PTSD Recovery Expedition Day 4 – The en-Tire Beginning
Winter was coming and I had only been off the streets for about a week , which was spent shivering, going through the worst with drawls, still wondering how I’m even still alive while I was felling trees and bucking up fire wood to keep warm.
That was my first priority.
How I even made it up here to my cabin I have no recollection , the last thing I remember was standing on the Lions Gate Bridge ready to jump and end my life. Still to this day I am convinced that I did jump and this is just the next life.
I was on my way down to the river to try and catch something to eat. That in itself was the most gruelling task but I was starving as I hadn’t eaten much in the past few weeks while I rummaged around homeless on the downtown east side jacked up on copious amounts of drugs in the previous months.
Just as I crossed the road about 100 feet away from the river I saw out the corner of my eye 2 or 3 old worn out tires that had just been left for dead.
I’m unsure if you know what the UFC is , ( Ultimate Fighting Championship ) but I had a flashback from around 2012 when I was watching the pre – title fight between GSP and Matt Hughes and I recalled when they were showing how they trained for this title fight.
How does the strongest, toughest baddest fighter even get to this stage in his life to be a world champion?
I remembered watching Matt Hughes flipping this massive tractor tire up a mountain, and i’ll never forget thinking , dam, now that’s how you train to be the worlds best fighter. In 2012, I had already endured many losses , an attempted suicide and I think I had just got out of treatment centre and still fighting with WCB to get some psychological help for this PTSD I had been diagnosed with but yet to get any help, or given any clarity nor any tools to manage this so called “disorder” I had been sentenced to.
I continued onto fishing and didn’t give it any more thought, my focus was on catching a fish to eat.
A few hours later, 2 rainbow trouts in hand I was walking past my cousins Cabin and saw my uncle Brian. I was quite surprised to see him this time of year but he was draining the lines, and winterizing. I hesitated to even approach him to say hello, none of my family knew of my downfalls and my conscious just felt so ashamed of myself, so guilty for whatI have become.
I swallowed my pride and walked up the driveway, Sup uncle Brian ?
About an hour later we were off to the dump with a huge truck full of the past summers garbage , while driving all the way out to Ohin, as we crossed the train tracks I was staring out the window and out of the corner of my eye again I saw 2 more old tires just laying in the scrubs rotting away.
The thought of Hughes flipping that tire, world champion, toughest fighter in the world crossed my mind again and thought to myself, ya know what, I need to find myself a much bigger tire than the ones i’ve seen already today,
We got to he dump and after about 45 minutes of unloading the entire back of Uncle Brian’s truck, not even 1.3 seconds before I jumped into the passenger seat I turned around .. something was calling me.
I looked over at this massive pile of trash and at the very very bottom I could see what I thought was the side of a huge tractor tire.. only about 8 inches of the baled rubber was showing.
I’ll be right back Brian and walked over to the pile and started removing some of the debris to my surprise was the side of a very buried huge tractor tire. It was like I just stuck a gold mine and dug for it relentlessly.. could it be .. is this really happening ?
After nearly 20 minutes of removing all the crap it was buried under I said to Brian .. please help me get this in the truck, I need it .
First words out of his mouth were, pffft, if you want that old nasty thing get it your self.
I was elbow deep in muck , and took about 30 – 50 years of nasty gunk out of it rolled it over to the truck and was no way I could lift it into the bed.
I tried, struggled and groaned for a few minutes but finally got er in and had this sense come over me , like umm , ah man, I cant even say it in words .. a sense of “hope”?
That was pretty short lived when I kicked the tire off the back of uncle Brian’s truck into my driveway, the tire would sit there for about a week before I even considered to come back the stupid thing.
I just so happened to find the very first picture of that tire by accident, from a selfie I took after hunting with Ambie for some much needed food – look to the road behind the jeep and you can see a piece of that very first tire still sitting at the end of the driveway.
Today’s a big day, May 5th 2020, as we launch our Tire’d of the Stigma – PTSD Recovery Glacier Expedition.
After putting on my ligaments ,
and warming up with a few rounds on the heavy bag,
Just so happens ol Fozzy Bear has been watching from a far and likes to practice his Ground and Pound game also.
I grabbed the tire off the jeep and rolled it down,
to sit with my best Little Buddy Meathead.
I sit here every – single – day with my best little buddy
I come down every morning to get my trusty wolf pack leader, knock on his rock, wake him up, watch his wiggly waggly tail and ask him if he’s had a good seepy seepy, and remind him that everything is going to be ok, it’s just me you and your dad today Little Buddy, come on let’s go for Mindfulness meditations time now and off we go to hug our trees while he checks his Pee mails.
In the evenings, I walk down here and sit with him for an hour every night before bed and we do our prayers together, no matter the time, no matter the weather, no matter how tired I am , its a mandatory part of my daily routine and is a massive contributing factor in my over all well being – accountability, responsibility, sanity, spiritual connection, higher level of consciousness and no matter where I am in the world the time taken for self and this process every morning and every evening is absolutely vital to my recovery.
After every evening meditation, still to this day , I stand up, walk over a few feet to where Meathead and I would always play his favorite game “Down – Set – Hut”, we still drop the tire, while I pretend i’m the QB and he’s the running back.
It’s always the 3rd down and only seconds to go on the clock, last play for a touch down.
Ok little buddy, it’s 3rd down and only 10 yards to go. When your dad pulls the tire back, i’m gonna look down field and fake the pass to the right, your going to run down to the 7 yard line, zig left, zag right, do one of your 360 fancy pants turn arounds then boot scootch and boogie and do a huge dog leg left and your dads gonna hit ya right on the 12 yard line for touch downs little buddy ok ?
Before I crouch down, I look left , yell and make a hand motion “27’s ready on the line … I look right .. thirty twooooooo’s ready on the line I look down ..Meatheads ready ——— down —— set ——— HUT HUT HUT GO LITTLE BUDDY … I love to call out the very play we discussed in the huddle, I grab his tire and call the play by play.. then throw it long into the end zone and OHHHHH HE CATCHES IT IN THE END ZONE FOR A TOUCH DOWN… S- A – N — D- I – E – G – O — B- U- L – L – D- O – G- G- I E — W- O – G – G – I – E – S !!
( crowd goes wild )
Good boy, Let’s go , dinner times !
It’s a pretty strange dimension this world we are when I sit and think about it, Meathead had his own little mini bike tire for about 3 years before I ever found mine.
As I sit with him today, this is the very first time I have ever shed tears since I buried him here just over 2 years ago. I smile with these tears, I know there’s is a lot more going around us than we humans are designed to know or ever understand.
I couldn’t imagine starting this Expedition out any different than how we started it 5 years ago when we launched Breaking the Chains BC, aimed to raise awareness to PTSD by flipping our tires 30 kms in 30 days in memory of Nodar Kumaritashvili.
I wanted to start out in the exact same spot we did 5 years ago down at the lake, but in mind we already had a massive mountain to climb behind us, so I figured we would at the least start out here in the backyard as we use to do long before Camp My Way was even a thought and instead of cutting left down the mountain to the lake, we would go across the berm and cut right into the forest and make our way to the avalanche path we had been hiking up for days .
Breaking the Chains BC 2016 Day 1
Tire’d of the Stigma 2020 Day 1
Ok little Buddy .. Let’s go .. game time.
As I stood looking down at the lake and across the berm, I couldn’t help but smile and just think back for a minute to just how long it has been since we once stood here in this exact same place looking out to the mountains with in hopes to regain my sanity, strength and show these mountains who’s the Boss.
I contemplated dragging the tire down to the lake and really just starting off from the very bottom, but I felt as though the task ahead was enough already, and although it meant a lot to me, I didn’t think anybody would even of cared or know about Breaking the Chains BC to understand its importance to me as I’ve never told the story, nor thought writing about what happened 5 years ago even mattered to anyone anyhow.
That thought right there, was about to smack me right in the teeth. How Dare I all of a sudden , all these years later start worrying about what anyone else thought, I’m pretty sure the washing of my mind due to this plastic device has re programmed my mind to even think that way.
Just as I broke rule number 1 with the tire , which is to never ever ever under any circumstances ever flip that thing down a hill. Ever.
On my 4th flip down the little embankment on our way to cut across the berm, it took the most strange bounce up onto it’s side and did exactly what I have always dreaded, It slowly started rolling down the hill.
Immediately I leaped into action, and tried desperately to knock it over.
It had already started to gain momentum so I ran as fast as I could and tried to throw a huge body check into it , no such luck as it was way to heavy and going way to fast.
I ran even further down the hill, if I don’t stop this tire , it will and I assure you will completely demolish a car, a house or worse yet even a human at the bottom.
As I tried not to trip through the thick grassy weeds, and boulders under my feet, my heart raced as I tried one more time to run beside it and let the friction from my hands run on the thick treads to try and get control of it … nope — my only words were “ m – o – t – h – e – r – f – u – u – u – c – k – e – r – r – r -r as we watched it roll I put both hands on my hips and stood there in total awe praying it would just fall over.
This dam tire picked up so much speed and headed straight for the road below.
My first thought next was please .. please do not let a car or Bev and her little dog to walk across that road right now , be sure it would be instant death.
As we watched , I have never said the words “ please god “ so many times in that 20 seconds to what felt like 20 minutes.
Boom, the tire hit the massive 30 foot ditch and bucked straight up in the air and landed in the middle of the road …. and kept going down the other side.
No Way I thought, are you serious .. ohh no please don’t crush that woman’s RV and worse yet, I sure hope her kids are playing at the beach or maybe they are putting the dock in right now .
My mind raced as I stood there completely frozen in my tracks thinking now, the tire has surely launched itself off the side of the bank and is probably 100 feet deep in the lake right now .. if it hasn’t killed anyone or crushed there home.
Talk about a long walk of shame with my heart in my throat, sick to my stomach at what were may find at the bottom .
Unknowingly to me, Jill had switched her camera over to video and actually captured this moment, and upon reviewing this footage later, not only were we on the floor laughing, but on the 4th time watching Jill noticed that as the tire bucked up onto the road she saw our Friend Fozzy Bear pop his head up to see what in the hell was on it’s way down the hill.
Once the tire bucked over the road, you can “bearley” ( no pun intended ) see Fozzy Bear, Fuzzy Butt and Yogi scurry the hell up a tree to which we had no idea until we arrive on scene and noticed the tire had collided dead in it’s tracks with the only one thing that stood it’s way from going in the drink.
Looks like we will be starting from lake weather we like it or not.
It’s important to use extreme caution when “thinking about things” to much.
Thank you for your time and support, and Thank you Matt Hughes for inspiring me to get my life back, I hope one day we cross paths either in this world or the next.
Here’s to you Champ !
Your Friend, Our Voice
Terrance J. Kosikar