with all this trauma, and all of these mental issues that that came from, you know, extreme amounts of guilt and shame and regret. I found myself really wanting to not live anymore. Right. And I would think about suicide every day, whether it was my dad suicide on you know, as I grew up, I started to realize that I kind of didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't want to live and I don't remember where that started. But I know that was a choice that led me to the military. You And

Dylan Sessler 5:01

that's what made me choose the military, because I wouldn't do it myself, right, I wouldn't end my own life. And so I chose the military to do it for me in the most honorable way I could, because at the time, that was what I, I really thought was best for me, I thought being, you know, as honorable in my death as possible would be the best way for me to live my life, you know, as as short as it was going to be in my mind. And so I joined the military, and unknowingly, I kind of just volunteered for every deployment that I could for the first few years. And I was, I'm Wisconsin National Guard. So you know, I'm still active. I'm National Guard, MD. So I drill one weekend, a month. But in the beginning, it was, I didn't want to do that I wanted to coat rack with the rest of the battalion, I missed out on their deployment to Iraq by a month or two, with with my basic training. And then, because of that, I just continued to try and deploy and deploy and deploy. And I probably volunteer for five or six deployments before I actually got one to Afghanistan and Qunar. And I wasn't even reserved for, you know, for sure it was I had to, I had to wait until like about 20 days before the deployment to be confirmed that I'm actually going on this deployment, even though I'm training with these guys. So as an alternate at the time, and I deployed and saw all sorts of things, right. I saw casualties I saw, you know, I just saw the unbelievable amount of stress that you get put under in a in a combat zone for you know, I was doing multiple jobs I was, I was an infantryman at the time, I still am. But at the time, I was a part of the security platoon supporting the PRT and the ADTs, which is like the provincial reconstruction teams in the Agribusiness Development team. So it was a security element for them. But when I went back to Kuhn arcs, we moved a lot. I actually got tasked out to be also the s six for the fob, which is basically, I'm now the camo guy, for about a 400 to 600 person FOB at any time, right?

Keith McKeever 7:16

So let's talk about a little bit of stress.

Dylan Sessler 7:18

I mean, I'm an infantry man that knows a little bit about radios, and I'm the guy they chose. And so yeah, like I'm, I'm thrust into this position where I have to figure shit out and just learn everything about radios, learn how to learn how to do crypto, how to, you know, just do things that I've never done before, in a combat zone, where people are relying on me, and I'd never, I never crumbled to the pressure until my body actually crumbled to the pressure like I actually got ulcers in Afghanistan, because I was working 20 to 22 hours a day, and sleeping for two. And I didn't really have leadership that was like kind of having any kind of oversight on me. So I was just nobody, nobody noticed the burnout. I was just doing right. And I was just operating until my body like, I found out one morning, I was like, eating food. And I felt good, right. And then I like, between breakfast and lunch. I felt terrible. When I got to lunch, I started eating again, I felt great. You know, and then I between lunch and dinner, I felt horrible. And then I started eating again at dinner, and I felt great. And then between the hours of dinner and breakfast, were some of the worst pain I've ever felt in my stomach. Because one of the things that actually supports or kind of shows you that you have ulcers is that if you eat food, it quells the, you know, the bile in the stomach versus if you don't have food in your stomach, it's literally eating you and it's it sucks, right. And so I learned very quickly that I had some form of ulcer on my stomach, and it was literally eating my stomach lining is hurting so bad. So I had to go to the I had to go to the aid station and figure that out. But I never really stopped working. Right. They gave me like, four hours off. And then I was back on talk to me later that night. You know, and it was just like, it was just remarkable to kind of come away from that deployment and realize, you know, you d-mo And they tell you all that all of this stuff about PTSD and they tell you all stuff about trauma. And it was really the first time that I actually started realizing I wasn't traumatized from Afghanistan first. I was traumatized at six years old and 10 years old and 12 years old, 14 years old. And then I was traumatized again at you know, in Qunar in Afghanistan and Kaboul by seeing all of these things and not only that, but what I had done to my body throughout all of that and then come home and four days after I come Home, after all this after I'm learning all of this at d-mo, I tore my ACL on leave. And so the army has to do with the Army does. And they took me from home, after I just got home from a year, year long deployment, and sent me to Fort Knox to get ACL reconstruction, reconstructive surgery some 500 miles away from home, I know nobody. And I'm expected to be at formation two times a day, on a leg that I can barely walk on. You know, and I did that for seven months, right? They gave me surgery about a month in and told me it was going to be there a year. And I was I was appalled. I was I was like, Wow, I'm not going to survive here a year. Because of me, not because of any of what you can do, I, I can't be here for a year. And so that kind of inspired me in some way. And in a, almost a false sense of inspiration of like, if you don't get out of here, you're probably not going to make it out. Right, like because I'm sitting there, with all of this trauma kind of laid in upon me. And also this realization that if I don't overcome this, I'm getting kicked out of the one thing that I thought was going to kind of give me my outlet in life, right? The army. And so I worked my ass off, right? I worked out every single day, two to three times a day I was pushups in my, in my room. I was sleeping about 45 minutes a night for seven months. And so you know, all that does to you is just mentally degrade you. It physically exhausts you. And so you're, you know, I don't know how I was operating. But I'm, I'm certain it was not on a healthy, healthy routine, if that makes sense.

Keith McKeever 11:47

Definitely does not sound healthy. And you know, those hospital environments are not known to be positive, uplifting environments anyway, but when you've got Trump and other things you're trying to navigate through, and it's almost impossible.

Dylan Sessler 12:00

Yeah, it was. It was hard to, you know, walk out of my room and realize that all I had done was tear my ACL, when my roommate was over there, having been blown up in a Husky 35 meters up a hill, in Afghanistan, with a broken back a broken leg, you know, severe TBI, PTSD. I mean, I mean, there was legitimate issues there. And I look at myself, you know, through all of this, and I'm like, I shouldn't be here, right? Like, I shouldn't be in this place doing this thing. Because there are people out there that need this far more than I. And I feel like I'm just getting in the way. So there's that feeling of inadequacy in that place. And so it was just was not comfortable for me. And, you know, it's hard to look back and say, I was wrong, because I still kind of feel that right. And I don't, I don't feel that in a way of like, that's my fault. I feel like, when I look back at that, that inadequacy was exactly what I needed to inspire myself at the time. And so there's, there's an understanding of that was the necessary mentality. Was it healthy for me? Probably not. Right, the feeling of inadequacy had survived my entire life. And so I came out of Fort Knox really, in a difficult place, a dark place, right, you know, I, I was, I had overcome ACL reconstruction, I'd come back and you know, the army. I'd take a PT test, and I actually got promoted between then. And the next time I tore my other ACL, which was managed Exactly a year and one month after my first one. So I just gotten promoted. I tore my ACL. Again, for the second time, this time it was it wasn't as bad because I was home, right? I could, I could recover at home. I could work through it at home, I could just continue living my life and actually feel like I was progressing somewhere.

Keith McKeever 13:57

You were also prepared for that journey to

Dylan Sessler 13:59

gone through it already. Yeah. And I had that understanding of this is what it's going to be like, and then a year after I tore it again, right. So I tore my I tore three ACLs. I only have two, I got two reconstructions. The third surgery was my second reconstruction. And so it was right around that time of my third surgery where, you know, I was, I was, I felt the worst I had ever felt, you know, I had just broken up with my girlfriend. I just I felt like I was a burden on everyone around me. And I was I was just struggling through everything in my life, right. Even though I was relatively successful. I was I was going to school, I was getting good grades. I was I was doing well in the military, even regardless of the fact that I was tearing ACLs left and right. I was doing well. You know, I was competing for the Wisconsin Army National Guard marksmanship team at a national level doing well helping them get in don't think we got second place my first year that was like 2014 2015. And so I was doing well. But mentally, I wasn't, you know, I was allowing all of this to just fester inside of me. Because I had never talked about suicide, I had never talked to anybody. I've never told anybody about what happened that day with with how I felt about my father, people knew about it, but I didn't talk about it. And then I not only that, but I didn't talk about suicide itself of how I felt like I die every single day of my life for for almost 20 years. And on a March day, in 2015, I found myself coming home from school. And I found myself in a place of this is it, I can't, I can't keep going like this, I can't keep doing this. And I'm going to break that rule. And you know, I still remember the day of like, sitting there with my, with my Glock 34 in my hand, thinking about all of the things that I had done all the things that I you know, ruined, right? Because that's, that's really what you think about in circumstances like that. And the question came to mind as I'm, as I'm pulling the trigger, realizing, why am I here? Right? Why am I you know, I'm holding this gun in my hand with my trigger finger pulling about 95%, I feel like I was a millimeter away from this, this, this breakpoint on the trigger. And I stopped, and I looked at it, like, I felt like I was kind of in an out of body experience looking at myself saying, Why are you here? Why are you doing this? You know, when I put the gun down for a moment just stopped, right? Like, I'm just feeling all of these emotions that I had been holding in for so long. And I for the next three days, I really just thought about that I really just gave myself a, a break a three day break of trying to figure out what was the problem that brought you here, because I'm always a white guy, like I, I love to understand why things work, why things happen. And I looked at my health for three days. And I realized, I had never spoken word about any of this. And so you've got this box of your mind and your body and who you are. And if all you do is input what you see in what you feel, and what you understand, and you just think about what's all that's in there, and you never reveal it to you've never opened it up to anybody. Nobody ever knows what's inside it. Nobody actually understands how to help you. Because you've never given them an option, you've never given them a way to realize that. And so kind of kind of brings me to what my book has been, you know, like, where, where I've gone with this is really understanding why you should learn to speak your truth, why you should learn to understand what has happened to you. Because if you don't, you don't know where your failings are, you don't understand where you know, the things that you are uncomfortable with, are actually the things that are

Dylan Sessler 18:21

or where you need to place your, your focus what you need to reveal to other people in some ways to get perspective, right? Because you need to have a different perspective to realize what's in my box is not good for me. Right? What's what I hold, you know, you know, what's in the box and then what's in the box within the box is also something that I need to open up and understand so I can also show or find people that can help me understand it. You know, and there's there's so much that I've had to address about me that has been a failing through throughout my life and respect myself throughout it right that's that that's why my book is called defy the darkness because you can't escape the darkness of life. You can't escape the fact that life can suck, it can be terrible. But if you learn how to defy that, if you learn how to find the beauty within the pain, find the beauty within the world, or the the stress or the discomfort of life, you actually start to realize that you can, you can place things aside, you can look past the stress, you can look past the pain, you can see what is actually worthwhile to look at. And that's not it's an under development of ignorance. That's a development of understanding what you want to prioritize in, in your life in in you because that perspective matters, right? Two people can go through the same experience and have vastly different outcomes. Right? There's there's people Now we'll go through the death of a father and do what I did. And then there are people that will go through the death of a father at 47 years old or 50 years old and realize, I can survive this, I'll be fine. But I went through it at six years old and felt like it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And now, now, I've completely turn that around. And now I look at that moment. And I realize not only my suicide, but my own. Those were two contrasting and paradoxical events. But yet, both of them were essential to where I am now, in this place, where I have a book that has helped, you know, 1000s of people at this point, I have a tick tock account that I you know, of course, it's tick tock, but I've shared 1000s of videos at this point, and helped millions of people, right, I have almost 600,000 followers at this point, talking about things like suicide and mental health and trauma, sexual assault, you know, war, I've talked about everything that I can possibly think of to help people understand themselves. And it's, it's changed, it's changed a world, right? It's changed my world. But that's just, that's just one piece of the puzzle of my life that I would have missed. If I, if I had pulled the trigger and 2015. I also have a wife, right, like, and this is the, excuse me, the more emotional part of of this. Because I would have missed that. Right, I would have, I would have missed meeting the excuse me. Meeting the woman that has shown me what real beauty is. But also, I would have missed the baby that we're having in June, I would have missed that, I would have missed all of that. And that's, that's a tragedy that would have befallen me without ever having given myself the chance to understand it. You know, given given any, any possible discomfort that would have come through continuing on, you don't ever realize what you can miss, if you don't keep going. Right? And that's, I can't I can't tell people to keep going just because, you know, what's the right thing to do? I can, I can remind them that there are stories out there like myself, that I I'm I'm living proof that there is possibility. Beyond all of this pain, there's potential beyond all the all the discomfort and the, the, the self harm that I've done to myself, you know, there's, there's so much more beyond the trauma beyond the the, the grief and all the loss, right. And it still befalls me today, I've lost just in the last two years before we are, you know, my wife is doing June before that we lost three babies. And that's an incredibly hard loss for anyone.

Dylan Sessler 23:20

But it's especially hard when you're, you know, you've you've looked to this, and especially me like, I've looked at this my whole life and realize, like, at one point, I never thought I'd be here, I'd never thought I'd make it past 25. But I certainly never thought I'd make it past 3932. I have a wife, I have a stepson, I have a little girl on the way and all of this stuff would have been gone. It never would have happened. And I would have thought I was right. At 25 years old had I pulled the trigger. But now I look back. And it's the only way I could have seen the perspective that matters here and realize how wrong it was to think I was worthless in any way. Because everything that I've done here to create this conversation with you. I'm not worthless. But I had to prove that to myself. And I think that's that's the part that really matters about my story is that there's a necessity for you to speak your own truth to understand it, and how you share it. Your narrative matters, right? If you if you express your narrative in a way that is what I did for 25 years, well, you're going to end up exactly where I was. But if you take the last seven years of my life and you understand what I did promise you when you really start to address your narrative that might change right your your attitude might change, your perception of the world might change. You know, you might stop blaming people for everything that's happened to you and you might start taking responsibility for the actions that you have. And you step out of you know this, this feeling of betrayal that everyone's against you the world's against you the armies against Do you, the Navy's against you, whatever you it is that victim mentality. Yeah. And, and you step out of that, and you realize that you have had to survive things that have not been pleasant if not been kind. But you also have a choice and all these matters, right, you have the choice of standing against the darkness, you know, defying it and continuing to fight for a beautiful life that you have yet to create. You know, and that's, that's, that's about as, as best a description of my life as I can give you right now. But

Keith McKeever 25:38

that definitely helps paint a picture. And a couple of things kind of came to mind as you're going through that. One is like the old adage or whatever, of lemons to lemonade, whatever, headed here, just meant to go in my head. But you know, you're taking something that's sour, bitter, it's deformed as you're squeezing it, but you add a little bit of sugar to it. And now something is something sweet and enjoyable. And, you know, kind of tying in with your book, it's your, your book, your, yourself, you know, the chapter of your life could have ended. But you've written all these other chapter sets, right? Going through your marriage, the daughter on the way, you know, all these other things, your career, the TIC TOCs, like, all those different things are just little paragraphs and chapters out into your book. And there's a lot of a lot of power in spreading your message. You just never know who's going to listen. You never know who it's going to help. I was just telling somebody the other day that when I started this podcast, I, you know, this was just an opportunity for me to talk to other people share stories, and hopefully some will help somebody out there. If it does help one person, it's worth all the time and effort and energy put into it. What I never expected was a few weeks ago that I literally had somebody in my home in this time where I'm at, reach out to me and my wife and say, I'm trying to deal with my husband and his PTSD. And I am lost because I'm not a veteran, I don't know and understand all this stuff. Like, you hope. And my wife was like, well, you talked to Keith. So she she messaged me, and Christina knows both of us. And so I sent her a couple of episodes couple of resources. And I just never thought in my wildest dreams when I started this I'm thinking innocent giant world, you know, United States, we haven't in this world got veterans all over the place. Who could help somebody anywhere never expected it would literally be in my, in my backyard, the first place that I hear of, and so you know, you never know. And this is all over the place, and people consume them for hours upon hours at a time. Guilty. It's what's

Dylan Sessler 27:51

what's remarkable is your story is not is is not uncommon to me, right? Like I, I started this, this whole journey kind of wanting to prove myself that I could do it without the support of anyone around me, right. And so I started tic tock without telling any of my friends, my family, the only person that knew was my wife. And so I think the first time I had someone reach out that was like, close to me, was around like 100 250,000 followers. They were like, they were a friend from from high school. And he reached out and he told me, he's like, Hannah, had no clue. But I'm telling you, like, I've been through this, you know, I'm going through this right now, and I don't idea what to do. And we, you know, we sat down, I guess through Messenger, and we just started, you know, texting each other, just keeping each other kind of, you know, keeping each other company for a minute. And it's remarkable that you, you know, in this in this world of of interconnectedness and how the the internet exposes that, and yet also disconnects us what when I really got it, well I've really built it is is a contradiction to what a lot of people feel the internet is so disconnecting. Because there's there's both disconnection of, yeah, we get into our phones so much, but there's also this idea that in a family unit, there are people that are struggling with something that don't, that don't have the ability to tell their family. They don't have the ability to express that either because their family, you know, doesn't allow it like like, part of mine did. And then also because the same reason for myself is I didn't want to I didn't know how to talk to people around me. And so as much as it might be disconnecting, it's also incredibly connecting on the on the back end as well because there are people that reach out out to me and tell me things, both in my in my client meetings and just via messages from Tiktok and Instagram. They tell me things they've never told anybody else before. Because I'm safe, right? Because for the first time in their lives, they've they watched me on Tik Tok for long enough to think, Dylan safe. And they're not wrong, like I don't, I don't take these things and blast them over the internet and say, you know, Hey, check this out, this person's gone through this, like, I don't do that. And so the like, there's this ability for these people to look at me and recognize that there is trust there. And that's an incredible thing when they don't have anybody else in their life that they can trust. They built that through a one way conversation, right that I spoke to them. And they found me to be trustworthy enough to share these life experiences that no one else has ever listened to before. And a lot

Keith McKeever 30:57

of those people it's a lot, a lot of weight off, the shoulders just didn't get out there to somebody.

Dylan Sessler 31:02

And that's, that's an incredibly powerful thing to to take recognition of which, you know, again, it's a contradiction to what a lot of people say, you know, the internet, so disconnecting it's, it's not, you just don't know where to look for the connection, you don't know how to build a connection. And that's, if if there's an issue in society today that is underrated and undervalued. It's the idea that we don't know how to craft a sense of connection, because we don't know how to develop a sense of safely communicating. Right, that's one of the things that I struggled with is that I didn't think anyone could understand. The day that I looked at my dad, and I thought he's not coming home. I didn't think anyone I could trust anyone with that information, because I had so much guilt around it, that no one had ever created a safe conversation for that to happen. And so that's what I do now. Right? And that's what I study. That's what I pay attention to. Because it's the it's the very thing that I needed throughout life. And so if there's anything that I've learned, it's that it's that we need to look at how we have conversations with people, and I do this with my son, I do this with my wife. And I want them to be able to share absolutely anything with me. And I don't I don't just wait for it. Right. Like, which is what I think a lot of people do. I actively tell them, both of them. If there's something I do wrong, I need you to talk to me, I want you to talk to me. And then when I and they do, I don't punish them. Right? And I don't, I don't, you know, I don't blow up on them. I don't become emotional. What I do is I sit there and I listen, even if it fucking hurts, right? You know, when I do this with clients, I do this with everybody in my life. I've done this with my mother, I've done this with so many different people in my life. And I promise you works, right. But you also have to have to have the ability to perceive and understand how to engage with that negativity that is coming at you. Right? It's, it's the defiance of that darkness that you have to understand how to do. Because if you just take on all of the all of this, and say, I am the problem, you're not going to survive, right? It has to be an understanding of, I understand your perception of things. I do. I really do. And I believe it, I believe you, you feel this is true. And I understand that. But here's my perception. It's not about negating someone else's perception of the truth and making it false. It's about just understanding that you have an idea of truth. And so to why. And now we need to come together to create consistency in in both of those things, right? It's not about like, I'm not here to tell Keith, I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong, or you're false, or your thoughts are, are crazy, right? All I'm here to say is, here's my truth. Here's my story. Here's my idea, right? And people are gonna argue with that. And that's good. Because that gives me an opportunity to learn whether I am actually wrong. Or it gives me an opportunity to help them understand how to work with me how to perceive me understand me, listen to me. You know, be friends with me. Because that's my ultimate goal. I'm not here to kill people, right? Even though that's my other job in the military. Right? Like, I still am. You know, I still am an infantry man. I'm a sniper section leader in the military right now. Right. My other job is to kill people. Right? That's literally what I do. And, and yet I'm, I fundamentally stand in opposition to that in the civilian life, right? Like, paradoxically, I'm here to save lives on the civilian life and I'm here to take lives in the military side. Right. And so I fundamentally think both are necessary because we have will never escape nature. Right? I don't care how much idealism you think you have, we're never going to create a society that steps outside of nature and says, we live in a bubble, and we're safe. Because at any moment, you know, a 16 mile wide rock from outer space can can change all of that and destroy this entire planet. And so we really don't understand the full perception of what nature can do to us in comparison to man, right? We think man is the most dangerous thing out there. It's not its nature, like we don't have an understanding of what nature can do to us. And we don't have a respect for it. So we think we can control it. And the reality is, we can't and so being able to understand that we must stand in opposition to what nature represents, because its nature is also in man. Right? That's why That's why murder still happen this way. Rapes still happen this way, bad things still happen. Obviously, Russia's in Ukraine right now, like bad things happen. And so we have to understand that there's still a natural, a natural chaos to things. And in many ways, we need to be able to stand in opposition to it, if we if we disagree with it. So

Dylan Sessler 36:15

it's more than that. Yeah. And it's so underrated, to be able to articulate your story, and to understand it, and to, to really feel an understanding of your own truth.

Keith McKeever 36:30

And I think one, one good theme, to this episode, so far as to those out there struggling is to serve their story. That could be to your spouse, to your kids, to your parents, to your counselor, to yourself to yourself to support group to number the clergy, you know, wherever you feel that trust, whoever that person or that that group is, go share your story, because I'm gonna help me. You know, like, the communication you were just talking about a couple years ago, I had an incident here at my house and, and like my wife, and my kids were like, No, you do this, this, this and this all the time. And then it didn't fit the definition of PTSD. You know, the, the punching your wife and daughter down the stairs, right? I wasn't violent. But I would have a an angry outbursts every noun and or snap or, you know, very, very demanding sometimes on while my kids get the chores done, like, why are you doing it? Like, different things like that, right? I realize that there are certain things I was doing that we're not, we're not healthy. They're just kids, right? You can't do a perfect job taking the garbage out. You know, nobody, you hope to get into Canada, right. But anyway, right. So like, through that communication that we had, as a family, they sat down, it was kind of an intervention almost to me. And it was like, Yeah, you know, this is what you do, like, going in your office, self isolating, and, you know, you work all the time, like, don't spend enough time with us. And it was like, okay, all right. My boys will never spend more time with them. Right. So that's shocks, that's incredibly painful. But also realize they were old enough where I sat down, and I was like, Look, guys, I struggle, like, hit like, my wife knows a lot of my stories, but my boys, you know, they're, they're old enough now. kind of gave them a little bit more of the PG version of things. But I was like, Look, you know, here's where I deployed. Here's what I did. Here's the things I experienced in the military, blah, blah. You know, some people have a worse, whatever. But like, this is what I've experienced, this is how I feel. These are the things that I struggle with, right? And we just tried to steal a couple years now later, still trying to navigate it. Right. I know, I still have problems. I know, I isolate myself in my office too much sometimes. Sometimes I might snap and you know, I get that. I was never a drill drill sergeant but almost like the drill sergeant kind of mentality. Not the action, gotta gotta react. Let's do this. Let's do that. Whatever. But that communication was huge. It helped shift my mindset to see what was going on. That I didn't quite see.

Dylan Sessler 39:16

Good for you. Right like that. That is in that is an example to lead by. Right They had that's an incredible story right there in itself because it shows what I think a good man represents and a good person represents but especially men, right? I think men have a an overwhelming struggle with this because we you know, we have a different we have a different relationship with pain. Right? And so, one of the well not only pain, but emotional pain as well. And so, what I love about what you just told me is that one you are able to listen, which is incredibly hard for men to do when they're being told they're wrong. Because the first thing that we want to do when we get told we're wrong is get angry. And we want to get aggressive we that's that's just one of the things that we kind of were taught to do as especially our generation, I think. And so it's incredible that you have the, the foresight to allow your, your people, right, you're the most trusted people in your life, your children and your wife to sit down with you and say, These are the things that we see and observe and notice, and we want to share them with you not to insult you, but to help you because we want you to be us. And that's, that's scary, right? Like, that's incredibly scary for for both of us, right to realize that. People want us, right? It's almost scary thought, especially when you come out of the military and realize that in the military, all we saw was we lost people, right? Like, whether you're whether you've been deployed or not, you lose people, right? You lose people that just don't make it in the military that don't want to be there anymore. You lose people that that can't handle it. They they choose suicide, or the the PTSD comes out and destroys them medical issues, right? You lose people in so many different capacities. And that's not including war, right? And then you go to war. And then you lose people on a different level. Right? You watch people in like, die, right? You watch people become casualties and become mangled. And, you know, amputees you see all sorts of different things that, you know, this person was never the same again. And so when you come home, you you can't you kind of internalize that, and you say, I don't want to get too close to people. Right? And so there's, there's this, there's this relationship that you have with yourself of like, I'm not going to get too close to people, but also, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of engage in interactions that say, you know, don't do that, because it can become a really bad thing, right? And that's why we become so aggressive in some way in how we command right? Of don't don't do that, right? Why are you doing that that's a terrible idea. Because, you know, in Afghanistan, or in Iraq, a bad idea to get people killed. And so we can't necessarily turn that off every time until we actually start to recognize and I think the fact that you have pushed into the self awareness to do that is remarkable. I mean, that's, that's the beginning of healing in any capacity. And the fact that you're able to have those conversations, the fact that you're able to recognize yourself, right? Even if you are still self isolating, you recognize it. And in some capacity, that guilt is necessary for you to say, you know, what, I'm not spending enough time with my kids. I guess

Keith McKeever 42:59

that was, it was really the pain on their faces, when they were telling me because it was like, wow, you know, you love you love these three individuals so much that you want the best for all of them, just want the best for yourself. And then you realize that your issues are having a negative impact on that. That was painful, because I realized I was like, wow, especially my kids didn't want them to grow up. And then have conversations with their future spouses, with no, maybe someday grandkids in mind, and say, hey, you know, my dad, your grandpa, whatever, he was a great guy. But yeah, but he did this. And to some extent, there will be a little bit of that. But it's on me to take the steps necessary to mitigate as much of that going forward. I can't do anything about the past, but I can change the way the future looks for them. And, you know, that's, that's all you can do. But, you know, that wasn't just, it probably wasn't just that one of them either. You know, I've been under the self awareness stuff for a while. So I think that was primarily building up over time. And it was just took that one event, take blinders off. And for me to really see what was going on and see the pain that I was that I was causing, you know, even if it was one day, a week, you know, or a couple of incidences here and there. It's still pain. It's still their perception of how they felt about it. But a couple of things that other things I wanted to ask you about was you've got breakdown of the ACC on PTSD. So can you can you walk us through that? P You have perspective? What's What's your thoughts on that?

Dylan Sessler 44:42

Perspective is a remarkable thing. And an under a misunderstood and undervalued thing. I think, you know, the ability to look at the same object, right? If you if you look at it from an artistic point of view, it's the ability to look at an object from at different angles, right? And so you have this ball and you hold it up to the light. If you look at the ball, with the light behind it, all you're gonna see is darkness. Right? If you look at the light from the earth, you look at the ball from the lights perspective, all you see is the shining ball, right? And so, I look at that, in the same way with mental health, right? If you look at my dad's suicide, from the dark side, that is all I will ever see, as all I'll ever know. Right? But what I've done it I've done a complete 180 on it, right? I used to think it was the worst moment of my life. And now I look at it and I say, it's the most important moment in my life. Is that the best? I'm holding out amendments, see what happens, right? Because, quite frankly, my own choice of, you know, sitting there with a gun in my hand and thinking about suicide, that might have been the best moment of my life. And as, as dark and dismal as that might be. I didn't do it. Right. So you

Keith McKeever 46:05

can reflect until the book is written, right? That's it, you know, when when you are gone from this world? That's, I mean, that's all legacy and all that stuff, you know,

Dylan Sessler 46:12

yeah. And it's over, you have to be able to really look at something from a different perspective. And what that means is kind of like the next few, you know, pieces of the acronym is, one, when you start looking at perspective, you transform, right, and that's the T the transformation, right? And transformation really, is the development of your own understanding, but also the implications of what other people help you understand. Right. And that's that perspective, because it's incredibly hard to craft perspective. Outside of your within yourself, right, and so you need the help of other people. That's why we read books, as why, you know, as as a person that helps people heal. I recommend people read books, I recommend people listen to podcasts, I recommend people go read and understand the stories of other people who have gone through the same thing. Because those people have a different perspective. I promise you, right? If you're not healing and healing, they have a different perspective than you. Is it the perspective that's going to get you through? I don't know. Maybe that's why you read it. That's why you read 100 stories, one of them might matter might might matter, right? This is why you have however many podcast episodes you have. This one might matter to someone where all the rest weren't that good for them. Right? Oh, absolutely. Right. Exactly. And so it's, it's that that transformative aspect is really about how do you implement perspective into your understanding of the world? Do you think your perception is right? Because I can guarantee you if you think your perceptions, right, maybe you're wrong? It's, that's yeah, that's, that's the hardest part of all of this is like you might actually be wrong. And how, how do you look at that? Because that's honestly the most transformative piece of this whole structure. Right? He's as big

Keith McKeever 48:14

as we should be pretty good at looking at some of these things. I mean, that's what you do. You're trying to put an operation order together, right? You're trying to look at anything that could go wrong. And look at every piece of every angle, basically. You know, so you should be looking at every single angle when you're examining your life.

Dylan Sessler 48:30

And what's funny about you bring up up up orders, right? You always share an OP order up. And then what do people do above you? They tear that thing apart? Right? They do you think about this? Did you think about this, and you can never find someone that will say, You know what, this is good. Because like, literally, when you talk about our borders, there is never a good way to do anything we do in war, right? Because there's always risk, right? There's, there's, there's never a good enough reward to do to do any of it. If you're if you're any kind of intelligent, you realize that there's always going to be a risk involved when you when you conduct war. And so there's always going to be someone that says, Yeah, what about this? Right? And so it's funny that you bring up that as veterans, we should know this, but we don't. And that's interesting, because we can do it without borders, but we can't do it with our mental health. Right? We can do it with training, but we can't look at ourselves and say, am I looking at this from a perspective that actually functions in my life? And so that's where that transformative aspect is really important. But to really do that, you need the Yes, right? Speak your truth. Right? It's simple, right? If you can't learn to articulate your feelings, if you can't learn to articulate how you feel about certain scenarios, outcomes issues. So anything, you will always appease others before you appease yourself. Right? And that's that's not a good thing. Right? And if if all you do is appease others, what happens, right? Well, I can tell you what happens because I didn't Afghanistan, you get your body tells you, you're falling apart, right, your body reminds you that you are not invincible, that you cannot support every everybody else and that you have to take care of yourself. That's why I got ulcers, right. And that's why people get Fibromyalgia that's why people are getting cancer at different rates, right, the same, the same kind of population will get cancer, simply because how they approach decision making is more for others than it is for them. There's, there's science behind this, there's a great book called when the body says no, it is revealing some things about the human body that are quite interesting. And so we're getting these physical issues because people can't stand up for themselves. Right? Speak your truth, speak what you know to be true. And what you'll find is that people will look at your perspective, and they'll give you their opinion. But again, it's an it's a subjective opinion, it doesn't have to be your truth. And you can engage in maybe looking at myself and having a conversation with myself, because I'm a trusted individual that wants to hear your opinion. Right? And I'll share mine. And we can have a conversation that's actually respectful and understanding of all of what you've been through. But then you go to your mother and realize she's not the same way. Right? And so, you know, you have to determine in in many ways, who who should you respect? Which opinions should you respect which commute which communication style, should you respect in that situation. And what a lot of people find, I think, is, as they speak their truth, they find that a lot of the people that have been in their lives are actually part of the problem with how they communicate, and how they speak their truth because they can't share with with some of the people that they hold they currently right now hold in their life because it can be it's quite convenient to have people that serve you. And and, and don't ask for anything. Right? That's, that's what a lot of us do. struggle through PTSD struggle through traumas that we try to appease everybody else. Don't make waves be seen not heard. Take care of everybody else. Right? People please. Support, right? Constantly serve everyone. But when we serve ourselves, what happens? Bad things, right? We're selfish. We're narcissists. Right? And it's, it's a, it's an it's a conversation that needs to be engaged in how we address selfishness. Because self lessness and selfishness are both positive and negative. And we don't really engage in understanding selflessness as negative and in selfishness as positive, we don't have those conversations.

Keith McKeever 53:17

Maybe the conversation is shifted to self care. And I'll just a different perception of it. Because how we're, you know, everybody's on a different path on that, you know, some people just want to ignore things, some people try a little bit, some people, you know, bury themselves in that, but that's when you got is, is defy the darkness.

Dylan Sessler 53:39

You know, and that's, you know, we kind of already talked about this, and that's that that conceptualization of, you know, understanding nature, right? I think I think you need to understand nature, because guess what, it's not going away, right? Death is not going away, disease is not going away, violence is not going away, it hasn't gone away. And, you know, however long this earth has been Earth, right? And however long humans have been humans. And so you need to understand that darkness is never going to go away. But that doesn't mean you have to succumb to it. Right? It's a choice. It's fundamental choice, right? That's why it's defy the darkness. Because defy is a verb, right? You have to choose to defy. Right? And, and so in all of this. It's PTSD can be both remarkably crushing, and also incredibly empowering. Right? If you choose to allow it to crush you, it will. If you choose to let it empower you. Believe me, it will. Right you can you can take your trauma and turn and turn it into the most inspiring thing in your life and craft an incredible experience following it. Or you can live To really self destruct, you can destroy yourself and it will happen, I promise you, if you, if you make that choice, it will happen and, and you may not know how far you can go, you know, you may not recognize how far you've gone down that hole until you have someone at you and saying, What happened to you? Right? What what? Why are you doing this? Right? And if you don't ask that question, you know, sometimes it'll take people, right, because we can't save everybody. Right? I know that, you know, that's the hardest thing about this job is that as much as I am a vault of information for a lot of people, I also realized that doing so and helping people through this process may also mean that I lose people in the process. You know, and that's part of defining the darkness is that you have to recognize that not everybody is going to cross the finish line, like you will, right? Not everybody's going to finish a marathon, some may finish at 5k. Right? Some may make it 18 miles, and then then they're gone. Right? We all have different places in life where, where we, where we kick the bucket, and, you know, we can't all make it to 9500 years old, and there's no guarantee I will, but I'm gonna certainly try. But exactly. Part of that is only because I realized that I realized what it was like to nearly die at 25. And miss out on all this, you know, I'm seven years into a basically my second life, of understanding, like, holy shit, there's an incredible amount of possibilities out there in which I can enjoy, even through all of the darkness. And so you make the choice every single day to keep going. Right? If you're tired of fighting, right, figure it out. Right? That's, that's what you have to do. Right? Start from the beginning perception, right? perspective, figure out what you are, what you are missing, right? Find the transformation, speak your truth, whatever you have to do, change what you are doing, and you might learn how to defy that darkness someday.

Keith McKeever 57:10

Absolutely. Because it can be many more chapters in your story, you know it, I mean, it just generally to everybody who's, who ends up watching or listening, because you just never know, when the end of life is, you have so much more to live for. You just got to just gotta press on. But Dylan, I appreciate you coming on here. And in talking about all this incredibly deep episode, I think this is definitely very helpful to a lot of people. So I really appreciate that. Thank you, Keith. Any anything? Anything else do to add?

Dylan Sessler 57:43

Just keep just don't give up. Just don't give up?

Keith McKeever 57:48

Absolutely. All right. Well, thanks again. Appreciate you.

Dylan Sessler 57:51

Likewise. Thank you

Keith McKeever 57:56

all right, there you go. Don't forget to check out our website battle buddy podcast on net for all kinds of resources and information. And if you are struggling, remember the national suicide hotline number is 800-273-8255 or you can text 838255 And don't forget to check in on your battle buddies.