Chance Encounter Puts Army Vet On Path To Recovery

For a decade, U.S. Army veteran Corey O’Brien tried to outrun the horrors he had seen while serving in Iraq. He immersed himself in his job as a high school science teacher in central Ohio and tried to meet the needs of his wife and a family that grew to five children.

But he found it impossible to cope with his life.

“I was grasping at straws, and the outlook wasn’t good for me,” says O’Brien. “I was afraid I was going to be another statistic, another combat vet who couldn’t find a way to make it work.”

O’Brien felt like a “ghost” in his own family; he had severe headaches, isolated himself at their Dublin home and found it difficult to connect to anyone. He was depressed and angry.

A nurse suggested he might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so he saw several therapists, but nothing helped. He believes now that he also suffers from a traumatic brain injury brought on by mortar attacks in Iraq.

It wasn’t until he happened to hear Dr. Chrisanne Gordon of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation speak at a Dublin Memorial Day event in 2017 that he felt some hope.

“She gave a speech about how veterans were suffering in silence and I was like, ‘That’s me!” O’Brien remembers. He spoke with her afterwards and she convinced him to join transcendental meditation classes offered through the David Lynch Foundation.

Since then he’s been able to manage the damage he’d suffered during his overseas mission with the Ohio National Guard.

“It sounded crazy and I was highly skeptical,” he admits. “I thought: How is this going to change anything?”

But after six months of daily meditation, O’Brien began to heal himself. He noticed he was starting to hum, and it caught him off guard.

“You don’t hum if you’re feeling bad,” he laughs now. He says meditation has given him more energy, helped him sleep, reduced his anxiety and helped him deal with stress.

“It gives me that pause, so I can think clearly instead of reacting strictly emotionally,” O’Brien says. “I wish every veteran could have this available to them if they want to try it.”