This story contains sensitive content related to mental health and suicide. This is the second of a two-part series. The first was published in the Sunday, June 1, edition and is available online.

Becky Shimko knew her husband was losing hope for recovery when he listed the 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle convertible, a gift from his stepdad, for sale on Facebook.

“I think it was all him giving up,” she said about her husband, Josh Shimko, an experienced Cranberry Township patrolman who has grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms since a traumatic call on Jan. 4, 2024.

Shimko was responding to a reported suicide for a woman in a Cranberry Township retention pond. The woman grabbed him as a result of an apparent cadaveric spasm when he entered the ankle-deep water to retrieve her.

Shimko began having nightmares — which became night terrors — after the call. His symptoms escalated and he almost ended his life in April 2024.

“I think, he’s (now) in a good place where that’s not going to happen,” Becky Shimko told the Butler Eagle. “He’s come a long way. He just hasn’t found his happiness again.”

Becky Shimko remembered seeing her future husband driving the car around Slippery Rock University where they met 23 years ago. The car sat for 10 years before Josh Shimko brought it to their Ellwood City home and rebuilt it “from the ground up,” she said. He saw it as a legacy for his 13-year-old son, Rayne, and 9-year-old daughter, Skylar — yet he listed it for sale Jan. 24, 2024.

When family and friends reached out — knowing how important the car was to him — he removed the listing.

Josh Shimko had been living alone in the basement since about a week after the Jan. 4 call. Becky Shimko said he felt like no one was helping him. While she and the children tried to be there for him, he was alone during the day while they were at work and school.

“Him moving down to the basement was probably the first sign of something going on, but I didn’t know what,” Becky Shimko said.

Changes in behavior, like isolation, are common in patients facing PTSD, according to Dr. Christopher Noullet, a clinical psychologist at VA Butler Healthcare’s behavioral health clinic. Those changes, he said, result from feelings of shame, fear, guilt and difficulty regulating emotion.

To combat his isolation, Josh Shimko adopted Willow, a Labrador retriever, for companionship. But a dog didn’t fix everything.

Becky said she came home one night to find her husband drinking bottles of wine she knew he didn’t like and yelling on the phone while trying to get help.

She worried about her husband alone in the basement, especially knowing his gun safe was down there. She didn’t think he would take his life, but she said she was happy she didn’t know how close he would come until much later in his recovery.

In February, Josh Shimko was diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety after connecting with a therapist and clinical social worker at the Cranberry Psychological Center.

He was supported by his clinical social worker on his darkest days and credits the social worker with saving his life. But Becky Shimko didn’t see much change on the outside.

She said her husband was still crying and sleeping most of the day, living in the basement. In family photos, she said there was nothing behind his eyes. She and his mother were convinced he needed inpatient therapy.

“He got distant,” Becky Shimko said. “He was sitting there on the couch, he wouldn’t say much.”

His clinical social worker agreed Shimko needed help. He sent him to Twelve Oaks Recovery Center near Pensacola, Fla., which has a military and first responder addiction and PTSD program.

Josh Shimko was told about it in mid-April 2024 on a Tuesday. He left that Friday.

Nightmares and behavioral changes like those experienced by PTSD patients are caused by responses to the trauma in the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of the brain, Noullet said.

“Essentially, our bodies can kind of get stuck on high alert and when that comes to impacting our sleep, we see a lot more nightmares … and a general disruption in sleep,” Noullet said.

The doctor said the amygdala, an almond-shaped cluster used for processing emotions, can shrink from chronic stress. The amygdala is part of the system that controls the fight-or-flight response, Noullet said, and overactivity can increase alertness and disrupt sleep.

Josh Shimko said he began losing his fondest memories, like the birth of his children, because of the PTSD.

Noullet said it’s common for PTSD patients to experience “intrusive memories” where each memory a person attempts to recall flashes them back to the traumatic one.

PTSD, according to Noullet, also can make people unable to distinguish between past and present threats due to the hippocampus shrinking. For example, a fireworks display may flash veterans back to the chaos of battle.

“The hippocampus, if it’s functioning properly, it would help you to know very quickly, and kind of unconsciously, feel reassured you’re safe, but the process being disrupted can trigger feelings of fear, anxiety and (being) unsafe,” Noullet said.

At Twelve Oaks, Shimko’s mental health warranted accelerated resolution therapy. The psychotherapy hypnotizes patients to replace the negative trauma with positive images, according to the Rosenzweig Center for Rapid Recovery in Orlando, whose founder developed the technique.

Shimko lived among other military and first responders at Twelve Oaks attending group therapy. More intense individual sessions also were recommended if warranted.

“At first, I didn’t realize how bad I was,” he said. “It took me a week or so of talking to fellow first responders and military guys to kind of understand that I’m OK; I’m not broken.”

Patients in Twelve Oaks first go into detox to adjust to new medications or being without substances. Then they’re assigned to either a two-person room or an eight-person cabin when beds become available.

His cabinmate was Mike Carson, a military cybersecurity specialist from Atlanta seeking treatment for mental health and alcohol use.

Carson said he arrived April 26, 2024, shortly after Shimko. The program usually lasts 30 days. Carson needed 45. Shimko needed 58.

“He’s a helper, and he wants to help you out,” Carson said about Shimko. “But the thing is, he and I are alike. We’ll help everyone else out but ourselves.”

Most patients were drawn to Shimko for his willingness to share in therapy, said Carson, who worked to improve his mental health for decades in his 30-year military career. Carson thought he understood the mental health care system and had been to rehab before coming to Twelve Oaks.

Shimko did not have previous mental health struggles. He said he had seen how PTSD affects others in the field but never thought that could be him.

“For it to be me, it kind of made me feel like I … couldn’t be a police officer anymore, so I lost my identity,” Shimko said. “I lost who I thought I was.”

Shimko had his first experience with a trained service dog at Twelve Oaks when a 90-pound dog jumped on him while he was exhibiting PTSD symptoms in his sleep.

“It was my first experience with a service dog actually working, and it was incredible,” he said.

Service dogs help ground PTSD patients, Noullet said, bringing them back to the present. He said service dogs are common among his patients at the VA.

Shimko decided then he would get Willow trained as a service dog when he returned home.

As Josh Shimko was treated in Florida, Becky Shimko dealt with her family’s struggles.

Their son, Rayne, saw other parents on the baseball field with their son, she said. He missed his dad.

Becky Shimko said her children never blamed their dad for the changes. The parents shared everything with their children about their dad’s condition, legal battles and treatment.

“It’s crazy what PTSD can do to you,” she said. “It affects the people you live with. The closest people, too.”

Near the end of her husband’s treatment, Becky Shimko took the children to visit him at Twelve Oaks. He seemed much happier, she said.

“I didn’t want that weekend to end because it was just such an amazing weekend,” she said.

Shimko showed signs of improvement after returning home in July 2024.

Then, came his first workmen’s compensation hearing with the police department where lawyers rehashed the traumatic call.

“He was healing, he was doing really well, came back in July and boom, there was a hearing,” Becky Shimko said. “It was awful, and it set him back.”

Within a couple weeks of the hearing, Shimko could no longer comfortably live in his Ellwood City home. He moved into a friend’s empty trailer on a rental property in Zelienople.

He said he slept there almost every night as a safe space to be alone with his thoughts. Being alone wasn’t a “bad thing” anymore, he said. He’d learned tools to cope.

“I never thought that he would leave,” Becky Shimko said. “He is such a wonderful dad. To miss out on the kids’ everyday lives, that’s not him.”

Becky Shimko is well aware of the 70% to 80% divorce rate in marriages where at least one person has PTSD. One in four people who experience trauma eventually develop PTSD, according to Alliance Law Group.

“It was very hard on me because I took it like our marriage was over,” Becky said, “but to him, it was healing for him and trying to get better and having a safe space. He no longer saw our house as a safe space anymore.”

They used to be a physical couple, always holding hands and kissing, but she thinks the traumatic call changed how physical touch affects him.

“We’ve been together for 23 years, married for almost 17, and we’ve been through it all,” Becky Shimko said. “But he just can’t let me in.”

Before the trauma, the couple talked about their emotions.

“And he may never get that back,” Becky Shimko said. “This might be the way it is. I don’t know. I just keep hoping something clicks and he remembers the good things.”

Josh Shimko moved back into his family’s home this April after spending only days and weekends with his family for about eight months.

They began watching movies as a family in the basement. Then, he started participating in family outings again.

Becky Shimko said their family is looking to the future.

They’re driving out West next week with Josh Shimko’s mother and stepdad to show the children Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, where Josh Shimko previously worked as a park ranger.

“He still has a good relationship with them,” Becky Shimko said about her husband and their children. “He’s just not the same person, but he always makes sure they know they are loved by him, and he’s proud of them.”

Willow finished her service dog training with Dog Training Elite Pittsburgh and passed her public access test in May. She’ll be accompanying the family on the road trip.

Even with a trained service dog, Shimko’s doctors told him he will not work in law enforcement again.

“He’s having a hard time wrapping his head around it still,” Becky Shimko said. “It’s going to take him time to process.”

He instead volunteered for the Butler County Critical Incident Stress Management Team. The Butler County branch of the international foundation helps other first responders process the trauma they see.

As he continues to navigate his own trauma, Josh Shimko still has a constant reminder from Carson about how far they’ve come.

Carson gave Josh Shimko and other military and first responders bracelets that read “demons behind me, and so is the past” before they left Twelve Oaks.

Carson said residents in the program also painted rocks for the military branch they were in. He saw rocks for the Air Force, Navy and even Space Force, but Josh Shimko’s rock for Butler Emergency Services Unit Team 400 stood out to him. It was the largest mural and only rock for a SWAT team.

In February, Carson took a weekend trip to see Josh Shimko in Ellwood City. The two saw a concert in Pittsburgh, and Shimko gave Carson a tattoo, a hobby he picked up with his spare time.

“I saw a lot of progress in Josh,” Carson said. “He still has his demons, and I still have mine.”

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For those struggling with their mental health, call the 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.