The day
My head was going crazy that day. So I looked at the trail. I knew the way, and it was all about not stopping.
Three hours of hiking to the exit, one foot in front of the other, with nothing to decide except the next step. That is not a metaphor. On a loud day, a known trail is the most useful thing in the world.
Raw, not cut
This is the flight as it happened, through the trees and down. The landing was rough and it stays in the edit.
We could have cut it. We did not, because this is not a story with a clean ending. It is a daily one, and the days do not all end tidy.
What the hike was really for
The jump is what people click on. The hike is what got me there. Using the walk in to settle my head before the exit is part of the daily work of managing PTSD. It is not something that gets solved once. It is something you do again the next time your head starts going.
My head was going crazy that day. So I looked at the trail, I knew the way, and it was all about not stopping. The flight ends in a crash landing, shown here, not cut — this isn't a clean-recovery story, it's a daily one.
Why does Jamie describe his head as "going crazy" before this jump?
Jamie says his mind was racing that day, and that focusing entirely on the known trail and not stopping was how he got through it — using the hike itself as a way to manage that state before the jump, part of the daily work of managing PTSD rather than something that gets solved once.
Why we make these films
Battling Monsters is the mental health movement Jamie Leibert founded. PTSD is the monster. A wingsuit is how he manages it. Not a recovery story. A daily fight, filmed. Every film on this site is free because the people who need it most are the ones who cannot pay for it.