Ryan Haugen knows what gun oil tastes like.
He knows this because he also knows what it feels like to hold the barrel of a pistol in his mouth, and what goes through your mind when you’re nearly ready to pull the trigger.
He’d just been fired from a series of jobs. He’d spent years struggling with the emotional trauma of a sexual assault suffered while serving in the military. The fallout from post-traumatic stress—re-living the nightmare—was chipping away at his marriage.
A Shawn Mullins song, “Twin Rocks Oregon,” played in the background:
I came here to watch the sun disappear into the ocean …
“I was crying and screaming, and I could feel my eyes bulging out of my head,” he says. “I was terrified I was actually going to go through with it. But I was also terrified of not going through with it.”
After an hour of finger-on-the-trigger contemplation, he put the gun away.
And he’d never be the same.
“It’s like I died and was reborn as a different person,” he says, “without pulling the trigger.”
Today, Haugen is the driving force behind The Silent Warrior Project, a meditation- and mindfulness-based suicide-prevention program helping veterans find peace and avoid the scenario in which he found himself.
His advocacy couldn’t have come at a better time. A Brown University study published in June found that veterans are 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-veterans.
It’s a problem. All Haugen wants to do now is help fix it.
Navy Man
Hoping to find adventure and money for college, Haugen enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He found both, and spent four years seeing the world on board a nuclear powered submarine. But his most impactful military experience had nothing to do with basic training or missions. One night, while blackout drunk, Haugen endured a sexual assault that would have a catastrophic impact on his life. No suspects, no one charged.
“I self-medicated with booze and promiscuity to recover from that,” he says. “And that resulted in a lot of consequences like losing rank and restriction to the ship. Then my commanding officer said, ‘Get sober or get out of the military.’ And then I landed in treatment for two months.”
After an honorable discharge, Haugen attended Minnesota State University, Mankato, graduating in 2002 with a degree in marketing. He bounced around to a series of jobs and struggled to find stability and sobriety. After a few relapses, Haugen bested that foe for good in April 2007.
His other demon, however—nightmares, anxiety and depression stemming from post-traumatic stress from his military sexual assault—proved more vexing. That battle came to a head in his bedroom that day with the gun.
Silent Warrior
Not long after that day, a new 12-step program sponsor introduced Haugen to something called “centering prayer,” a type of meditation developed by monks in which practitioners use silence to connect to a higher power. That same week, the VA prescribed Haugen a 12-week therapy for his PTSD called mindfulness-based stress reduction, another type of meditation used to treat anxiety, depression, stress, chronic pain and other afflictions. It is the combination of those two things, Haugen says, that truly set him on a path to healing in a way that other therapy or healing modalities could not.
Within weeks, under the mentorship of a new sponsor, he began inviting people from his 12-step program to north woods retreats. And after one such retreat in Webster, Wisconsin, he knew what he needed to do.
“In my opinion, the Silent Warrior Project was really kind of born that weekend,” he says. “And since that day, we have been working with veterans of post-traumatic stress and taking them on the same retreats. Veterans who have been in combat or veterans that have experienced military sexual trauma will say the same thing: (Other modalities) have gotten us a little bit but they don’t get us the whole way better. And I think it’s because the other modalities are medical, which is great, but they’re not spiritual, and they don’t address moral injury.”
Moral injury refers to the cognitive and emotional response an individual experiences after a traumatic event. If someone is forced to do something—or if something is forced upon them—that they are morally opposed to, it can cause deep psychological damage.
To date, Haugen says he’s taken about 50 veterans or public safety professionals on retreats. One of them is John Tracy, who served many years on the Minneapolis Police Department. Tracy says he eschewed offers to debrief or get counseling after traumatic events, choosing instead to tough it out. He says he knows now that was a mistake. He quit the force when his mental health started deteriorating.
“I realized I couldn’t do this job anymore because I was either going to kill myself or have to hate everybody for the rest of my life,” he says. “So I left. But my problems stayed with me.”
He says he never considered that he’d been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But after attending one of Haugen’s retreats, his attitude changed.
“I realized I had some problems, and I needed some help,” he says. “I felt so differently here than I ever had before. … It gave me a sense of hope that I might be okay, just be a regular guy and live my life.”
Retreats are built around mindfulness-based stress reduction, but they also offer an array of other activities including equine therapy, reiki, massage, fishing outings and more. And there is no cost to attendees; the program operates with grants and donations and will never charge for admission.
All retreats take place at Shire in the Woods Retreat Center in McGrath, Minnesota, and the Silent Warrior Project books the entire facility to ensure privacy. Attendees can participate as much or as little as they’d like.
“Most combat veterans, policeman and firefighters don’t get time to decompress. It’s a figure of speech but you can be in combat Friday and back home and on the couch on Monday. And so there’s no time for decompression,” Haugen says. “So part of what we want to offer is decompression and coming together in unity around the campfire, and being able to share our experience, strength and hope with each other. That the peer-to-peer thing is the most powerful thing that we offer.”
Haugen encourages anyone who could benefit from his project or wishes to help to visit www.silentwarriorproject.org.
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