@mayoscout Yes, please do reach out to the Music Therapy Retreats. They schedule retreats in different places. It used to be centered in Colorado, but because a lot of veterans with PTSD would cancel because they felt they couldn't travel, they started bringing the retreats to the veterans to help them attend. You will be in a safe welcoming place in attending this and you'll be working one on one with a professional musician.

The man who founded this program, Mack Bailey, is one of the best guys you could ever meet. It is his passion to help people recover from trauma through music. I have known him personally for over 20 years and this is really his calling in life to use his talents to help others. They will put a guitar in your hands and teach you how to play it. Many veterans come to this program having no musical experience at all. You'll be in good company. If you have already played guitar, you'll be ahead of the game here, and reconnecting with that part of yourself will help heal. Your feelings belong to you, and this is a way to find peace with all of that. Don't put pressure on yourself to be happy. It is a journey. Mack tells me that through music, you can rewire all the traumatic memory pathways in the brain. The brain holds onto and gives priority to the traumatic memories which gets in the way of other functions. It's a survival instinct that humans are this way, but you can "unlearn" those trauma connections, not forget, but to understand how to overcome them.

I have had some PTSD in my life too, but not the same as yours. I found a way to overcome it through creativity and using my art work as therapy to help myself. I also listened to music and I asked Mack about it at the time about using music as therapy and he told me that breathing slow and deep in time to the music will help. It did. I was learning to lower my anxiety and blood pressure by doing this, and that became a tool I used when I needed to cope with a scary situation. Since I am a visual person, I also added imagery to the mix, and I could do this all in my head anytime anywhere and play music I loved from my memory in my mind.

You can do this. It will be a journey of discovery. You've already shown your bravery with your military service and this experience will help you find yourself again. Go for it!