September is suicide Prevention
Awareness Month and all month long we
are bringing you stories of resilience,
the latest developments
in treatment and hope.
I recently spoke with retired Army
Sergeant First Class Dan Jarvis who
founded the organization 22 zero
which helps our veterans, doctors,
nurses and first responders take back
their life from depression and PTSD.
Your story is so incredible and I
know you are helping so many people,
but let's start first with your
time overseas in Afghanistan.
What can you tell me about that time
I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, 2012.
I was with the Stryker Brigade
out of Fort Wainwright,
Alaska, Infantry squad leader.
There wasn't the best of deployments.
Half my men were medevaced out of country,
not to return one of the soldiers
in our balloon was killed that I
felt strangely responsible for.
I stepped on a pressure plate
detonated IED which you know
gave me a pretty significant TBI.
That kind of had to deal with the
lingering effects with throughout
the rest of the deployment didn't
get a whole lot of sleep and then
my brain was was constantly going.
We did partnerships with the
Afghan National Army.
We also did partnerships for the
Ashcan Afghan national people.
We did a lot of humanitarian assistance
in some of the communities in Afghanistan,
so it's kind of hard to really look
back and see what's going on right now,
knowing that the the men, women,
and children and in the areas that
we you know we served in are going
to be significantly impacted by
what's going on with the Taliban.
So it's kind of a heartbreaker.
And we're getting a lot of requests
for help from veterans that are really,
really struggling with whether watching
unfold before their very eyes.
So yeah, it's it's been a difficult,
you know,
couple weeks.
I can't imagine. I mean as a civilian,
knowing the sacrifices you made.
But for those of you that were there
that helped them that fought in
this war has just as you mentioned,
got to be so heartbreaking.
What are you seeing from veterans?
How is this impacting?
Is this triggering anything for them the
way the brain? A lot of us?
We compartmentalize and we will
put things away in places that
we don't want to address them.
You know, it may may still manifest with,
you know, triggers and you know
nightmares and occasional, you know.
Intrusive thoughts,
but now that this is front and
center to the whole world is
bringing all of those emotions back
up and my worry is that it's going
to cause somebody to, you know,
the body produces emotions and waves
of 90 seconds and it's in those 90
seconds that they pulled the trigger.
And that's my big fear is they're
going to have a whole lot more
of those 92nd waves and start to
lose kind of hope and have their
body chemistry affected by it.
You know,
we're just out here as a peer
support organization just trying to.
Connect with the women and men
who served in you know.
Kind of partnering up with
peer coaches and you know,
do some things that will help disconnect
those neurological connections
between those emotions and what
they witnessed and what they saw.
Or maybe what they're experiencing right now.
Yeah, you mentioned your TBI and you
didn't really feel like the treatment
that the VA offered was helping you.
So how did you? Heal and overcome
from PTSD from your injury.
I went into looking into alternative
treatments and I had my paradigm change
when I went through a process in it was in
September of 2018 and I'm like Holy Cow.
Why is this not everywhere?
And so we as an organization started
looking into the that type of treatment
and these processes have actually
been around for over 40 years.
It was developed in the early 1980s and.
It was in the world of what they
called Neurolinguistic programming,
which was Doctor John Grinder
and Doctor Richard Bandler.
Many people might know like Tony Robbins,
he's he's been very successful in that world
where you can make rapid transformations.
And then what we did is we modeled
that visual kinesthetic dissociation
process and then we started applying it.
Well, how do we do this veteran to
veteran cop to cop firefighter firefighter
on a fear aspect because the the
rapport is the most important part.
You gotta get somebody to do the process.
So if you have the.
Before with them,
they'll trust you and they'll do it,
whether they believe in the process
or not is irrelevant.
You get their brain to do certain
guided visual imagery and then all
of a sudden you're disconnecting
trauma emotions from events,
so they're seeing the events,
but they're no longer feeling the events
were able to rapidly help veterans.
You know,
get that disconnect between the
emotion of it and the memory
itself doesn't change the memory.
That's your history.
But now instead of your story owning you,
you now own your story,
so I can tell my stories.
Without any visceral negative
emotions attached to it, you know,
and I'll speak before groups.
And they're like.
How can you tell that story?
And I'm like couple years ago, I couldn't.
You know, I don't.
I don't get a basket case,
but when you disconnect those emotions,
it can literally reset you and get
you back to a normal homeostasis
and healthy again.
And then once your sleep patterns restore,
that changes everything.
Then the depression goes away.
Your cortisol levels go back to normal.
You'll come out of adrenal fatigue and
you'll get back to being the person
that you're actually meant to be.
Now 22 zero has a documentary
coming out this Saturday,
marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Follows the five first responders
who were at Ground Zero 20 years
ago and their path to recovery from
PTSD thanks to the help of 22 zero.
It's streaming free for anyone to watch.
For more information, go to
twenty20.org and we want you to
remember that if you or someone you
know is having suicidal thoughts,
there is help. You can call the
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
That number is right there on
your screen and the center
is open 24/7 365 days a year.