Gulf War veteran Bryan Ashley-Selleck attempted suicide eleven years back. He said that being a patient of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he'd sought help from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He has been visiting in and out of psychiatric wards.

He has been taking part in weekly gatherings with other veterans to ski in the winter and kayak, hike and bike during rest of the year. The initiative has given him an opportunity to aid other veterans by speaking out his story. He said that it's also helping him in healing himself.

On Thursday at Bolton Valley Resort, Ashley-Selleck, whose face got spoiled by a self-inflicted gunshot injury, said, “It gives me something to look forward to every week, gives me structure. Because with PTSD and TBI you want to close down, don't want to get out, don't want to get around, you get anxious. You just feel not like you fit in".

Kelly Walsh, program coordinator for the Bolton program, said that the Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports program is a peer support group meant for military veterans. It uses the outdoors as its setting.

According to the National Center for PTSD, exercise and talking to other trauma survivors are among the lifestyle changes advised to tackle PTSD symptoms.

While sharing his experience about skiing, the 47-year-old Ashley-Selleck of Middlebury said that he hadn’t done skiing in 15 years and now when he did it, a part of him has woken up. He added that by doing all these things, such as skiing, and kayaking and fly-fishing, it has taken him back to his childhood. He mentioned that these activities stop all the thoughts and a person feels good and relaxed.