Love, Marriage & Mental Health: Veterans Kate & Sam Find Support After Service

As a couple, Kate and Sam are results-driven. “One thing Sam and I share is we both take on challenges in an intense way. If we’re going to do something, we want to go all in,” says Kate.

That intensity permeates every aspect of their lives. They are both accomplished athletes—Kate a swimmer and Sam a lacrosse player. They both served as captains in the Army, first meeting at West Point. They forged a relationship throughout their changing roles and locations, with Kate in field artillery and Sam in infantry. When they experienced significant losses, they barely took a breath before continuing forward. When their military service ended, they began raising a family and quickly settled into the nonstop pace of parenthood.

One thing the couple wasn’t expecting in their future? An accelerated mental health care program.

After a decade of hustle, the weight of their experiences finally caught up with them. Through the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, the military couple finally took some much-needed time to process the disruptive impacts trauma had on their lives.

Both Sam and Kate attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as undergraduate cadets, drawn by its athletics programs. They met one summer during training.

Upon graduating, they were assigned to their separate Army branches for more specific training and were in a long-distance relationship for about a year. After training was complete and they were together again, they got married.

While they felt lucky to be reunited, they soon experienced a series of challenges.

“I was the only woman in my battery. It was a mix of feeling empowered and proud—I appeared confident and did my job well—but I also felt very lonely and isolated,” says Kate. Without camaraderie in her work life, Kate relied on Sam and their marriage for connection.

Sam was doing well at work and making friends, but the couple endured several losses in quick succession. “We experienced four miscarriages from 2017 to 2018,” says Kate. “Then, Sam’s youngest brother died in a freak accident. He was 14.”

This tragedy was a turning point for Sam, who began drinking to cope. “Growing up, my dad was very much the ‘macho man’ type—his constant advice was to ‘just keep on keeping on’ and I learned this mindset early on.”

During this difficult time, Kate and Sam’s duties had not let up. Throughout a busy pre-deployment cycle, they had to leave home, and each other, for extensive training periods.

“When bad things happened, you still had a job to do, so you just did it. I’d had a lifetime of not dealing with things because they would make me angry or sad. I just shoved everything down,” says Sam.

Heavy alcohol use in the military community is common, and Sam convinced himself that as long as he was performing well at work, he could drink as much as he wanted. However, after leaving active duty and transitioning to the U.S. Army Reserve, Sam realized the extent of his struggles.

“Without the structure and constant demands of military life, I had no real motivation. I had all the time in the world with my family, yet I was miserable. I realized that without the military keeping me busy, I was in a very bad place and needed to make a change.”

The pivotal moment came when Sam filled out his yearly Periodic Health Assessment. On the required phone call, a medical doctor conducting the assessment asked the usual mental health questions, such as "Do you have suicidal thoughts?” and “Have you had little or no pleasure in doing things over the last 30 days?”

Similar to every prior year, Sam lied. He said, “I had been lying for five years. I went through the same questions and lied again. But at the end of the conversation, something clicked. I finally admitted, ‘Actually, you know what? The answer is yes to a lot of this.’”

At that point, Sam had already tried to stop drinking for five or six months and failed. He admitted, “I’ve done a lot of hard things in my life, but quitting drinking when I truly wanted to should not have felt impossible. And yet, it was. That was when I knew something was seriously wrong.”

After discussing his symptoms, the doctor referred Sam to the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program’s Accelerated Brain Health Treatment Program.

This two-week mental health program provides specialized care for post-9/11 veterans and service members, addressing the unique mental health challenges they may face. Along with mental health treatment for post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety, participants may also receive treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI), substance use disorder, sleep problems and pain management. There are also services to support veterans or service members who aren’t progressing at the desired rate to help advance their treatment.

After an initial assessment, Sam was accepted into the program and chose to move forward. He went in person to Atlanta and, while staying at a hotel close to the clinic, received daily, specialized care alongside a cohort of other veterans and service members.

“While setting aside two weeks for intensive therapy can be difficult, I honestly don’t think I would have stuck with traditional therapy,” Sam says. “If it had been just one session every two weeks, I probably would have attended a couple and then quit without getting anything out of it. But with the Emory Healthcare model, there was only one option—commit.”

Taking time to understand and talk through his trauma was pivotal for Sam. When he returned home, he told Kate, “It’s nothing short of life changing.”

His words compelled Kate to consider the program for herself. Going from military life to full-time parent, she struggled with feelings of anger. “You read all these parenting articles about staying calm as a parent—and I was like, ‘Why is this difficult for me?’” When she started thinking about that anger, she realized something was wrong. “The turning point for me was how hard I was trying to stay calm and not get angry; it felt like an uphill battle. It reminded me of what Sam described about his struggle with drinking — no matter how hard he tried to stop, it still felt impossible.”

When Sam called his care with Emory life-changing, Kate knew she couldn’t afford not to go. “Honestly, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but I knew it was my best chance to become a better parent, a better wife and a better version of myself. It actually made me feel more hopeful that it was a two-week intensive program. I told myself, ‘If I just commit fully for two weeks, I can come out of this with real, meaningful change.’”

Since graduating from the program, the couple began recognizing and changing habits.

“If something sounds difficult and I don’t want to do it, I give myself 20 minutes or so and then do it,” Sam says. “I don’t put off hard things or resort to drinking.”

For Kate, prolonged exposure therapy, which required her to revisit a painful memory in vivid detail over and over again, was an eye-opening experience. As she worked through the process, she uncovered a connection she hadn’t fully realized before: an experience with sexual assault she endured early in college, which she believed she had moved past, was still shaping her life. It was at the root of the anger that surfaced in parenthood. “I had no idea how much shame and guilt I carried, nor the amount of compassion I could feel for myself,” she shared. “I never could have gotten there on my own.”

“I am so impressed by the caliber of individuals who help you at the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program,” says Kate. “I encourage anyone who feels like they could be a little better to apply. If life is feeling really hard, it doesn’t have to be that way. Everyone deserves help.”

The Emory Healthcare Veterans Program provided Kate and Sam with the tools and support they needed to overcome challenges and build a brighter future.

Learn more about the program and request an appointment.