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Rodney Penn

@rodneyepenn

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MST/ PTSD Recovery Mentor
Creator of "The Beyond Recovery Method"
I help victims of MST overcome the stigma and live w/purpose
Mentoring, Not Therapy

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MST and PTSD can leave you feeling like you’re fighting a battle nobody else can see.

But you don’t have to fight it alone.

Sometimes fighting back doesn’t mean pushing harder. It means finding the courage to say, “I need help.”

That’s the first step. The first board in the bridge between surviving your past and reclaiming your future.

You don’t have to see the other side to start building the bridge. You just have to take that first step.

You’ve survived enough. Now it’s time to fight for the life you deserve.

#MSTSurvivor #PTSDRecovery #BeyondRecovery #VeteranMentalHealth #TakeTheFirstStep by @rodneyepenn

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10 days ago

In his book, "The Life Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery", Dr Lee Warren, a neurosurgeon, wrote this, "You can't change your life until you change your mind." In my research for writing The Beyond Recovery Method his book was foundational in confirming the neuroscience informed ideas and methods I was using for my self.

Beyond Recovery is about deciding who you become next.

The Beyond Recovery Method is built around 3 Pillars:

Learned Identity → Chosen Identity → Integrated Identity

And a 7-step journey:

Learned Identity → Chosen Identity → Aligned Action → Lived Evidence → Self-Trust → Integrated Identity → Meaningful Life

Because healing isn’t just about feeling better.

It’s about building a life that increasingly reflects who you choose to be.

#BeyondRecovery #PTSDRecovery #IdentityRecovery #VeteranMentalHealth #StartingOver by @rodneyepenn

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12 days ago

Nobody told me that getting better wouldn’t automatically tell me who I was.

When you’ve lived with PTSD long enough, survival can become more than something you do.

It can become who you learned to be.

Always alert.
Always protecting yourself.
Keeping people at a distance.
Staying in control.
Being the strong one.
Never letting your guard down.

For veterans who have experienced PTSD or Military Sexual Trauma, some of those patterns may have helped you survive.

I call that a Learned Identity—and sometimes a Survival Identity.

But when things finally start getting better, you can find yourself asking a completely different question:

“Who am I now?”

Maybe the next chapter isn’t about finding the person you were before.

Maybe it’s about deciding who you choose to become now.

Then practicing that identity—in your relationships, your boundaries, your choices, your purpose, and the way you participate in life—until it starts becoming the person you actually live as.

Learned Identity → Chosen Identity → Integrated Identity → Meaningful Life

That’s the idea behind The Beyond Recovery Method.

Recovery matters.

But maybe there’s also a life waiting to be built beyond it.

Who do you want to become in your next chapter?

#PTSDRecovery #MilitarySexualTrauma #VeteranMentalHealth #VeteranRecovery #BeyondRecovery by @rodneyepenn

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19 days ago

#BeyondRecovery #PTSDRecovery #IdentityAfterTrauma #FindingYourself #StartingOver by @rodneyepenn

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22 days ago

Here's a simple version of the process I use to stop lying to myself:
1. Be The Detective. Examine the thought as if it were a witness statement at a crime scene. Don't judge the thought, just record it as evidence. Write it down.
2. Assign The Thought. What period in your life did this originate? What emotions came with it? How and where did you feel it in your body? No judgement. Your mind is a neutral observer of the thought.
3. Autopsy The Thought. Slice it into 3 parts. What is wholly true? What is perceived as true? What is total fabrication?
4. File The Thought. Take the parts that are distortions, and lies and reject them. Keep only what is wholly true.
5. Report Back To Your Subconscious. Tell it what you found. Say it out loud. "Ok that's not true, you're lying. I am not that person anymore. I am...(fill in the blank)."

Like and Follow so you don't miss anything.

The Beyond Recovery Method was born out of my own struggles with PTSD/MST. It is not therapy, it is mentoring. If you are looking for something that can help you move out of a life shaped by horrible experiences and build a life lived on purpose with agency, belonging, and fulfillment, I would be honored to hear from you. You can safely, and privately DM me and I will promise to reply within 24hrs.#mentalhealthrecovery❤️ #beyondrecovery #ptsdrecovery #mstsurvivor #personalgrowth by @rodneyepenn

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25 days ago

Sometimes revisiting the past just gets old. What we don't see though is this: The thought patterns and habits that dictate our lives today were built by the past. Maybe getting better isn't about digging up bones. Maybe it's about leaving the graveyard and trekking to the next phase of life. Recovery isn't just about feeling better, it's about feeling great! by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

DID YOU KNOW?

PTSD among veterans isn’t just a combat story.

According to the VA, about 14% of male and 24% of female veterans receiving VA health care in FY2024 were diagnosed with PTSD.

And in one VA study of more than 7,000 veterans receiving PTSD treatment, 65.1% reported combat exposure — meaning roughly 35% did not report combat exposure.

Military Sexual Trauma is part of that story too.

Among veterans receiving VA health care, approximately 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men report experiencing MST when screened by their VA provider. More than 1 out of every 3 veterans who report MST to a VA provider are men.

But here’s the part statistics don’t tell you.

What happens when you’re a veteran with PTSD who never saw combat?

You compare.

“Other veterans had it worse.”

“What happened to me doesn’t compare to what they went through.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be struggling this much.”

And eventually comparison can turn into something much heavier:

Shame.

You start feeling like your PTSD isn’t legitimate.

Like you haven’t earned the right to struggle.

Maybe even like you’re somehow less of a veteran because your trauma didn’t happen on a battlefield.

And if your PTSD came from Military Sexual Trauma, there can be another layer:

Something happened while you were wearing the same uniform that was supposed to represent belonging, trust and purpose.

That can change more than how you feel about what happened.

It can change how you see yourself.

That’s a big part of why I created The Beyond Recovery Method.

Because after you’ve gotten help…

after you’ve learned to manage the symptoms…

there can still be work to do around the beliefs, patterns and identity that formed along the way.

Not just:

“How do I live with PTSD?”

But:

“Who do I want to be now?”

Your trauma doesn’t have to measure up to somebody else’s before your life is worth reclaiming.

If you’re a non-combat veteran or MST survivor who’s tired of feeling less than, DM me BEYOND.

Let’s talk about what’s next.

#VeteransWithPTSD #MSTSurvivor #PTSDRecovery #BeyondRecovery #StartingOver by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

I’m looking for a few MST survivors who are ready to start asking a different question.

Not:

“Why did this happen to me?”

But:

“Who do I want to be now?”

Maybe you’ve already gotten help.

Maybe you’ve learned to understand and manage your PTSD.

Maybe you’re doing significantly better than you once were.

But recovery left you with another problem you weren’t expecting:

You survived… but you’re not sure you ever got yourself back.

Years of protecting yourself, adapting, avoiding, controlling, disconnecting or simply doing whatever you needed to do to get through can leave patterns behind.

And after long enough, those patterns can start feeling like who you are.

That’s the space I created The Beyond Recovery Method to address.

I’m opening a few FREE Beyond Recovery Conversations for MST survivors who feel ready to start looking forward.

We won’t dig into the details of your trauma.

We’ll talk about you today:

• Where you feel stuck
• What old patterns may still be shaping your life
• Who you want to become now
• What beginning to move toward that person could look like

This is mentoring, not therapy, and it’s not a substitute for mental-health treatment.

It’s simply a conversation about something survivors don’t always get enough opportunity to talk about:

The life you want after survival.

If you’re an MST survivor and something in this sounds familiar, DM me BEYOND.

We’ll start there.

#MSTSurvivor #MilitarySexualTrauma #PTSDRecovery #BeyondRecovery #StartingOver by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

You survived what happened to you.

Maybe you’ve even done the hard work of getting help.

You’ve learned about your PTSD.

You’ve learned your triggers.

You’ve learned why your mind and body react the way they do.

Maybe life is more manageable now.

But there’s a question we don’t talk about enough:

What comes next?

Because surviving Military Sexual Trauma can affect more than symptoms.

It can change how you trust.

How you see relationships.

How safe you feel in the world.

How you see yourself.

And after years of adapting around what happened, it can be difficult to separate:

Who I had to become to survive…

from

Who I actually want to be.

That’s why I created The Beyond Recovery Method.

It’s not therapy.

It doesn’t ask you to relive or retell your trauma.

And it doesn’t pretend your past didn’t happen.

It’s about beginning to look forward.

Recognizing the beliefs and patterns that may still be shaping your life.

Rediscovering the qualities, values and dreams that matter to you.

Deciding who you want to become from here.

And then beginning to build a life that reflects that person.

Because what happened to you is part of your story.

It doesn’t have to write the rest of it.

You fought hard to survive your past.

Maybe it’s time to start building your future.

Break the cycle.
Reclaim who you are.
Start living again.

— PTSD Recovery Mentor
Creator of The Beyond Recovery Method
Mentoring, not therapy.

#MSTSurvivor #MilitarySexualTrauma #PTSDRecovery #BeyondRecovery #StartingOver by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

PTSD SUCKS. IT’S A THIEF.

It steals your peace.

Your relationships.

Your confidence.

Your sense of adventure.

Your ability to trust.

Your dreams.

Sometimes it even starts stealing your sense of who you are.

Maybe therapy helped you catch the thief.

You understand what happened.

You recognize the triggers.

You have tools to manage the symptoms.

You understand why you react the way you do.

That matters.

But catching the thief doesn't automatically give you back everything it stole.

You can understand your PTSD and still look around one day and realize:

My world got smaller.

I've pushed people away.

I stopped doing things I loved.

I stopped taking chances.

I stopped dreaming about the future.

Somewhere along the way, I learned how to survive...

but I forgot how to live.

That's the work that comes next.

Not replacing therapy.

Not pretending PTSD never happened.

Not promising it will magically disappear.

It's asking:

What has PTSD taken from my life—and what am I ready to take back?

Your relationships?

Your purpose?

Your confidence?

Your identity?

Your future?

Therapy may have helped you catch the thief.

Now let's start taking your life back.

That's what I mean by Beyond Recovery.

Break the cycle.
Reclaim who you are.
Start living again.

Comment or DM "PTSD Sucks"

— PTSD Recovery Mentor
Creator of The Beyond Recovery Method
Mentoring, not therapy.

#PTSDRecovery #MensMentalHealth #MenWithPTSD #TraumaRecovery #BeyondRecovery by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago

You can dislike who you’ve become and still be afraid to change.

That sounds contradictory, but think about it.

You’ve lived with this version of yourself for years.

You know how they think.
You know how they react.
You know how they protect themselves.
You know how they survive.

Maybe that version of you was built through trauma, loss, anxiety, depression, rejection, or simply years of trying to be who everyone else needed you to be.

Eventually, those patterns became familiar.

And familiar can start to feel like identity.

But familiar doesn’t necessarily mean this is who you are.

It may simply mean this is who you’ve practiced being.

So if you’re trying to build a different life, remind yourself:

• Feeling uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
• Old patterns will often feel more natural than new ones.
• You don’t have to wait until change feels comfortable to begin.
• The person you’re becoming may feel unfamiliar before they feel like you.

Maybe recovery isn’t only about feeling better.

Maybe there’s another question waiting on the other side of it:

Who do I want to become now?

Save this one for the day the old, familiar version of you starts calling you back.

#BeyondRecovery #IdentityRecovery #MentalHealthRecovery #LifeAfterTherapy #purpose by @rodneyepenn

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a month ago