Showing posts with label healing PTSD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing PTSD. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

If you want to help the Jar Heads

Here is what to do if you want to help after a tragedy

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 19, 2019

Right now, everyone wants to help the Jarheads after the terrible tragedy that claimed the lives of 7 of their group.

Right now they need all the support they can get, but it is more important they receive the right kind of help. 

While the shock is still fresh for them, many will experience a harder time after the funerals. Some may think it is their job to stay strong for the others, and that is OK, as long as they allow themselves time to grieve.

Let them honor what they are feeling so they can begin healing. 

If they are angry do not try to shut it down. Help them yell at the air, hit pillows, stomp their feet...let them release it.

If they want to cry, let them. Hold their hand, walk beside them or sit near them. Let them know you are there for whatever they need. Do not try to stop their tears. They will stop crying when they get out as much pain as they need to.

If they want to talk, listen to them. Do not try to fix them. They do not need to be "fixed" and you finding something to say is not what they need from you. They need your ear, your time and patience.

If you think about what you would want from them if you were in their place, that will help you know what to do...as much as you will know what to not do, or get as close as you can.

There is no time limit to grieving other than as long as it takes them to do it. No two people are the same.

If you are a survivor, know that the guilt you may feel is "normal" but whatever you think you may have been able to do, it was not like the movie you can play out in your own mind. Most of the time, what you think you should have done, or could have done, is usually impossible. 

Do not blame yourself any more than you blame God. He did not do this, but He did send people to help comfort you as much as they can. Lean on those who care about you so you can heal. After all, you'd probably do the same for them.

Within 30 days, if you address what you are going through, your pain should ease up. Flashbacks and nightmares should begin to lose power. 

While the pain may be there for a long time, as long as it is not as strong, keep working on it.

If your pain is stronger after 30 days, contact a mental health professional so that you can work on healing with their help.

Know that if you are hit by PTSD, it hit you because your emotional core is strong. As you feel good stuff stronger, you feel pain on a deeper level. As a survivor use that strength to help you heal.

Honor your feelings so you can begin healing! Trying to "get over it" or "stuff it" lets that pain spread out like an infection.

If I can help contact me at woundedtimes@aol.com or 407-754-5426 and it will be kept confidential.


Motorcycle club leader says resignation of RMV head over N.H. crash is ‘ridiculous’


Boston Globe
By Travis Andersen and John Hilliard Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent
June 26, 2019

The head of a motorcycle club that lost seven people in a horrific New Hampshire crash last week said Wednesday that the abrupt resignation of the Massachusetts RMV boss is a “ridiculous” response to the tragedy, allegedly caused by a West Springfield man who kept his commercial driver’s license after an impaired driving arrest last month in Connecticut.

“It’s ridiculous for someone to be allowed to resign, or forced to resign . . . [and] run away from the problem,” said Manny Ribeiro, president of Jarheads MC, which lost seven riders who were killed June 21 when a truck driven by Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, allegedly plowed into them in Randolph, N.H.
read more here

‘It was extremely horrific’: Jarheads motorcycle club president describes New Hampshire crash scene


“It was like nothing I’d ever seen — never in my life.”
Boston.com
By Dialynn Dwyer
June 25, 2019

A Marine who survived the deadly New Hampshire crash that killed seven motorcyclists says what he witnessed that day was worse than anything he saw in combat.

Manny Ribeiro and his wife, Valerie, were riding in the front of the group of motorcyclists with Jarheads MC, a New England-based club for Marine veterans and their spouses, when an oncoming pickup truck hauling a trailer collided with other bikers in the group on Friday evening in Randolph, New Hampshire.

“It was like nothing I’d ever seen — never in my life,” he told reporters on Monday, according to CBS Boston.

The driver of the pickup, 23-year-old Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, was arrested and charged Monday with seven counts of negligent homicide. Authorities have not revealed details about the potential cause of the crash, only that Zhukovskyy was traveling west on U.S. 2 while the bikers were headed east at the time.

Ribeiro, who is now serving as president of Jarheads MC, told the Associated Press that the 21 riders in the group of 15 motorcycles had just finished dinner and were on their way to a fundraiser at a nearby American Legion post.

The motorcyclist had been riding beside the club’s president, Albert Mazza Jr., 59, of Lee, New Hampshire, at the time of the crash.

“It was just an explosion … with parts and Al and everything flying through the air,” he said. “He turned hard left into us and took out pretty much everyone behind me. The truck and trailer stayed attached and that is why it was so devastating … because the trailer was attached and it was such a big trailer, it was like a whip. It just cleaned us out.”
read more here

To contact the JarHeads go here

Sunday, June 23, 2019

It is the reason I became a Chaplain back in 2008

The deepest dashboard

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 23, 2019

Why do responders suffer a deeper level of PTSD? Is it because they are exposed over and over again to traumatic events? Or is it because they have the "one time too many" hit them?

After decades of research, it became clear that for responders, it is more about the strength of their emotional core that makes causes the hardest hit.

It is the reason I became a Chaplain back in 2008. I trained to respond to responders knowing that the very thing inside of them causing them to take on those jobs, also caused them the greatest harm.

Oh, no, not all bad news, because that same emotional core holds the power to heal.
This video was done for National Guards and Reservist...the IFOC gave me an award for it because they were using it to help police officers and firefighters. It is called PTSD I Grieve for that reason.
read more here

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Be encouraged by what you imagine to be possible with PTSD

You can break through to the other side of PTSD


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 2, 2019

It seems as if the stigma of PTSD is still being passed on to the point where veterans still do not understand it.

You are limited by what you imagine to be true instead of encouraged by what you imagine to be possible.

Imagine having a happier life! That is possible.

Imagine being able to overcome all the negative thoughts you have and replace them with achievable goals. 

It takes work but that work will only begin when you understand what PTSD is.

Post means after.

Trauma means wound.

Stress comes after surviving the shock of what happened.

Disorder comes when your mind and body are trying to adjust afterwards.

Any shame in surviving something that could have killed you?

No one walks away from that kind of trauma unchanged. The secret is, that you can change again. YEP! You are only stuck where you are because no one told you that you are in control over where you go. 

Just like getting into the vehicle you drive, (or getting on if you have a motorcycle) you control where you go from this point on.

You chose the destination and how you get there.

#BreakTheSilence comes when you are able to finally figure out that there is nothing within you that caused PTSD. IT HIT YOU! Any shame in being hit by a bullet? Any shame in getting blown up by a bomb? NOPE!

Time to stop finding all the excuses for using your right to remain silent because all that does is keep you suffering instead of healing.

Let's put it this way. Would I still be doing this after 37 years if I was ashamed of any of you?
read more here

Saturday, June 1, 2019

PTSD Awareness Month begins today...again

Are they out of their minds on suicide awareness?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 1, 2019

Today begins PTSD Awareness Month. The press will not remind you of the fact that this is not the first year, or the second, or the third.
S.Res.215 — 114th Congress (2015-2016)A resolution designating the month of June 2015 as "National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month" and June 27, 2015, as "National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day".Sponsor: Sen. Heitkamp, Heidi [D-ND] (Introduced 06/25/2015) Cosponsors: (22)Latest Action: Senate - 06/25/2015 Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR S4657; text as passed Senate: CR S4654) (All Actions)
When Secretary of the VA Robert Wilkie issued a statement "We are not even at the Sputnik stage in this country when it comes to getting our arms around mental health issues." as an advocate and educator, it made me want to drink and it is not even 8:00 am!

In 1982, I was sitting in a library with a dictionary and a stack of clinical books, all written on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Vietnam veterans. Yes, experts were writing on it for years, but few bothered to learn much from them. That is apparent with the results we are seeing today.

By 1978 the DAV released this to help veterans know they are not alone and there was a reason for everything they were going through. 
I have it hanging on my wall as a constant reminder of how long our veterans have been suffering instead of healing because no one told them they could have a better life.

All the years since then have been wasted and we just settle for what we are being told because the press decided to not do their jobs. They get assigned to report on something and do it without any investigation of their own to know if what they are being told is true or not.

If we are going to change the outcome, it is time for brutal honesty. Otherwise, suicides will continue because too many are unqualified to do more than make it worse. A good intention is not good preparation.

Growing up in a military family, qualified me to be an oddball in my own family. Both of my brothers were born while my Dad was in the Army. He retired before I came along. It also made me an oddball among my friends. None of their parents served.

Surviving death 10 times qualified me to know what trauma does to a person. It also qualified me to know what prevention does to stop the onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I do not have PTSD because of how my family dealt with everything...they listened until I was done needing to talk. That qualified me to know the value of crisis intervention. Later in life I became certified in it as a Chaplain.

Living with PTSD in my husband qualified me to be able to offer support to others. It did not qualify me to attempt to treat anyone else. That came with 2 years of research in the library with clinical books and a dictionary, so I could understand what the heck I was reading. It came from talking to a lot of veterans less than listening to them. While I have been writing about PTSD since 1984, I continue to research it so that I can help more. 37 years later, all that makes me an expert enough to educate, support and change the conversation.

With first responders, I was not qualified to work with them until I did two years worth of training as a Chaplain with the IFOC and with DEEP, Disaster and Extreme Event Preparedness...plus a lot of other training.

None of that qualified me to be able diagnose or treat anyone beyond educating them and offering the facts they need to know. I cannot give or advise on medications. I cannot offer help with filing VA claims. All I can do is advise them on how to get the help they need from people qualified to give it.

The trouble we are seeing is the direct result of unqualified people doing something they did not take seriously enough to become qualified to do it. It is also the result of members of Congress more interested in getting their name on a bill than they are in doing something that will not be a repeat of what already failed. It is almost as if they think their name tied to a failure is not a hindrance but they do not know what conversations we have in the veterans community. 

Every time we read about another suicide, we bring up all the money and years of repeated failures by both parties in Washington.

Raising awareness suicides are happening is not the same thing as doing anything to prevent them from happening. Awareness is not prevention!

When raising PTSD Awareness, how about actually making them aware that they can heal, beginning with making them aware of what PTSD is in the first place! 

It makes my blood boil when I read about another stunt with the people in charge using "22 a day" years after the VA report came out and put the known number at "20" proving they could not even pay attention beyond what they originally wanted to know. Apparently they did not want to know how to change the outcome.

Was it too much work for them to learn? Would it take too much time away from their fundraising goals that became their own financial means of support as "their job" instead of their vocation? Would it take time from contacting reporters to make sure they covered their "efforts" and made them famous? (yes, we know they do that all the time too)

So, if you really want to make a difference, then take this as seriously as it should be...a matter of life or death.

This is one more thing the press will not remind you of. Choice Act for veterans was introduced by Senator John McCain and signed by President Obama.
 S.2424 — 113th Congress (2013-2014)Veterans Choice Act of 2014Sponsor: Sen. McCain, John [R-AZ] (Introduced 06/03/2014) Cosponsors: (28)Committees: Senate - Veterans' AffairsLatest Action: Senate - 06/03/2014 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. (All Actions)Notes: For further action, see H.R.3230, which became Public Law 113-146 on 8/7/2014.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Seth Moulton trying to make a difference on PTSD...because he has it

Seth Moulton discloses PTSD, unveils military mental health proposal


POLITICO
By ALEX THOMPSON
05/28/2019


“Just because other presidents haven’t talked about this openly doesn’t mean that presidents haven’t dealt with these issues in the past,” Moulton said.
Democratic presidential candidate Seth Moulton said he hopes opening up about his experience with post-traumatic stress disorder would help ease the stigma that veterans and nonveterans feel when confronting mental illness. | Scott Eisen/Getty Images
The Democratic presidential candidate sought treatment after his combat deployments during the Iraq War.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran who is running for president, will introduce a plan Tuesday evening to expand military mental health services and will disclose that he sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after his combat deployments during the Iraq War.

“I had some particular experiences or regrets from the war that I just thought about every day, and occasionally I’d have bad dreams or wake up in a cold sweat,” the Massachusetts Democrat told POLITICO in an interview ahead of a Tuesday night event in Massachusetts that will begin a Veterans Mental Health Tour in early-primary states. “But because these experiences weren’t debilitating — I didn’t feel suicidal or completely withdrawn, and I was doing fine in school — it took me a while to appreciate that I was dealing with post-traumatic stress and I was dealing with an experience that a lot of other veterans have.”

Moulton arrived home in 2008 and sought counseling in 2009, trying a few therapists before finding one he connected with and met with weekly.

“I got to the point where these experiences weren’t haunting me every day,” he said. “They’ll always be there and there will always be regrets that I have, but I got to a point where I could deal with them and manage them. It’s been a few years now since I’ve woken up in a cold sweat in bed from a bad dream or felt so withdrawn from my friends or whatever that I would just go home and go to bed because I miss being overseas with the Marines.”
Some politicians below the presidential level have been able to openly discuss mental health treatment and still win their elections. Former Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota told voters before winning his first term in 2010 that he had been taking antidepressants. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said he had PTSD after serving in Iraq.
read more here

Thursday, May 23, 2019

THE LIFE LESSON that grasped my soul was born amid the throes of war

“The Instrument of Your Fate”


Harvard Magazine
by JOSEPH BRETT
5.22.19
"Forrest Hollifield and I are flying this mission together to help and heal others. Only veterans who know the randomness of death in combat can truly appreciate the old adage that life is a gift. That is why it is called the present."
At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Joe Brett—veteran and Harvard Kennedy School alumnus—addresses Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War. He writes, “I gave them a pin of my old unit, 24th Corps, which happens to be a blue heart on a white shield…or in this case a symbol for peace. We all wept when I gave this out with the words that it was up to us to all work for peace, now that we have met each other as brothers at this memorial…One former Soviet colonel hugged me and, with tears in his eyes, said that all soldiers should be veterans.” Photograph courtesy of Joe Brett
THE LIFE LESSON that grasped my soul was born amid the throes of war: If one does not manage the instrument of his fate, it will manage him.

Wars have always produced wounds and soldiers have always suffered depression, and even committed suicide, as a result. These deep, often fatal, wounds are not always physical. Mental and emotional trauma—referred to as moral wounds—have emerged as a separate category of serious wartime injury. More than 7,000 veteran suicides a year speak to this truth, yet we have not fully embraced the reality.

I am surprised to find myself a typical case study for veterans with moral wounds, not because I am unique but because I am no different than any other veteran who had to face a moment of complete moral and spiritual collapse. My future was set in motion in Vietnam on July 30, 1970.

I was an aerial artillery observer/forward air controller—everyday hunters who killed our enemy by directing artillery, bombs, and napalm on them. Our job was to also count the kills, as that was Defense Secretary Robert McNamara‘s matrix for winning the war, and the basis of promotions for career officers.Pulitzer Prize-winning author and war correspondent David Wood tells us that if a soldier kills another soldier in combat, he or she has a 40 percent higher risk of suffering a moral wound. (If a civilian is killed, the percentage is even higher.)

That July, I was a few weeks from heading home. I felt my assigned pilot was too much of a daredevil for my “old guy,” cautionary status, so I casually switched flights with a nice, newer lieutenant, Forrest Hollifield. The benefit to Forrest was that I took the dawn patrol. He got to sleep later, and I got the pilot I preferred. The completely unexpected happened when his pilot killed them both doing a stunt on takeoff. When my pilot and I landed, I saw the body bags being zipped up. My only thought was that it should have been me.
read more here

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Veterans take "paws" for fighting PTSD

Four veterans take home their newly graduated ‘battle buddy’


Northwest Daily News
By Kaylin Parker
Posted May 11, 2019

NICEVILLE — Before Rocky came into his life in January, Tom Talbot, retired Air Force crew chief, struggled through his post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nightmares alone.
But now Talbot has Rocky, a service dog and loyal companion, that senses and smells when his owner is battling with the effects from PTSD. Talbot said Rocky will even wake him up when he’s having nightmares.

“That’s where that bond is. He knows if something is wrong with me,” Talbot said. “He’s like, ‘What’s going on? What’s a matter Dad?’ ”

Talbot was medically retired last year because of his PTSD. He said although he has a pet dog at home, the bond with Rocky is completely different.

“The first night he came home with me he jumped up on the bed, and that was it,” Talbot said.
read more here

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Looking back instead of new direction is pointless

At the crossroad?


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 28, 2019

Acceptable stigma attached to PTSD is, the fact that whomever told you to be ashamed...is one hell of an idiot!

I'm going to let the post I put up last night fill in the gaps on this one. "War is bad for the brain" Two sides of death

read the rest here

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Oregon taking a sledgehammer to suffering in silence

Oregon is trying to #BreakTheSilence


Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 9, 2019

To tell the truth that is the way to save lives. #BreakTheSilence and make it safe for someone to talk about what is going on. Most of the time they just need someone to listen. 

But that is not all. They need the one listening to them to actually listen and not try to "fix them" or judge them, or look at their watch as if they want to be someplace else at that moment.

You need to know who to call if the person you are listening to needs more help than you can give.

There is only one reason a person decides that they do not want to try one more day. They ran out of hope that it would be any different than their worst day was. Help them know that there is hope and they do matter.

Whatever you do DO NOT KEEP SPREADING SUICIDE AWARENESS because all that does it let them know you did not care enough to not buy into the BS that has done more harm than good.

How do you break the silence? With the sledgehammer called knowledge that there is hope of healing! If you read this site with any frequency, you've read enough reports to know that Suicide Awareness does not work but Suicide Prevention does. 

We need to make sure we stay on top of what is actually going on so that the people in charge know if what they are doing is working or not.

After 37 years now, I can tell you, making them aware of other veterans who gave up on themselves is the last thing they need to hear. The first thing they need to hear is it is possible to #TakeBackYourLife and live a happier ever after.


Oregon newsrooms team up to 'Break the Silence' around suicide


KTVZ reports to focus on veterans helping veterans
By: Sarah Zimmerman, AP staff writer and KTVZ.COM
Posted: Apr 04, 2019

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — If you're a regular reader or viewer of your local news, it's likely you'll have a good sense of how many people died in a car crash or of a terminal illness. But it's less likely you'll hear when somebody dies by suicide.

It's partly because of a long-held rule across newsrooms not to report on most suicides, out of respect for the family and from the belief that reporting on the topic could have a "contagious effect" and inspire others to also take their own lives.

While there's some evidence for that logic, the nation's growing number of suicides has become difficult for reporters to ignore. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the national suicide rate is at a 50-year high, climbing 33% since 1999. It's estimated 25,000 Americans died by suicide in 2016 alone.

"Journalists stopped covering suicide for some very good reasons," said Nicole Dahmen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Oregon. "But the unintended consequence of that is that suicide has remained unreported, and death by suicide has been on the rise so much so that it's become a public health crisis."

The issue has prompted reporters in Oregon, which has a suicide rate 40% higher than the national average, to take a different approach to tackling the topic.

Over 30 newsrooms from around the state, including NewsChannel 21, are banding together in an unprecedented, weeklong reporting collaboration to shed light on suicide and its effect on the community. The project, known as "Breaking the Silence," will run from April 7 to 14 and involve newspapers, TV stations and student media organizations across Oregon.
read more here

BREAKING THE SILENCE: Rural areas have higher suicide rates


The Oregonian/OregonLive
By Carol Cruzan Morton
April 7, 2019
A focus on suicide prevention is showing results as Oregon combats one of nation's highest rates of suicide. This report lists resources to help.

Oregon’s suicide rate has been higher than the national average for the past three decades. More than 800 people killed themselves last year in Oregon.

The problem affects everyone. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people, but 90 percent of Oregon’s suicides are by people older than 25 years old. Most suicides are men, but it crosses social, economic, and geographic boundaries.

The highest rates are shared by groups with deep historical and cultural differences—white men and Native Americans. One in every five suicides is a veteran.

These heartbreaking statistics are part of a longstanding and perplexing pattern of higher suicide rates in the West. For decades, the western half of the country, stretching from Montana to Texas and west to California and Alaska, reported persistently higher suicide rates.

Now they are highest in the Rocky Mountain states and Alaska, with Oregon not far behind.

No one really knows why.
read more here


Sunday, April 7, 2019

PTSD Patrol It is a family road trip

PTSD Patrol Family Road Trip Guide


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 7, 2019


I decided to tell our story so that no one would feel as lost or alone as I did.

When I got into all of this, there were not many people talking about live with PTSD. Within our community of veterans, we were talking about it and most of our friends were learning it from me. I learned from the experts on this road a lot longer before I ever knew there was one.


The book was ready in 2000 but I was still searching for a publisher when the planes hit the Towers. 

16 years ago, on April Fools Day, my first book was published because I knew enough to know that suffering would spread out because of September 11, 2001. 

I was talking to a Psychiatrist I know and he said I needed to get my book out there, so I decided to self publish it.


I am not going into detail on this right now, but there is an announcement coming on this soon. For right now, if you want a copy of the book, DO NOT BUY IT ONLINE and there are reasons for that. 

If you want to read it, then email me woundedtimes@aol.com or leave a message here.

Just know that whatever you are going through, the only thing that has been causing a detour between your family beginning to heal is the missing effort on your part. 
read more here and for this weeks video

Saturday, April 6, 2019

For Police Officers overdue first step is #BreakTheSilence

How is it that for people in a profession that demands they ask questions all the time, find it so hard to ask other officers if they need backup?

Talking openly about police suicide is an important and long-overdue first step


The Washington Post
By Karen Tumulty
Columnist
April 4, 2019
NEW YORK



“There’s already enough tragedy in what we do.” Bringing it out of the shadows is an important first step, long overdue, and one that could help save the lives of those in whom we trust our own." 

This week, there was an extraordinary gathering in an auditorium on the ground floor of the New York Police Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan. In that one room sat more than 300 police chiefs and other law enforcement officials from across the country and as far away as Australia and Northern Ireland.

They were there to discuss a leading cop killer: suicide. For eight hours, they took a raw and honest look at both the forces that drive officers to this most desperate of acts and the dilemmas they face in dealing with it.

“We do so much for everybody else. Very rarely do we talk about ourselves,” NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said. “Nobody wants to take a step forward. Nobody wants to be branded, and we have to get past that.”

Suicide is a long-standing problem in police work, claiming more first responders each year than the number who die in the line of duty. University at Buffalo epidemiology professor John Violanti, a former New York state trooper who has studied the problem for decades, says the latest numbers collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate the risk of suicide for police officers could be 54 percent higher than it is for the population at large.

But Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. realized that he would have to do more than that, something that took courage. He began sharing with his officers his own struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s okay to not be okay. I, the chief, seek help. I see a doctor once or twice a month to keep myself well,” he told me.
Riccio choked up as he told of a female officer who showed up for roll call, then went out to her patrol car to take her life.

North Miami just experienced its first officer suicide in three decades.
read more here

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Clean gunk out of your engine

PTSD Patrol Clean gunk out of your engine


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 24, 2019

What is gunk in your engine? Well, if it is the engine is in the vehicle you drive, then it is usually oil. If it is in the engine that is in the "you" vehicle you live in, then it is anything negative that is clogging your way toward healing.

If you keep letting your past dictate all the reasons to not get up in the morning, then you are clogging up the imagination you need to fuel healing.
5 Symptoms of Oil Deposits
How Stuff Works
BY AKWELI PARKER
...We know that a sloppy diet and too little exercise cause sticky deposits called cholesterol to block our arteries. But what's the culprit behind oil gumming up our engine -- isn't oil one of the good guys when it comes to car engine health?

Well, yes, it is. But when oil is subjected to a high enough temperature, it can solidify and become baked onto the surface of whatever is close by, like for instance, a narrow engine oil passageway or critical engine parts themselves. It can also lose its viscosity and become a tar-like goop that makes life hard for your vehicle's engine.

When enough of these deposits collect, the possibility of a vehicle engine underperforming or even dying, go up dramatically. Thick or solid oil can have the reverse effect that clean, normal oil has. Instead of cleaning, lubricating and cooling your engine, it can pollute, hinder and contribute to overheating.
read more here 

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Giving up or living it up with PTSD?

PTSD Patrol Highway Construction

Wounded Times and PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 20, 2019

There is movement going on right now on the road to healing but it has not made it onto every road map yet.

The movement is driving away from the long line of frustrating road blocks (suicide awareness) and onto the freeway (healing awareness) more people are getting on.
A couple of years ago, a group of us were talking about how all the suicide awareness was not only blocking hope, it was pushing too many into the dead ending. Facts back that one up. If you doubt that, here are some things you need to know.

Military suicides, all branches, 10 year high.

Known veteran suicides, percentages increased over the last 20 years, while population of veterans decreased.

Police Officer suicides increased.

Firefighter suicides increased.

All you have to do is read Wounded Times and know, we have the proof. If not, then you can GPS (Google portable search) it and find it for yourself. Type what you want to know, and then click the "News" tab, since that search produces the most current news reports.

It was time to change the conversation with my first book published in 2002, then in 2006, when I put up some of the first videos on PTSD. Back then it was easier to get the truth out because the roads were not blocked by traffic jams.

So, having little faith in social media to verify anything, we knew the only way to change the outcome, was to change the conversation.

Everyone can understand the vehicles they drive, how they control where they go and how they get there. They also know that someone had to clear the road before anyone got on it. Some of the best experts cleared the way when I was learning how to drive on this road back in 1983. I just had to learn how to navigate on it.

It is the same with the vehicle you live in. You actually control where you go and how you get there. You decide if you want to stay parked right where you are, or just coast downhill in neutral.

Popular Mechanics Mike Allen wrote about this notion.

"I get mail. I've said, on the record, many times, that it's a bad idea to coast downhill or up to a stop sign in neutral. It's unsafe. You need to be able to use the accelerator to avoid an unexpected road hazard; cars don't handle well in neutral during sharp cornering maneuvers when the engine isn't connected to the drivetrain. So why on earth would you put the transmission in neutral—whether on manual or automatic—when coasting? Apparently there are a lot of people out there who think they are saving gas by doing so. They're wrong."
That is what the Suicide Awareness groups have been doing for a very long time without being aware of how unsafe it actually is.

All of us, at one time or another, have had to endure construction aggravation when highways are being changed to improve driving conditions. Between the year they start and the year the finish, there is an increase in the number of accidents...and traffic jams. 

Living in Florida, I work near I-4 in Maitland, subjected to the I-4 -Ultimate Project. At least once a week, there is a traffic helicopter hovering above due to a bad accident, along with daily blares of sirens from emergency vehicles rushing to help.

Anyway, after all these years, the idea of PTSD Patrol came up as a way to clear all the stuff out of the way so veterans could heal...and it has been lighting spark plugs to empower creative thought.


The key is to help them learn how to drive the rest of their lives the right way.

We are giving them their lessons, so they can learn how their vehicles work. Then explain what PTSD is, is not and how to #TakeBackYourLife.

With that, they have a learners' permit, so they can experience the control of their "vehicle" and how to handle road hazards.

They learn how to navigate to the mechanics who can properly maintain their "vehicles" (mind body and spirit) and be empowered to become a master of their own journey.

So, which do you think will work the best? Having them hear about how others gave up or how to switch gears and live it up?

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Are you a messenger of misery...or healer of hearts?

"As if mere life were worth their living for"


Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2019

We are bombarded with the exasperating messages of "suicide awareness" on a daily basis while the messengers of misery are content to be paid for sharing what is failing everyone else.

If you want to know how many have been robbed of the message they needed to hear, like #TakeBackYouLife all you have to do is read this site on any given day and see reports of the lives gone to suicide. The thing you do not see, is how far those chosen deaths reached. Family, friends, peers and others seeking some resolution to their own pain, received the message, loud and clear, when they needed to know how to heal the broken hearts before it became too late to avoid regrets.
There was a time when people like me needed to raise awareness of what was going on out of desperation. Believing that someone with the power to change the outcome would do so once they became aware of it, I took on the heartbreaking task of doing that back in 2007. I put together a massive report wondering "Why isn't the press on suicide watch?" because I while putting together the video report, even I was shocked by what I discovered. 


Now it has become raising awareness that those groups are increasing the need to for this country to regain their senses and do the work require to achieve a much different outcome. That work needs to be done by their families!

There was a time when we were allowed to be ignorantly embracing fairy tales and escaping into moments of fantasy...before we grew up!

While we allow ourselves moments now, we are thoughtful enough to acknowledge we live in the harsh real world, and we stop dreaming of a perfect relationship. Our knight's armor is no longer shinny...it is rusty. His/her horse has a bent back and we no longer climb the stairs to the top of the tower...we look for the elevator.


There is a battle being fought on the Home Front that we are losing. 

We read about it all the time but few are investing the time to defeat the enemy claiming more lives after combat, that we lost during all of them. Their jobs caused PTSD. Until we battle the thing that is causing all our misery...it will win. Once we arm ourselves with knowledge, it stops defeating them!

They survived combat, but could not find the support or weapons to fight this battle for their own lives. Pretty disgraceful when you think of it that way.

Families have the tendency to assume they can stop worrying once their veteran returns home, when that is the time to do a hell of a lot more than worry about them. It is time to begin your own battle.

A woman I have known for years, finally approached me about a year ago. She had been receiving the messages of misery for over 30 years and reached the point where she knew there was a much better way of living. She found it and is living a more hopeful life with her veteran husband.

The hope of healing their hearts was delivered free of charge. How do you do a GoFundMe for something you do for the reasons for free? That is something no advertising or marketing company is willing to support. I know, because I have talked to several of them. They listen politely and then say "Let me talk to my team and I'll get back to you"...but they never do.


"Festus—I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for...

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best..." From ‘Festus’
By Philip James Bailey (1816–1902)
 Just loving them is not enough. Wanting a better life with them, does not make it better. Blaming them for what is happening to your family will not make any of you live a happier life together.

Stop sharing the messages of misery and start being the healer of their hearts! It requires a lot of work, time and patience but you can do it! If I could begin this work at the age of 23...learn from reading clinical books in the library with a dictionary, you can do it with the internet and instant access to the world from the cellphone in your hand!

Do you want them to blame you for not helping them when they needed you the most or believe you are the best thing that ever happened to them?
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
Gladys Knight
I've had my share of life's ups and downs
But fate's been kind, the downs have been few
I guess you could say that I've been lucky
Well, I guess you could say that it's all because of you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Oh, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it, I made it through
Cause for every moment that I've spent hurting
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
I know, you're the best thing, oh, that ever happened to me
Songwriters: James D. Weatherly
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group