She looked at him and saw fear on his face. Fear that, in that moment, made it impossible for her to treat the situation as “normal.”

Cindy, a U.S. Army Veteran, was engaged, had already been through a divorce, and wanted a different kind of future for herself and her fiancé. She also knew there was only one way that future was going to happen: she needed to find support.

“I looked at him and saw fear in his face, and I thought, okay, I’m engaged to this person. I love this person and I want us to have a happy life together. I need to get help for that to happen.”

Cindy was struggling with her mental health and had started to self-harm. She thought of these incidents as something she could manage and told herself they were just how she handled stress. But when the future she was so looking forward to suddenly felt jeopardized, she made the choice to seek help.

The logic behind that choice was already familiar to her. In the military, you don’t wait for danger to start preparing. You train before the situation arrives so you’re ready when it does, and mental health deserves the same approach.

Cindy’s story reached a point she could no longer dismiss. But support doesn’t have to wait until........

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