TREK 2020 — Searching For Our Heroes
One Woman, One Horse, 2300 Miles
Real Hero Report | January 2019 |
On September 11, 2001, I got up and got dressed and
headed off to work. I picked up my cell phone and dialed
my dearest friend who was a NYC Fire Fighter. I wanted
the name of a restaurant to which he had taken me. He couldn’t
talk because he was “headed out to the Towers. Something big is
going on.” Thirty minutes later I stood in a conference room with
a group of co-workers as I watched the towers fall. My friend was
of the towers falling and my own voice screaming out “Noooo!”
lives in me. I spent the next year working on moving as far away
It took me almost 11 years before I realized that my behavioral
changes of many were due to PTSD, and I was just a bystander.
The knowing was half the battle. But it stirred something inside
responders who worked at ground zero for weeks and months—
the military that were deployed because of this one event and the
years of war we have been involved in and those returning from
In studying, I found that the statistics of the number of people
suffering from PTSD were pretty much guesses. The military
always with the footnote of if they report it, seek treatment, or if
suffer from PTSD. I suggest that the “ifs” also apply to them.
PTSD is associated with the increased likelihood of other
psychiatric disorders, such as alcohol and drug abuse and/or
dependence, major depressive episodes, conduct disorders. These
include problems with interpersonal relationships, problems with
employment, and involvement with the criminal justice system.
There are 20 suicides per day from our veteran population and 1
per day in our active military.
The number one treatment for PTSD is medication management
of the symptoms. But there are many other types of treatment.
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) is one making huge strides
in this area.
People who have PTSD live in a state of hyper-vigilance,
feeling threatened by everyday events. Horses are prey animals,
so they also live in a state of hyper-vigilance, as do those who
have been to war rely on their heightened senses for survival. By
interacting with horses, people with PTSD often will see their
own emotional state mirrored in the reactions of the horses with
which they are working. They respond positively to positive
emotions, and they have no ulterior motives. The horses are just
there providing non-verbal feedback. Horses also force people to
come out of their comfort zones by working with large, unfamiliar
Imagine what this can do for our heroes suffering from physical
disabilities.
EAP for people with PTSD has gathered the attention of the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has provided grants
for practitioners to run equine assisted therapy groups with
returning troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Preliminary results
of change. Many say that just one session with a horse is more
don’t involve riding a horse. Therapy is done on the ground.
do. The lack of funding for these programs, public awareness of
issues I hope to solve by spending 4 months, 12 days, 2,300 miles
riding throughout the Southeastern United States. I will honor our
many heroes and learn and teach about EAP along the way. We
leave on February 15, 2020. With each hoof fall, we hope to help
a hero. Please visit our Facebook page by searching “Trek 2020 –
Searching for Our Heroes.”