From Combat to Creativity: Learning to See Again

There was a moment, one I’ll never forget, when Heidi looked at me and said, “I think you need help. If you don’t get it, I’m not sure we can last.”

I was getting ready to deploy again. My mind was already overseas, locked into mission mode. I heard her, but I didn’t fully hear her. Not then. Not the way I should have.

That sentence didn’t fix me. But it woke something up. I was still relying on all the wrong coping methods, still pacing through life with tunnel vision. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had stopped seeing the world around me. Stopped seeing the people who mattered most. I didn’t have one clear breaking point. Just patterns. Outbursts. Losing my calm over things that didn’t warrant it. I was reacting to everyday life like I was still in a combat zone. That tension, constant, low-grade, always fucking on, had followed me home. And I didn’t know how to switch it off.

Slowing down felt like weakness. Especially after losing my job. I was terrified of how I’d be seen. Weak. Fragile. Useless. Just like when my back started giving me trouble and that idiot sergeant mocked me in front of my peers. The guy barely had time at Tim Horton’s and had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but that moment stuck. It burned. Because deep down, I believed him. That’s what the stigma does. PTSD? People think you’re lying if you don’t “look” sick.

So yeah! Slowing down was hard. Admitting I needed something different? Couldn’t do it physically and mentally anymore. But somewhere in that struggle, I started picking up a camera.

And that’s when things started to shift. It wasn’t the camera that did it. It was what came after—the editing. Out there on the ice or in the field, I was still running on instinct. Track the play. Anticipate. React. But in the quiet, when I sat down to edit, I started seeing what I’d captured. Not just movement, but emotion. Expression. Energy. Sometimes my eyes would water looking at those faces, those moments. It was all the stuff I hadn’t let myself feel in years—right there on screen.

The first time I really felt something from a photo wasn’t even at a game. It was a shoot with the kids in the basement. I had just started getting compliments on my action shots and figured maybe I could try portraits. I bought a cheap light and backdrop kit, cleared space downstairs, and had the kids come down. I had a vision for Hadley, one foot in her skate, the other in a high heel. Strong and graceful. It turned out better than I expected. The black and whites especially, they hit me. For the first time, I looked at a photo I made and thought, “You could learn this.”

Photography started out as a way to stay grounded, but it quickly became something more. Something that helped me process emotion. Helped me feel again. Even now, my instincts are the same. I anticipate the shot. I track the play. Just like driving on the fucking 401, always looking for a way out if things go bad. That mindset doesn’t leave you. Using aperture feels like looking through sights. Flying the drone? Getting the full view. Holding the camera steady is like aiming, it’s second nature.

But the purpose, and my purpose is different now. I’m not scanning for threats. I’m scanning for moments. And when I’m behind the camera, I’m not in combat mode. I’m calm. Focused. Grounded. The camera doesn’t trigger anything, it quiets everything. Every now and then I even throw in the EarPods, listening to my cross-genre playlist, from ballads, to dynamic blends to country.

Truth is, it wasn’t just photography that opened the door back to my family. It was the creative world as a whole. When I stepped into graphic design, something unlocked. I finally had a way to express the things I couldn’t say. The feelings that used to boil over or shut down, they started to come out through color, layout, shape, tone. It gave me a way to reconnect. To communicate without blowing things up.

The discipline from my service? It never left. I carry it into every shoot. My gear is cleaned, prepped, ready. I show up early. I carry myself like a professional. And I’m always pushing to improve.

But the difference now? I’m doing it for me. For Heidi. For my family.

Not for a government that saw me as just a number.

If someone asked me what I mean by learning to see again? It’s simple:

Just like glasses correct your vision, the camera corrected mine.

When people look at my photos, I don’t just want them to see what’s in the frame, I want them to feel it. If they connect with even one bit of emotion, if something in that image makes them stop for half a second, then it’s done its job.

And if I had to name one thing I’m most proud of in all this? It’s not a photo. It’s Heidi.

She stuck through it. She stayed. She got hurt in the process, deeply. But she never gave up on me. People gave up on me, some even gave up on her for taking me back, but they don’t understand. And there’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about that. She probably saved my life.

This journey from combat to creativity is messy. But it’s mine. And now, I can finally see it for what it is.

And one quote I saw on a releasing trip with my daughter was along the lines of “Growth isn’t linear, but healing isn’t linear, life isn’t linear.”