Group of military spouses breaking the silence of PTSD

‘You think you’re the only one’: Documentary amplifies voices of military spouses facing PTSD
Idaho Capital Sun

BY: CHRISTINA LORDS
APRIL 25, 2022

“We just felt that we really needed to talk to this group of spouses, which has been silent forever – all throughout history,” Betty said. “We thought we need to get as much history involved as we can.”

‘I Married the War,’ a new film produced and directed by Idahoans about the wives of combat veterans, will make its Idaho premiere May 4

During filming of a new documentary titled “I Married the War,” Director of Photography Bill Krumm captures military wife Laura Daniero Nickel for an interview with Lucien Nickel. (Ken Rodgers)

After the success of their first documentary film “Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor” in 2011, Betty and Ken Rodgers felt in their bones there were more stories to tell.

Their project got men who hadn’t shared their Vietnam War stories in decades — or, in some cases, ever — to open up their experiences. It helped people who didn’t live through the war know what that conflict was really like. And it helped Vietnam veterans connect with perhaps the only people who truly knew what they had gone through – each other.

Perhaps most importantly, for some veterans, it allowed them and their families to start to heal from their trauma.

But there were others who deserved to have their voices heard, their stories told, Betty said.

What about people like her, the wife of a Vietnam veteran? What about their experience healing their marriage from Ken’s post-traumatic stress, caused by his combat experience as a U.S. Marine trapped in one of the worst sieges in American wartime history – the siege of Khe Sanh in Vietnam? What about the wives of these veterans from every American war who come home battered physically and mentally and need care and understanding?
read more here

When I wrote my first book,  For The Love Of Jack back in 2002 (republished in 2012)  it was to #breakthesilence too many of us were living with. It was hard for veterans to talk, even to other veterans. It was even harder for wives to do it. When we did, we not only discovered we were not alone, we found support, gained knowledge and learned the ways of helping those we loved heal.

I am torn about the project above. I am grateful they were doing this at the same time greatly saddened that after all these years, anyone still feels as if they have something to hide or struggle with talking about it, makes it seem as if efforts among the pioneers like me, failed. If we succeeded, the stigma would be gone, hope would take over fear, knowledge would replace gossip and assumptions and no one would ever feel ashamed of surviving what they did, or loving them.

No battle in combat is ever fought alone and no one heals from what it does alone either!

Common knowledge eradicates PTSD Stigma

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 21, 2022

If the stigma of #PTSD is ever going to be eradicated in the minds of survivors, it requires common knowledge. The simple fact that PTSD strikes out against survivors of many different events is the first step toward doing just that. Here is a small list to think about first.

Australian Doctor

Dr Nick Coatsworth has revealed before he started his role as Deputy Chief Medical Officer during the coronavirus pandemic he suffered from debilitating post traumatic stress disorder which left him feeling like he was having a heart attack. The Today medical expert shared his story with Karl Stefanovic, saying the symptoms left him housebound and unable to do his job.

Canada Military Members (University Manitoba)

Measuring the mental health of military members
A new series of studies looking into the mental health of Canadian Armed Forces members aims to better understand the connections between mental health and military service.

The studies follow up with data collected by Statistics Canada in collaboration with the Department of National Defence in 2002 and compare it with more recent data from 2018. In 2002 participants were asked to fill out a survey on mental health. In 2018 researchers contacted 2,941 of the original 5,155 participants and asked them to fill out the survey again. The survey aims to show clinicians and stakeholders how mental health changes after 16 years of service in the military.

“We figured it was important to follow up with some of these people and see how their mental health changed over their service. This is an important gap in the literature right now,” says Dr. Shay-Lee Bolton, assistant professor of psychiatry, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. “Seeing people at one-time point and then comparing with another to see what is changed and the same hasn’t been done before.”

In every category including anxiety, depression and PTSD, there is an increase in the number of people who have been diagnosed with a disorder. Bolton isn’t yet sure yet why there has been an increase in diagnoses but recognizes that it’s something to keep an eye on.

“I think it shows a vulnerability that’s there. We don’t know that it’s due to their military experience, but it shows that there is a vulnerable population there,” says Bolton.

Ohio First Responders (ABC 5 News)

ELYRIA, Ohio — Once considered a silent crisis, there continues to be a growing dialogue and conversation centered around first responders and the impact and prevalence of post-traumatic stress among the ranks. In addition to continued efforts on the state level, a national organization is in Lorain County this week to provide first responders with mental health training that will help them identify operational stress and trauma in themselves and their colleagues.

The workshops being offered to first responders include small group discussions that encourage participants to examine and acknowledge the impact that stress and trauma have on their day-to-day lives. The scenario-based training teaches first responders how to initiate potentially difficult conversations with their colleagues.

Wellington Police Chief Tim Barfield said the training is especially critical for law enforcement officers. Recent studies have found an estimated 1 in 3 law enforcement officers suffers from PTSD. Removing the stigma associated with that is an important step, he said.

“There is a stigma among first responders that if we're bothered by something, we’re weak,” Barfield said.

“We need to break that stigma," he said. "We need to understand that the things we see every day doesn’t make us weak, but we do need to learn how to deal with it.”

Oklahoma City Bombing (KOCO News)

Oklahomans and neighbors cope with a dark day in the state’s history.

April 19 is a tough day in Oklahoma City with so many coping with their feelings about what happened 27 years ago.

Mental health professionals said it’s important to make sure that coping is done in a healthy way. The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse reminds Oklahomans if they are experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they are not alone.

“It’s a collective trauma that we revisit every year together,” said Lauren Garder, senior manager of Zero Suicide and Trauma Care with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

“You can have PTSD from repeated exposure to traumatic details of somebody else's life and those effects that is PTSD all the same,” Garder said.

You just read a small list of different people with PTSD. PTSD does not choose anything other than the fact a human has survived something horrible. It does not know nationality. It does not know profession. It does not know if you are male or female. The shock hits all survivors and no one is left unchanged by it. The level of the change is determined by the strength of their emotional core. This is why when spiritual help is added to what mental health professionals do, there is greater healing.

How strong is your emotional core? Think about how simple things are deeply felt by you. If you look at a colorful sunrise or stunning sunset, and it takes your breath away, you have a strong emotional core. If your heart beats a little faster when you hear the sound of the voice of someone you love, or feels as if it is breaking when they are hurting, you have a strong emotional core. The more you feel good things, the more you feel bad things as well. Sorry but, it a human tradeoff.

There are many times in our lives that we will feel something, but no one else can understand the strength of our emotional connection to it. This is why if you take a lot of people, exposed to the same event, not all of them will develop PTSD. This is also why some of the survivors who were not drastically changed may judge those who were as being "weak" but it also has a lot to do with the stigma attached to what they already think about those who have it.

All too often when you use the term PTSD, people immediately think it only happens to veterans because that is all they hear on the news, online and on social media. While the causes are different, the fact is, while we are all survivors and human, we are all different. Different life experiences combined with the event itself are part of the way we go from "victim" to "survivor" of what happened to us.

My survival story began at the age of five, so what came afterwards with the other events, is not the same as others who survived the same types of events but not all of them in their lifespan. With each event, after the initial shock, and dealing with it along with the emotions that followed, I viewed myself as a survivor. That went a long way toward faster and stronger recovery. 

Not feeling as if I needed to hide what it did as something to feel ashamed of, also helped. It freed me to speak about what I was dealing with. Back then, peer support did not exist as it does now. Peer support back then was when people cared enough to just listen while survivors could make sense out of what happened in a safe place where we were not being judged. Now there are groups.

In groups, people understand that all the others are there for support and those who have begun to heal, offer support as much as they receive it. It is empowering to give support after you have received it for yourself.

The main thing healing people understand is that it is not a contest. No one compares themselves against others who may seem to be grieving less or more than the do. Everyone is different but the thing is, everyone there shares the common bond of surviving! Now, maybe you know it too!

South Korea's "trauma week" filling the void on PTSD

Wounded Times

Kathie Costos

April 19, 2022

This is according to the VA on PTSD Awareness and "8 million"

Help Raise PTSD Awareness There are currently about 8 million people in the United States with PTSD. Even though PTSD treatments work, most people who have PTSD don't get the help they need. June is PTSD Awareness Month. Help us spread the word that effective PTSD treatments are available. Everyone with PTSD—whether they are Veterans or civilian survivors of sexual assault, serious accidents, natural disasters, or other traumatic events—needs to know that treatments really do work and can lead to a better quality of life.

But on another page from the VA there is this and "12 million"

Facts About How Common PTSD Is
The following statistics are based on the U.S. population:
About 6 out of every 100 people (or 6% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 12 million adults in the U.S. have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.

Apparently, in December it there were 3 million more, but no idea why they changed the number from "15 million" or can't seem to make up their minds.

If the National Center for PTSD is unaware of their confusing data, that is not a good way to raise awareness of something this important.

The thing is, we are doing a lousy job raising awareness of anything meaningful on helping survivors with PTSD heal. After all, considering the stigma is still keeping people from even admitting they need help, it shows how bad we are at it. 

If you mention PTSD to someone right away, they connect it to veterans. After all, that is all they hear about. Tell them you have PTSD from some other cause, they trivialize it unless they have it too or know someone with it. What do we do? If we manage to get the courage up to say we have it, we choke on answering the next question they have when they want us to explain how we have it. 

Too often what comes next is, they say they know someone who went through the same thing and they are fine. You can tell by the look on their face they are wondering why we are not fine.

If you know what PTSD is and what it does, and learn how much power you have over it, you can stand your ground and explain it to them patiently. If you don't know, then you walk away feeling as if you've just been judged as being weaker than the person they know.

It is time to remember that we're survivors and there is nothing to be ashamed of at all, even if the rest of the country hasn't caught up to the facts we live with.

So how is it that South Korea is doing something all our news stations should be doing?

Arirang News

This week is South Korea's "trauma week"... where mental health experts and survivors of national tragedies gather to raise awareness on how to treat trauma.

Our Shin Ye-eun met some of those traumatized by South Korea's worst disasters, and looks at what is being done to help them recover.

Everyday on the news… we see tragic events wreaking havoc around the world.

But what we don't see are the lasting effects on the people affected.

Many develop trauma.

Trauma is an emotional response to experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event.

While most people recover quite quickly with the help of friends and family... some... develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Many people suffering from PTSD develop other mental health problems like depression or anxiety.

"I'm a survivor of the collapse of Sampoong Department Store."

"27 years ago… where I am walking right now, South Korea saw its deadliest building collapse."

What fills you on Easter?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 17, 2022

When you think about Easter, what comes to your mind the most? Is it getting together with family and friends? Is it decorating, buying candy or hiding eggs? Maybe getting dressed up? Carrying on a family tradition?

For some, it is going to church and hearing about how Jesus walked out of the Sepulcher. For me it is thinking about all the people who believed that Jesus was the Son of God and then watching Him die on the cross. Imagine if you were there. Would you feel as if what you believed had just been proven wrong? Or, would you remember the other things you saw happen with your own eyes that Jesus did?

Would you remember seeing the lame walk, the blind see, the crowd being fed by five loaves of bread and two fish? Would you remember what it was like to hear His voice and feel the your soul being lifted up by His words? Would you still believe He was the Son of God and His life was not really over?

There are things we may think are impossible, until we see them with our own eyes. Still, when other things happen, we tend to forget about God turning hopeless situations into miracles. I imagine the people spent three days feeling as if an innocent, wonderful man, was put to death and that was the end of His story. His mission and life ended as far as they knew and with Him went their hopes.

Then think about what it was like for them to hear that the Sepulcher was empty and He lived. Think about those who were with Him and fearing for their own lives, and then seeing Him, hearing His voice, looking into His eyes and seeing the marks on His hands and feet. The impossible became possible. People knew that what they believed was actually true and the knew everything He said to them was true.

We all know what it is like to do the right thing and suffer for it. We know what it is like to be praised for helping someone by the same people who walk away when we ask for help. We know what it is like to want to visit the lonely people we know, call them and pray for them, as much as we know what it is like when no one is there for us.

We know what it is like to hunger for hope when it seems no matter what we do, how many times we ask for help or search for solutions, nothing changes. Then we wonder why we are left abandoned by those we stood by. Why were we left hungry by those we fed? Why are we not worthy of support by those we supported?

Jesus had served His Father and did what He was sent to do. He suffered for it but then was glorified. He knows everything we're going through, including getting angry, crying and struggling to do the right thing.

We celebrate His birth and His Resurrection, but we forget about how His life matters in our own. Nothing we go through is not known and experienced by Him. He knows what it is like when we lose hope, feel as if no one cares about us. When people do not believe what we say. When we are abandon and let alone. He knows what it is like to do what God wants us to do, and suffer for it. What it is like to help others, but no one will help us.

He also knows what it is like to feel being a part of miracles to others. He wanted to save everyone and heal everyone, but not everyone wanted what He had to give. That did not stop Him from doing what He could and nothing stop Him from doing what He can now.

No matter how lonely you are, because of Him, God hears our prayers. No matter how we are treated, God sees it and He will not abandon us. People walk away from us but The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are always with us. I know I am comforted by all the times when everything seemed so hopeless for me, but God turned it all around. Right now, I am comforted knowing no matter how lonely I feel, God is still there and trying to work things out for the miracle I've been praying for. He is there for you too.

This Easter Day, remember what this day is truly about and let it fill you with the hope of miracles in your own life everyday and let it guide you to being part of a miracle to others.

Kathie Costos author of healing PTSD books.

Latest books

The Lost Son

Part One

Alive Again
The Lost Son Part Two

Stranger Angels
The Lost Son Part Three

Not doing what was needed cost company $450,000

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 16, 2022

The headline on WLKY News "Kentucky man sues employer for throwing him birthday party, and now they owe him $450K" was a bad choice. Given the fact that an employee told his supervisor he needed her to skip honoring his birthday, she decided to do it anyway. Why? Why would someone want to do something for someone that was clearly going to hurt them? Was she so oblivious to the fact that even telling her he had a problem with it was not enough to get her to change her mind?

The employee found out about the party and was so stressed out about it that he went to his car instead of going to the lunchroom. He ended up being fired!
 

A Kentucky man took his employer to court after they threw him a birthday party he didn't want, and the jurors sided with him.

Now, his employer owes him $450,000.

The verdict was handed down this week in Kenton County Circuit Court in Northern Kentucky. The plaintiff, an employee of Gravity Diagnostics, sued his employer after he was fired following a birthday party they threw for him in August.

The employee asked the office manager days before his birthday in August to not arrange a birthday celebration as they did for other employees.

Then on Aug. 7, the employee's birthday, the office arranged for a lunchtime birthday party in the lunchroom, according to the lawsuit. The employee said that he found out about the party as he was headed to his lunch break, which triggered a panic attack.
read more here

This goes to show that not doing what was needed was not intended to be a good thing to the recipient. How many times have you told someone what you needed help with, but they ignored what you needed and did only what they wanted to do "for you" that you didn't want or need in the first place?

It happens all the time. It means they are doing it to make themselves feel good about themselves and not making your life any easier.

When you have a mental illness, you know what your triggers are and you do all you can to avoid them. You know what they will cause you to go through. This employee was caused to suffer for this "gift" given to him he didn't want. He must have had to explain it to his coworkers, causing even more emotional pain, and then had to face more with his supervisor, topped off with higher-ups who then fired him.

All the avoidable distress caused should be a lesson to everyone out there, especially in the workplace. How many of us have been in a forced situation like that? You tell family you don't want parties but they do it anyone because they think you deserve to have some fun. You tell them you don't want to go to a party or movie or in large crowds, and then they get angry because you won't go with them. 

You need to be left out of it without being punished for it. It is a no-win situation for you. Most of us cringe when it comes to the approaching event someone is talking about because we know it will cause us pain to go and more pain if we don't because the people who are supposed to know us don't understand us.

If you are going through something like this and need to let people know how much harm they are doing by doing what they want instead of what you need, show them this article so they will understand how much pain they can inflict instead of making you feel the way they want you to feel.