They got away with murder in Salem Village

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 15, 2024

They got away with murder in Salem Village just by saying they believed someone was a witch!

The accusers were responsible for the murder of 19 people found guilty of witchcraft and one crushed to death without a trial. Reading the list of those who accused innocent people may make you wonder if any of them were put on trial. The answer is no because there was no way to prove what they claimed to believe were nothing more than lies from their lips. Imagine the trauma inflicted on the colony of Massachusetts because the accused came from all over it. 

The accusations ran their course in Salem Village but not in Andover, where 48 were accused compared with 23 in Salem Village, says Burns. “A lot of people were against spectral evidence, so confessions were now the gold standard to find people guilty. The confessions that came before were from people with no agency whatsoever, like little Dorothy. But when they got to Andover, the magistrates were really good at interrogating people in private. By September, they could coerce people like clockwork. There, a lot who confessed were children as young as six.” National Endowment For The Humanities

There were many reasons for what happened there and what was behind it.

Evidence points to several factors that may have contributed to the mass hysteria: “An influx of refugees from King William’s War with French colonists, a recent smallpox epidemic, the threat of attack from Native Americans, a growing rivalry with the neighboring seaport of Salem Town, and the simmering tensions between leading families in the community created the perfect storm of suspicion and resentment.” Many historians believe the “witches” were also victims of scapegoating, personal vendettas, and social mores against outspoken, strong women.

But it didn't just happen in the colony of Massachusetts. The following is from New England Law.

The Salem Witch Trials occurred just as Europe’s “witchcraft craze’’ from the 14th to 17th centuries was winding down, where an estimated tens of thousands of European witches, mostly women, were executed.

The Puritans believed physical realities had spiritual causes. For example, if the crops failed, the Devil may have played a role. With this worldview, it was not a stretch for them to accept 'spectral evidence' of spirits and visions—which was the primary evidence used as proof of guilt during the Salem Witch Trials.

The thought of bad things happening as acts of God goes back to Biblical times. If people suffered, it was God judging them. If they prospered, then it was God's reward. This begs the question, if God was doing it to them, then how did they place blame on the Devil and witchcraft? How did they come full circle and again set their miseries on God and not the Devil? When the trials were over, they had a "Day of Atonement" to ask God to forgive them; that is precisely what they were led to believe instead of continuing to blame witches and the devil.

Whatever reason the accusers needed, it was provided. The list included torture, which made them very good at getting accusations "in private."

Aftermath of the Salem Trials
After the prisoners awaiting trial on charges of practicing witchcraft were granted amnesty (pardoned) in 1693, the accusers and judges showed hardly any remorse for executing twenty people and causing others to languish in jails. Instead, they placed the blame on the "trickery of Satan," thus freeing themselves from any sense of guilt. Jurors and townspeople also managed to maintain a clear conscience by claiming that, after all, many victims had confessed to their "crimes" and that the Salem, Massachusetts, community had been tricked by the devil. Yet families who had lost loved ones and property during the trials were expected to go on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Their attempts to regain social standing and receive financial compensation through formal legal channels took several years.

But we know the "clear conscience" they claimed wasn't real. Shame caused them to rename Salem Village. It became Danvers.

After the Witch Trials: Welcome to Danvers
By September of 1692, the peak of the witch hysteria was over and 25 innocent people were dead. 19 people were hanged. Five people had died in prison, and one elderly man was pressed to death. The vast majority of those executed came from rural areas, the majority from Salem Village.

After the trials, “in both Salem and Danvers, there was shame over what had happened here and a reluctance to deal with the trauma of the trials,” says Dan Lipcan, a library director and curator of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Slowly, Salem Village—the epicenter of the hysteria—began to move on, building a new meeting house in 1701 and abandoning the bad memories of the former. In 1706, Ann Putnam made a public apology, stating, “As I was a chief instrument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust and to be humbled for it.”

Putnam made her confession simply to be admitted back into the church, the same faith that supported the lies that caused so much suffering. She didn't list all the other people she falsely accused. Could it be that she couldn't be bothered enough to remember all of their names? According to Dr. John Howard Smith, there were 300 accused.

During that one year, 20 people were executed as witches, which Smith suggested “indicates a certain degree of restraint, considering that nearly 300 people were accused.”

But we also know that it didn't just happen in Salem. It happened in Connecticut, too.

Between 1647 and 1697, about three dozen people (the exact number is disputed, as many court records have been lost) were charged with witchcraft in Connecticut. Eleven were executed, all by hanging. Nine of the 11 were women. The two men executed were hanged along with their wives. Of those who weren’t executed, some fled their community; others were banished.

Having PTSD, we don't need to guess what all of this did to the people involved as victims, nor do we have to imagine what it did to the rest of the people in the area. They knew it could happen to them at any moment. They also knew the truly guilty got away with it once, and nothing could stop them the next time. No one was held to account for anything, and they were "free" to move on from what they did. Those who suffered were never free to move on.

Imagine knowing the accusers were free to continue their lives as if nothing had happened, and there was no reason to feel guilty. Imagine knowing the judges were rewarded for their actions instead of held accountable. This is from the History of Massachusetts Blog.

According to Emerson W. Baker in his book, A Storm of Witchcraft, these nine judges were considered the elite of the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

“As a group, the judges represented the proverbial 1 percent – the merchant elite who were wealthy, intermarried, and exercised power in social, political, and military circles. In short, they were the superrich of Massachusetts. Simply calling them ‘merchants’ shortchanges them…Most had considerable political experience, having served as deputies and assistants in the General Court.”

Look at the site and see what happened to the judges like William Stoughton, Chief Magistrate.

From 1694 to 1699 and again from 1700 to 1701, Stoughton served as acting governor of Massachusetts after Governor William Phips was recalled to England. He also continued to serve as chief justice of the Massachusetts courts until his death on July 7, 1701.

In 1697, Samuel Sewall was the only one to apologize for his part in horrific events. The others simply signed a letter.

And then there was Judge John Hathorne, who "was one of the most vocal participants during the Salem witchcraft trials."

Hathorne’s great-great grandson was Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose works reveal Hawthorne’s guilt over the sins of his ancestor. It is speculated that Nathaniel Hawthorne added the “w” to the family name as a means of distancing himself from the wrongdoing of his great-great-grandfather. It is equally possible this change was merely the result of a fashion of the period, as many families were altering their names to reflect the original English spelling. It is interesting to note that Hawthorne did hold particular disdain for his ancestor, as Judge Hathorne appears as the antagonist Judge Pyncheon in Hawthorne’s 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables.

When you consider what was done to those accused of witchcraft, imagine being afraid of being the next one to be wrongfully charged, imprisoned, tortured, and held in horrid conditions. At the same time, they not only took what you owned, but they made you pay money for what was done to you before they would release you. Then imagine living the rest of your life while discovering none of them were held accountable for what they did to you.

You don't have to use much energy imagining if you were the victim of a crime and they got away with it. You don't have to imagine it if you saw your day in court and the guilty got away with it because of a technicality. You don't have to if you suffered from medical malpractice, but lawyers said it would cost them too much money to pursue the evidence.

No matter what caused PTSD to strike you after you survived it, it should be easy enough to understand what the people of Salem Town and village, now called Danvers, had to endure. When you read what they went through before the accusations were made, you'll see what we now know as traumas that can produce PTSD.

We are not only aware of what PTSD does to us, we are aware of what our families go through while we suffer.

This research showed that Vietnam Veterans have more marital problems and family violence. Their partners have more distress. Their children have more behavior problems than do those of Veterans without PTSD. Veterans with the most severe symptoms had families with the worst functioning.

We also know that none of it had to happen. As for Vietnam veterans, the research was left out a detail. While it wasn't easy, my husband and I have been married for 40 years. He got help to heal, and so did I. We believed in God, but we also believed in science. Ironically, that's how the people of Salem stopped blaming God and each other when other bad things happened to them.

Kathie Costos author of The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem and 13th Minister Of Salem

Trauma was manufactured in Salem Village

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 6, 2024

In 1692, trauma was manufactured in Salem Village so successfully that it spread beyond the population of 500. Whatever you read or have been led to believe about the witch trials, understand one simple, basic fact. None of the people making accusations were telling the truth. What is worse is they knew it.

If you have PTSD, you survived something. That's the only way for it to inflict your thoughts. As bad as it is, imagine if you discovered the trauma you survived was manufactured by influential people. Then imagine strangers lying and accusing you so forcefully that even your neighbors supported their accusations.

Why would they be willing to do such a sinister thing? Fear it could happen to them if they didn't.

That was how the people of Massachusetts had to live in 1692. It wasn't bad enough that they had to struggle with harsh winters, poor crops, and fear of more attacks by Native American tribes trying to take back their land. They had to cope with far too many people searching for something or people to blame for their suffering.

That was fed by the household of Reverand Samual Parris. People paid taxes and were supposed to give him firewood, but he wasn't paid his salary, and the family often lived in a cold home. Precisely what caused the children to begin making false accusations remains a mystery. They were the spark that started the manufactured traumas. Thomas Putnam used the girls had as a means of revenge against neighbors. After all, he had God on his side since the Reverand was involved. 

Back then, they were easy targets if people did not attend church. Sarah Osborne was one of the first accused because Putnam grudged her. She was ill and didn't attend church, adding to notches against her. She was also the first to die because of the lies. She died in the Boston jail, and her family received a bill for her incarceration as well as the shackles to prevent her from flying away. 

Most people remember Tituba confessing, but she escaped being put to death after she confessed to witchcraft. It was claimed that those who confessed would be judged by God, but it would have been more plausible that she could name more names and be believed. Sarah Good was one of them, but she was pregnant at the time of her conviction. Her four-year-old daughter Dorothy was forced to accuse her mother and confess to witchcraft, as well as join her mother in prison. The townspeople learned the lesson that no one would be spared if they didn't play along, including their own children.

There is a correlation between the witch trials and PTSD. It was something no one got over. Between the guilt the accusers carried and the tormented survivors, no one ever escaped the horrors of that year. They did not believe in science. They believed in God's wrath and the devil. Anyone suffering from the infliction of agony was either in league with Satan or being judged by God. Once the trials ended, the people pushed for a Day of Atonement.

January 14, 1697- The Massachusetts General Court orders a day of public fasting and prayer in atonement for errors made by the colony, including the witchcraft trials. On this day, twelve of the jurors of the Court of Oyer and Terminer sign a statement of apology for their role in the witch trials. In addition, Samuel Sewall, who served as a magistrate in 1692, stands before his congregation while his minister reads a prepared statement aloud. In this declaration, Sewall acknowledges his feelings of shame for his role in the witchcraft trials and asks God to pardon his sins.

It may have occurred to you that you know exactly what they were going through since we go between God causing our traumas or Satan causing the possession of our lives. I know I did when surviving was just the beginning of the battle to survive being a survivor. 

PTSD can happen in our lifetime, no matter how old we are

Journalist Suffers PTSD from Covering War in Gaza, 'Hell on Earth': 'You Can’t Escape' (Exclusive)

PEOPLE
By Vanessa Etienne
September 30, 2024

“When you come back from a reporting assignment, and you're cleaning other people's blood off the bottom of your boots… you don't learn this in journalism school.” Trey Yingst

For Trey Yingst, the smell of barbecue triggers his PTSD. It reminds him of the burning bodies he witnessed in Gaza after war abruptly broke out in October 2023. The smells are eerily similar, he says, adding that his brain struggles to distinguish them.

“I try as much as possible to separate things in my mind, but that can be difficult,” he tells PEOPLE. “The mind will flash back very quickly.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants from Gaza launched a surprise terrorist attack on Israel, killing roughly 1,400 people and taking more than 200 others hostage — a day that later became known as “Black Saturday,” which is also the title of Yingst’s new book.

Yingst — Fox News chief foreign correspondent — spent nearly 200 days on the ground covering the war and calls it “one of the scariest assignments I’ve ever had.”

“We were in southern Israel on the morning of October 7 and witnessed the massacre firsthand. There were people that died in front of me and we saw the aftermath… bodies everywhere,” he recalls. “That was when I really started to realize the impact that being a war correspondent can have on your mind.”
read the rest here

It's true; you don't learn what war reporters end up covering in journalism school. You don't know what you'll face during a pandemic in nursing school, and people go from calling you a hero to blaming you for what "hardships" they had to go through because they couldn't do what they wanted when they wanted to. They don't train you to face a massacre at the police academy. They don't train you to face a sniper when you are being trained as a firefighter or to face loss after loss of fellow citizens, as well as colleagues taking their own lives. The truth is, no amount of training can prepare you for when the unthinkable happens.

Some professions come with known risks, and people are not blind to them. Then there are the risks that hit you when you never saw them coming. The only thing you can prepare for is the need to ask for help. Seems like a no-brainer, but it is often the hardest thing to do when you are one of the people helping others for a living.

How do you ask for help when you have it in your mind that you were trained to cope with everything you had to face on your job? By acknowledging they didn't train you for everything because they didn't have a crystal ball to foretell your future. No matter how often they told you they could, they couldn't train you for everything in the military. If they could, there would be no need to pay millions of dollars yearly to research how to find something that worked. Considering the number of suicides in the military and in the veteran community has not gone down, that's a huge clue right there.

But it isn't just a military problem. It is a problem that every trauma survivor has to figure out...how to become a survivor who survives surviving.

We can't talk to "normal" people because they won't understand. At least we don't think they will because we don't give them a chance. It's a lot easier to deny there's anything wrong with us, and we're coping just fine with whatever life did to us. We don't tell them that our way of coping is hiding the pain or numbing it by drinking or doing drugs.

The most prepared people to reach out to share are seniors like me because we know we're all going through our own struggles. We still know how to talk to our neighbors face-to-face or on the phone, just checking in. No one trained us to get old besides our parents, but they couldn't foresee everything our lives would become. We did, however, learn that when we open up, we discover we're not alone. No one would share their heartaches or struggles if they always pretended to be happy. No one trained us, and no one warned us that we could end up with PTSD in our senior years, either.

The other truth is that PTSD can happen in our lifetime, no matter how old we are. 

Will ever see a day when no survivor regrets surviving?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 19, 2024

1692 had many lessons for us to learn from, but we chose to repeat the same mistakes instead of learning those lessons.

I find myself getting more and more unable to control myself when I hear a lie, especially when in regards to #PTSD. It happened when I was shopping at Home Depot. I had a large witch broom in the shopping cart and was wearing a shirt with "1692, they missed one."

Maybe TMI, but I had it on because my great-niece wanted to see it, so I put on the hat, too. I thought you needed to know how strange I looked when I stopped to talk to a woman after overhearing her talk about 22 veterans a day committing suicide. Had it been the other way around, I don't think I'd be as polite to a stranger who looked like I did and wanted to talk to me. But she was courteous and willing to listen. After all, she was a member of the National Guards.

I corrected the rumor of what she thought to be accurate by pointing out that the number came from the VA in 2012 and clearly stated that the data came from just 21 states with limited data. The majority of veterans committing suicide were over the age of 50, but no one was talking about them. Hell, they still aren't.

And then I told her that if they understood that we, as civilians, battle PTSD after surviving just one event, they'd stop thinking they had anything to be ashamed of. We are discovering that surviving the unthinkable is not the end of our future. It is a new beginning. If we dare to reach out to others, we have the power to deliver someone from evil trying to take over their lives.

PTSD is like no other illness. It is an evil invader, trying to erode hope, making us feel unworthy of surviving what we did, and pushing people away while we need them to help us heal. What we fail to notice is that talking about people losing so much hope, they wanted to end their suffering the only way they knew how, isn't helpful. They need to know that others face the same darkness and discover how they can live happier lives if not perfect ones. It worsens when a veteran hears some people simply repeat a number that isn't real, as if it doesn't matter. They need to hear about the one person they can gain inspiration from because their life does matter to the person talking to them.

The lesson we must learn about the witch trials for this part is simple. Lies were deadly then. People weren't just executed. They were tortured. Family members were tortured. Every villager feared becoming the next accused if they dared to speak. Most people disapproved of what was happening but were too afraid to speak out. PTSD was alive and thriving in Salem Village, but no one knew what to call it other than an affliction. The "victims" needed people to stand up for them in mass and deliver the accused from the evil being committed against them. 

The same holds true now when others are "afflicted" by PTSD because we survived, and no one is talking about how we lose hope in higher numbers because there are more of us. We wait and watch to see how veterans are treated with meaningless slogans, as too many suffer, and we wonder if we will ever see a day when no survivor regrets surviving. 

I left Home Depot wondering why the woman I was talking to told me she knew about the research and still repeated the false number of 22 a day. It wasn't that she didn't care. I thought it may have been because it is what far too many people believed to be true.

Salem Witch Trials and the trauma no one got over

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
September 12, 2024

When you think about the Salem Witch Trials, you may focus on the 20 innocent people murdered after being accused of being witches. What you probably don't think about is what happened to those who suffered because they lived to tell the tales no one wanted to hear.

We enjoy movies and TV programs that portray witches. One of my favorites was a recent series on Netflix, A Discovery of Witches, which I binge-watched three times.

I was glad I sucked up the fact the protagonist, Diana Bishop, was supposed to be a descendant of Bridget Bishop, and she was a witch, but Bridget was not a witch. She was accused and the first to be hung. Once I could push that fact out of the way, I found A Discovery Of Witches fantastic.

When Matthew Clairmont, a vampire, had to prove he was haunted by those he killed or turned, it was clear he was haunted by what he had done. I never thought that a vampire could be traumatized or any monster. The scene was masterfully done.

Still, I have to wonder why Deborah Harkness, the author of the All Souls series the show was based on, had to include Bridget Bishop as a witch. I feel the same way about other shows I enjoy. If they mention any of the accused as witches, I have to block my ears.

Walk into any store, and you'll find bags filled with Halloween candy, creepy decorations, and costumes. Events are planned to handle the influx of tourists seeking to experience Salem's history as The Witch City. You'll find the Witch Dungeon. There, you can witness a reenactment of Sarah Good's trial. The problem is when the site opens with "Come raise the devil," it doesn't mention the fact the devil was in the accusers, but hell was what the accused had to endure. One of them was Sarah Good's four-year-old daughter Dorothy.

Dorothy Good said her mother, Sarah, was a witch. The problem was a four-year-old would have to be a genius to use the words she said.

During Good’s interrogation, her four-year-old daughter Dorothy “confessed” to witchcraft. Dorothy’s confession implicated Good for black magic, though some believe that Dorothy only “confessed” so that she could be reunited with her mother. Dorothy likewise alleged that her mother had gifted her a snake, or a “witches’ familiar.” Dorothy then showed the magistrates where the snake had sucked her blood, though some suspect that the wound was little more than a flea bite. Dorothy, who bit and pinched her interrogators, was, too, accused of witchcraft. Dorothy remained imprisoned for nine months at Salem Jail, an indefensible experience which left Dorothy mentally impaired.

Yet even the claim about Dorothy where she was held is disputed. Some notable sites say she was transferred to Boston because of overcrowding. Others say she was taken to Ipswitch after that. Salem "Jail" wasn't what we think a jail is. The dungeon was used for the most dangerous prisoners, such as murderers, pirates, and witches. It was dark and rat-infested, and the prisoners were shackled. The stench from human waste, filthy bodies covered with lice, and clothing turning into rags. And then there were the torture sessions. With 300 of the accused being provided room and board in four prisons, no one was released after being cleared of the charges until they paid for their "care," including paying for the use of the shackles. If they couldn't pay for food, they were given bread, water...and nothing more.

That horror was Dorothy Good's young life. It was also the lives of at least seven other children. It was how some spent their last days dying there. Lydia Dustin was one of them. She was held until her passing on March 10, 1693. No one was the same after those horrible months, but it was Dorothy Good's lifelong horror she would never recover from. She was forced to claim that her mother was a witch and that she was one as well. She watched Sarah give birth to her sister Mercy and then watched as Mercy died. She watched her mother being taken from her and never returned. And then spent months as a five-year-old in those horrible prisons.

They didn't know about the term PTSD back then, but they sure as hell knew what it was. 

Those are just some traumatic stories no one wants to remember when they enjoy a good show or are entertained. Most people still think they burned witches in Salem. That didn't happen in Salem, but in Scotland and England, only burned the bodies so they couldn't be buried. Instead of talking about hundreds, we're talking about thousands enduring the terror of being accused and punished for something they didn't do.

The other thing we don't talk about is how the people had the power to stop all of it if they joined forces. Taking a stand when those who did speak out were accused of witchcraft prevented others from trying. They never got over that, either.

Because I love to help

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 27, 2024

I have been hearing people say hateful things most of my life. However, I have never witnessed so many people spreading hatred as if it were something to be proud of. How does it make them feel about filling themselves up with it?  Do they notice it doesn't make their lives better? I don't need to wonder about those doing things out of love. I know it fills them with the knowledge they helped someone.

Over the years, people asked me why I do what I do to help people with #PTSD. The answer was simple. Because I can remember what it was like to feel lost and alone. I'll never forget the hope I was given when people started to help and guide me. I realize that was back before a lot of readers were born. After all, it was the late 80s, and practically no one had the internet. (Not that it would have helped since we didn't have computers either.) 

My generation knew more about PTSD because we learned the old-fashioned way. We talked face to face. Sharing what it was like was hard at first. Society told us that PTSD was something to be ashamed of because we were too weak to get over it. We told each other we understood what surviving did because it did it to us. 

Some people I helped were fixated on hating others because they were hurt by others. When they reached the point where they trusted me, I'd ask them if hating did anything to change their lives. No one said it did. Then, I asked them how it felt to help someone. They said it made them happier. Most said it made them more peaceful inside or gave them hope. It's a spiritual thing anyone can do...and should do.

What I did, the hours I spent helping, filled me with more than any time spent hating did. Every second I spent remembering people who hurt me in the past drained me. I decided to remove the power they held over me and refused to allow them to continue to hurt me. 

I had to realize that they had long forgotten me, and it is doubtful they lost any sleep over the harm they did. I lost too much sleep tossing and turning about getting revenge. I had to decide to push my memory of them out of my mind so that the memories of those who helped me could fill me. After all, I had more people doing what they could for me than those who did what they could to destroy me.

Do you spend time hating people? Do you hate people you don't even know? Do you notice none of that hatred makes your life better? You realize you don't want it in your life once you open your eyes to what hatred is doing to you. Push it out so love can move in.

PTSD: 'Cry together, laugh together'

If you take nothing else away from the article below, remember this part.

'Cry together, laugh together'

Immediately after the fires, the town's art gallery became a refuge for residents and tourists alike.

Left in devastation, with a long recovery process ahead, Mallacoota Arts Council president Ms Casement and fellow artists banded together to run art workshops to take people's minds off the horrific event and provide a safe space to gather.

I found that and the report extremely comforting. Knowing a community was coming together to help fellow residents heal instead of just focusing on veterans gave me great hope that people like me mattered as much as veterans. That's what all of us need to remember. #PTSD is about surviving something others will never know or understand. That's why it is so important for us to find support from others who will help us.

Art classes help Mallacoota residents process bushfire trauma and find connections

ABC News
By Jessica Schremmer
July 28, 2024

In the aftermath, many people struggled to find words, expressions and ways to deal with the disastrous experience and psychological stress.

Ms Casement says people are traumatised and still processing what happened.(ABC News: Jessica Schremmer)

When the catastrophic 2019 bushfire ripped through the small coastal town of Mallacoota in Victoria's far east, it changed the vibrant community's fabric forever.

For some residents, the fire turned everything they owned into ash.

Resident Lynn Casement's home was among the 123 houses the fire destroyed.

"I will be traumatised probably for the rest of my life," she said.

"So many people after the bushfires have suffered PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] and are traumatised by what they saw and what they felt."

Sarah Holt, who moved from Melbourne to her new home in Mallacoota in 2019, lost everything just months later in the bushfire emergency.
read more here

What is your comminty doing for your residents? Are they aware of how many of you are suffering after surviving? If not, then how about you do something to explain it to them? If they are, then how about you spread the word about what they are doing? Don't simply assume just because you know about it, others like you know as well.

It is my greatest hope that you will acknowledge knowing there is nothing to be ashamed of because of what being a survivor did to you, will help you open up to help others like you. Believe it or not, that is also healing for you. I know it has been for me.

Are you feeding the #PTSD posion trying to kill you?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 23, 2024

Are you telling yourself you're taking care of getting over what happened to you, or are you feeding the #PTSD posion trying to kill you?

I know I did that. It was after my first husband tried to kill me. My friends weren't willing to listen to me. Truthfully, I wasn't willing to talk most of the time. Their solution was to take me out every night to our favorite bar. They were trying to cheer me up. I was trying to get drunk enough to get some sleep. I figured if I passed out, the nightmares wouldn't wake me up as soon as I fell asleep. My poison was CC and Sprite. It should have been something to kill what came with PTSD instead of trying to get numb.

That was my solution back in 1981. People like me weren't talked about back then, and reporters didn't interview survivors of other traumas either. No one understood us but us. We didn't have the Internet or home computers. We had to deal with all of it on our own. What made it worse was that veterans had to deal with it on their own as well, which is ironic considering that researchers were studying what combat had done to them.

I used my own history as the basis for the protagonist of The Scribe Of Salem. Chris Papadopoulos is, in many ways, the male version of me. His pain and confusion regarding PTSD were what I went through. His struggles with God were the torment I went through many times. He self-medicated to kill the emotions he didn't want to feel since none of them were good ones.

I created friends for him because they were the friends I wished I had. Not that there was anything wrong with the real friends I had back then, but they didn't know what I was going through and were unable to help me. Chris was surrounded by survivors of other traumas. They remembered the pain but wanted to share the healing to restore hope within him.

It had to take place in Salem because it is an example of what can happen when faith turns against us. Faith was used as a weapon to control the people and cause them to fear everyone around them. They knew they could be the next ones to be accused of witchcraft. It didn't matter that people used the gifts in their spirits to help others. It didn't matter that most of those charged and murdered had no relationship to any type of witchcraft any more than the other 200 imprisoned were innocent. This hatred-inspired trauma caused another trauma of faith.

One of the biggest struggles I had was spiritually based, but I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I tried. My Priest had no understanding of what trauma did mentally or spiritually. It wasn't his fault he wasn't trained to understand it. After all, most therapists in the civilian world weren't trained either. Now, even the National Center For PTSD addresses the need for spiritual therapy. I helped people understand what PTSD was and then addressed their spiritual struggles. When they were ready, I made sure they sought mental health professionals.

The Scribe of Salem flips many popular beliefs around to change the conversation most of us wish we had heard. It flips what many hear in church to focus on what scripture tells us but they will not speak of. It flips what many think they know about Salem, including the fact that none of the accused were witches. After all, the judges supposedly thought witches possessed all sorts of powers. Did they really think the "witches" would just sit around waiting to be arrested? It flips from what too many think PTSD is into what it really is. It flips what people think about secret societies and conspiracies. 

I wrote it because I couldn't find anything like it. My poison of choice became something to kill the demon called PTSD. Isn't it about time someone flipped the conversation around and made it something that most of us need? 

Consider the truth a giant-size bug killer

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 17, 2024

Some people mellow with age. Some people don't. I am one of those. I've reached a point when things bug me so much that I've been binge-watching shows repeatedly. I prefer to watch made-up horror shows than watch the news. Current events are more terrifying to me.

When people believe lies because they are of popular beliefs, no matter how ridiculous the lies are, truth isn't popular in their circles. No truth can penetrate their closed-down minds. The rest of us wonder what is wrong with them, especially if we know them to be people with functioning brain cells.

Hell has gone wrong with them. It isn't as if we haven't seen all this before. It has happened throughout history and has had deadly results. For those of us with PTSD, the lies we hear are more popular than the truths we need to know. It bugs me that the buzzing lies also come with financial gain for those pretending to help us. Sure, we could be grateful we aren't their targets because, apparently, they only know about Veterans with PTSD. It's hard to be thankful when we have been forgotten in all the news reports and veteran charity groups getting all the attention while the rest of us are left alone.

It bugs me that I used to be guilty of being just as obvious about civilians suffering, even though I was one of them.

Years ago, someone left a comment regarding how civilians with PTSD were ignored. I thought about it and then concluded that veterans were different. As a nation, we owed them help to heal what combat did to them. All the researchers back then agreed veterans needed to be treated in their own groups and receive therapy from professionals with special training able to care for them. I wasn't a veteran and never had trouble finding a therapist to help me. Not that I had a clue I was dealing with PTSD at the time, and my therapists didn't see it either. I just needed to do talk therapy to work through a lot of things. One was what I was going through with my husband when the stress was changing me. I was feeling angry most of the time. That is not in my nature. I knew I needed help to let it go.

Now I know I was living with PTSD in me most of my life. I had no clue I was suffering from a rare form of it. It bugs me that with all the clinical books I read, the therapists I saw, and the professionals I knew because of my work, I never learned anything about people like me. 

It bugs me that after all these years, veterans are still hearing lies because they are more popular than the truth. It bugs me they don't know civilians end up with PTSD after surviving just one event. They could see what their surviving events did to them if they knew about us. 

It bugs me that we don't communicate with them, and they don't communicate with us. Donating to charities focusing on veterans is all we need to do for them. We have no clue that sharing our struggles with them would help them more, and they have no clue that sharing their stories with us would help us as well.

So, what can we do to change the conversation? The next time you hear a lie buzzing in your ear, slap it with some truth and stop it from moving in. Explain the truth to the one telling you the lie. Read anything online you know is a lie, confront them with the truth, or at least let people know that the writer doesn't know what they are talking about. This has to include professional people lying about it.

We have enough crap that bugs us in the world we live in. Consider the truth a giant-size bug killer. 

PTSD:Demons don't just come out at night

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 11, 2024

Have you ever watched a horror movie or read a book and wondered if demons are real? The answer is yes, they are.

While you probably have heard of the religious practice of exorcisms, they have been performed for centuries. The truth is, it's gone on a lot longer than that. Just read this from National Geographic.

In Mesopotamia during the 1st millennium B.C., purveyors of magic called ašipu staved off and expelled demons that brought illness and chaos. As spiritual healers, ašipu were esteemed protectors who used amulets, performed elaborate rituals and, when needed, engaged helper demon figures in their efforts. The ancient Greek word daimon—from which the modern "demon" derives—referred to god-like spirits and supernatural forces. While a daimon could be good or evil, the latter was a malevolent force that needed to be cast out or exorcized. The 1st century A.D. historian Josephus recounted the story of Eleazar, a man who freed others from a demon by drawing it out of his nostrils and repeatedly invoking King Solomon's name, attesting to a form of exorcism in Jewish tradition as well.

HealthLine took a look at sleep paralysis and the "demon."

How people describe them
What is this “demon” that leaves you trapped in your body, unable to move or scream? It depends who you ask.

For some it’s a faceless, shapeless presence trying to suffocate them. Others describe it as a creepy old hag with claws. Some see an alien and experience what they believe is a full alien abduction. And for others, the demons look like a dead relative.

Different cultures have different explanations for sleep paralysis demons.

Canadian Inuit attribute the sleep paralysis to spells of shamans. Japanese folklore says it’s a vengeful spirit that suffocates its enemies in their sleep.

In Brazilian folklore, the demon has a name — Pisadeira, which is Portuguese for “she who steps.” She’s a crone with long fingernails who lurks on rooftops in the night, then walks on the chest of people who sleep belly up on a full stomach.

If you have #PTSD, then you know what these are like. The difference is that the only demon invading you is the trauma you survived. I survived ten times, but it took the one event that changed everything for me. I write about it often, but as a reminder, my first husband tried to kill me and then stalked me. When I had nightmares of what he did, all the other times moved from the back of my mind and into my days. It wasn't much fun to constantly fight them. It was even worse to survive them in the first place. I had to remind myself that I did survive them and wasn't about to let them destroy me or my future.

Most won't tell you that but should say to you as soon as they offer any therapy. You are not facing the threat of the events that already happened, but you are facing the danger of what came with the memories of them.

And then there are people talking about the PTSD demons. Wrestling with demons: Veterans share their experiences of battling PTSD, addiction, suicidal thoughts.

Believe it or not, that's from the Department Of Veterans Affairs website.

Veterans’ greatest battle isn't always against an enemy combatant. Sometimes, it’s with themselves.

That’s especially true for Ben Evenson and Sam Lovdahl.

To mark Mental Health Awareness Month, the two Veterans shared the struggles they faced after serving — battles that included post-traumatic stress disorder, drug/alcohol addiction and attempted suicide.

The presentation, dubbed “Wrestling with Demons” because Evenson is now a professional wrestler and Lovdahl wrestled in high school, took place under a covered pavilion on a chilly, overcast day on the Milwaukee VA campus.

But the setting was apropos, Evenson said.

“Even though it's a (crappy) day out and it's raining, the sun is still shining, 1,500 feet above us,” he said. “It's the outlook on which you look at life that determines the outcome of where you're going and where you are now.”

PTSD doesn't want you to have hope, so it destroys it until you give up. It doesn't want you to know you can defeat it, so it gets in the way, planting doubts in your brain every time you decide to reach out. Stay away from the games it loves to play. You are smarter than that. You are stronger than that.

Maybe someone told you that PTSD was a sign of weakness. It isn't. There is nothing weak about surviving the cause of the demons invading you. You stopped being a "victim" of the event/events as soon as it ended. You became a survivor! Once you understand that, you begin to defeat it.

Now that you know demons are real, isn't it time you stopped feeding them are started to starve them?

stop being trapped by your past

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 5, 2024

The walls you hide behind to protect you from more pain also protect you from more joys. It is time to remove the walls and stop being trapped by your past.

Have you ever wondered why you push people away, especially those you love? I know I did. After all the times I survived, my family saw right through me and got me to talk about what was going on in my head. Being able to talk kept the walls of #PTSD from closing me in. It was not until my first husband tried to kill me that I hid the pain well enough that they didn't suspect more than I was willing to share.

They assumed I would open up if I needed to, but the pain of betrayal from someone I loved was far more than what he caused. It involved everyone around me. I no longer trusted anyone who loved me. They did nothing wrong to me, but the walls were built to protect me even from them. Years later, I realized I was the only one harming myself. 

I didn't trust anyone. While I was making friends and dating after what my first husband did, I never felt close to anyone. That is until I met my second husband. I saw such deep pain in his eyes, and I knew he must have seen it in mine. 

He's a Vietnam veteran. The more I got to know him, he trusted me enough to share what being in Vietnam did to him. He was so young in that dark time of his life. His WWII veteran father kept telling him to get over it. After all, that's what his generation was told. I was the first to tell him it wasn't something he could just get over. He had to get through it. He needed to break down the walls built to protect him from more pain getting inside of him.

I gave great advice but failed to take my own. It took a long time for me to open up about the times I faced death. I felt as if his times were much more severe than mine were. I made it into a contest I believed I'd never win. How could my times be more significant than his? He was in Vietnam facing the fact he could have been killed every day. My times were over, and it was done, and I was safely back home within hours.

I couldn't tell him that I had flashbacks, nightmares, mood swings, panic attacks, and felt as if I could never take down my walls enough to really let him in. About fourteen years after our marriage, we moved thousands of miles from my ex-husband. I was still being haunted, although it never made sense to me. I was able to love my husband and our daughter. I wasn't able to feel their love. It was not until my cousin sent me his obituary notice from the newspaper back home that the nightmares, along with everything else, stopped haunting me. I was free. Free to finally take down the walls and believe other people could love me. It was a fantastic feeling. It also left me confused.

Many years later, we moved again, and COVID hit. I explained to my daughter how all the stress and fear would last much longer than the pandemic. I told her what my ex-husband did to me. While she knew what happened, I never told her about the lingering pain I had. She looked at me and said that I never told her I had PTSD. I was shocked!

I was an expert, but I didn't see it. I saw two therapists to help me heal from experiences I had, and they didn't see it. I contacted a couple of psychologists I knew over the years. Both of them said I had a rare case of PTSD because of all the times throughout my life I faced death. The first two times happened on the same night when I was just five years old. Long story short, a doctor told my mother I not only could have died but that I should have died twice the night before. He said it was a miracle I was still alive. I was admitted for five days to heal. My skull was fractured, and I had a concussion.

Knowing what I know now, it is never about what caused PTSD in any of us. It is what we do about our lives as survivors. 

Open up to people you trust in your life. You don't have to tell them everything, but you must let them know the basics. Trust me, because they are as confused as you are. They have no way of knowing what's behind the changes in you. They can only make assumptions. Those assumptions cause conflict between you. Don't blame them because you will have the same reaction if you look at what they are seeing in you. 

The more you talk about it and share what you're going through, the more the walls will come down. If you can't speak to your family, try a friend. If you can't talk to a friend, find a group trying to heal. If you can't find a group you feel comfortable in, find a therapist. If you don't feel comfortable with that therapist, find another one. 

You will see the world and yourself more clearly. Seeing the world without walls in the way is fantastic when you can let joy back in.

What makes us different from others?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 30, 2024

Most of us may not say it, but we wonder who we are. Why are we here? What makes us different from others? Why do we have strange thoughts and feelings we can't figure out? The answer is within us. Some call it our soul. Others call it our spirit.

I often wonder what makes someone join the military knowing they are risking their lives. What makes people join the National Guard to help the people in their state while knowing they could also be sent to foreign lands? What makes a firefighter willing to risk their lives and members of law enforcement? Their jobs are obviously dangerous. They are also emotional. They leave their families to put strangers first. The people they are willing to die for come first while on the job. How do they do that?

The many professions people feel compelled to do that come with a high price to pay. Most say it was what they wanted to do all their lives. They can't explain why. They just knew they had to. 

Most of them told me they felt pulled to do it. They never wanted to do anything else. That pull came from the spirit within them. It is what they were created to do. It always seemed easy for them to accept that. They found it hard to accept that that same spirit also had the power to help them heal.

It was also hard for them to accept the simple fact that they were only human, and no matter how much training they had, there were limits to what any human could endure. When the rest of us suffer after one event, or as in my case, over ten of them, we are living proof they need to know.

Most people with our experience have our hearts tugged when we hear about their suffering. Yes, we also feel left out when no one is holding any events for us or forming charities to help us get the mental health care we need. Still, we feel for them. We didn't willingly risk our lives for someone else every day. We were just trying to live our lives when #PTSD hit us.

Just think about how much we could do for them if we talked to them and told them how hard it was to survive what we went through. We could prove to them that we are not ashamed to talk about it and happy to share how we healed with them. 

Aside from having our hearts filled knowing we just helped someone, there is a bonus to it. It fills our spirits and helps us heal even more. The more we help others, the more we help ourselves. That has been proven to me for over 40 years when I helped total strangers go on to live happier lives.

Try it and change the conversation they've been hearing about having PTSD into something they may have never heard before. It's time to #breakthesilence for them and others like us.

Kathie Costos

Author of The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem, and 13th Minister Of Salem

PTSD-Life is so much better on the other side of ugly

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 22, 2024

How important is it to turn something ugly that happened to you into something beautiful? By deciding to show kindness to others.

 

I have a five-inch ugly scar on my arm. Most people don't notice it, but I see it every day. My husband is waiting for surgery and is in a nursing/rehab home. I went to visit him one day, and when I walked into the lobby, I saw that they were offering the residents temporary tattoos. One of the nurses told me my husband didn't even want to take a look at them. I told her I'd get him to at least come out to see them. When he did, he decided to get a lion tattoo. They offered one for me as well. I chose the owl since it was beautiful and large. I loved it! I was glad it lasted for weeks. I'd look at my arm and see something beautiful covering something ugly.

It made me think of how no one can see the #PTSD scars inside of me, but I can. Even though they are still there, they don't control me. They have no power over me. Sure, they make me sad sometimes. They can even make me angry. Those emotions are in my control, and I won't allow them to last long. I choose to not take them out on others. I choose to cry when I need to. I choose to deal with the anger of my past and let it go. I chose to decide that I didn't deserve what happened to me and not allow it to rob me of happiness today.

I choose not to allow what happened to me to define me. I am not ashamed of what I survived. I talk about the over ten times something ugly happened to me so that someone else could gain that hope they shouldn't be ashamed. 

You can do it too. Life is so much better on the other side of ugly.

I didn't need to belong to a church to seek His help

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 15, 2024

It is hard enough to encourage people with #PTSD to seek spiritual healing but when they hear people claim to be Christian but show no relationship to what He taught, it is making it close to impossible.

I help anyone in spiritual pain because no matter if they believe in Jesus, or a higher power, it helps heal PTSD. Even the Department of Veterans Affairs noticed the importance of adding spirituality to treatment. Read Addressing Religious or Spiritual Dimensions of Trauma and PTSD

Spirituality and post-trauma mental health may influence each other, in both positive and negative ways. This has less to do with people's dispositional spiritual identity and more to do with how they spiritually cope with adversity. Given that trauma often leads to a need to find meaning, and that spirituality often provides such a meaning system in people's lives, it follows that trauma can introduce a need to reconcile difficult events with beliefs.

Changed relationship to or conception of one's deity. That is, a traumatic event can cause people to experience changes in the way they see a Higher Power, such as feeling abandoned or punished by them, feeling angry at them, or questioning how a loving, all-powerful deity could allow horrible things to happen to the innocent. When religious meaning systems are very central, then individuals may either shift their pre-existing beliefs (e.g., "There is no Higher Power.") or their sense of the situation (e.g., "I must have done something wrong to provoke this punishment."). If people see an event as likely caused by punishment from a Higher Power or evil forces, they may have a sense of predictability while also feeling that the world is more cruel than previously thought. A changed relationship with one's faith can also be made more difficult if a trauma occurs during a stage of psychospiritual development in which there are already normative doubts and questions (e.g., early adulthood; 13).

No matter what caused PTSD in you, this is an important part of your healing. The problem is, when people claim to be Christian yet spew out hatred, judgment, lies, display anger, and cause division, they are not what they claim to be, it shuts off seeking it. Understandable if people do not know what Jesus said was the way to treat others and what a "personal relationship" with Jesus means.

Here are just some of the things you need to know.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

It is great if you belong to a church and feel welcomed there but do not need to go to a building to talk to God. You can do it wherever and whenever you want. You don't need money to put into the church funds. You do not need to follow their rules or confess your sins to another human, You can follow the rules Jesus laid down if you believe in Him, or whatever the higher power you believe in. There is a huge difference between "religion" and having a spiritual relationship as a Christian or any other faith you have.

If you are suffering you need to know it was not caused by God but He understands your pain. The Beatitudes

5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.
He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He went to the mountainside to preach...not into a building.

You do not have to take an oath to a group of people that will force you to do what they say.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Notice that it says the earth is His footstool? That was what He told Isaiah when he wanted to build God a temple.

Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool: What Temple can you build for me as good as that? 2 My hand has made both earth and skies, and they are mine. Yet I will look with pity on the man who has a humble and contrite heart, who trembles at my word.

If anyone wants you to hate someone else, He preached against that. If they hate you and claim to be Christian, they are not. They just claim to be.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

There is so much in the Bible of what He said that proves too many you see on TV and at political rallies claiming to be "Christian" have no relationship to Him at all.

Do not be deceived by them because that type of person would be the first to tell you PTSD came from God instead of God is there to give you what you need to heal. I can't count how many times I've heard people say "God only gives us what we can handle." They don't realize they just told us it happened because God was punishing us. He didn't. I know He saved me many times, forgave me, took mercy, and comforted me. I didn't need to belong to a church to seek His help. You don't either.

Kathie Costos author of The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem, and 13th Minister Of Salem.

Bring Forth What Is In You

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 27, 2024

Memorial Day always brings me back to why I started to do this work over 4 decades ago. Back then, the only information I could find about #PTSD focused on veterans, like my veteran. He's a Vietnam veteran. It is because of veterans like him coming home with the unseen wounds of war that we learned about what surviving does to survivors of all traumatic events.

The oldest pandemic this nation has ever seen

If you read anything about men and women being willing to die for the sake of this nation, know this, those who survived never stopped paying the price for it. No one was forced to fight back then and no one was warned about what it would do to them other than losing their lives or limbs. The wound they brought back home needed to be healed but no one knew how to treat it.

Now we know better. We know there is a price to pay for surviving. Mental Health professionals have seen it firsthand by brain scans and learning from their patients. They focused on the mind. Physical therapists learned how to help veterans control what it did to their bodies with treatments such as Yoga. They focused on the body. Sadly, the problem was that the spiritual aspect of what was also inside their patients needed to be addressed, but wasn't.

The military has relied on Chaplains to care for the spiritual needs of service members. The Veterans Administration has recently focused on the spiritual healing of veterans with PTSD. Have you ever heard about the price far too many clergy members pay for what they do? The truth is that 35% meet the criteria for PTSD. They treat civilians so it is easy to see how military chaplains can pay the price as well as them. 

The most important thing that keeps getting missed is, that everything you need to heal is within you but the chaplains don't seem to know it is also in them.

The Gnostic Gospels Frontline
Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

You were created for a purpose. If you decided to be willing to pay the price to serve others, everything you needed, was in you from the beginning. Courage and compassion were in you along with the ability to make peace with what you had to endure and heal from within. Otherwise what gifts you have within you will allow PTSD to destroy you.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

If you believe you are paying a price as if God judged you for whatever wrong you think you may have done, it blocks your ability to heal. If you know there is nothing you cannot be forgiven for, it frees your ability to use what He put in you.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14

As for Chaplains, you were sent with everything you need to heal within you. Isn't it time to bring forth what is in you too? Once you do, you will become the healing power as a minister to their spirits.

It is time for all of you to come out of the dark and realize you are not alone. Have the courage to open up about your struggles and then use your compassion to help others heal.

Kathie Costos author of For The Love Of Jack His War My Battle, The Warrior Saw, Residual War, The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem and the 13th MInister Of Salem.

Mental Health Awareness Free eBooks

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 7, 2024

May is Mental Health Awareness Month but for us, it is every month. Every month we can become more aware of the power we have within ourselves to Take Back Our Lives from #PTSD and heal. While mental health is not just about PTSD, the only way to join this club is to become a survivor. That's the point we keep missing. There is no reason to feel ashamed of what surviving did to us. No shame in not understanding what it was doing to us or not knowing what it was doing to someone we love. Why? Because no one we knew told us.

Last year I wrote The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem, and 13th Minister Of Salem to change the conversation. The central character turned his suffering into a contest he didn't want to win. It took the efforts of two close veteran friends to open his eyes to the fact that PTSD strikes survivors of all types of life-threatening events. They understood what it took for them to become happier. Everyone else in the books had demons to fight but did not have to fight them alone. They were determined to help Chris as much as they could. In truth, the honest way to put it is life-changing events. It changes your life because you no longer live with daily normality. You are living with becoming a survivor. 

Most people will automatically assume the conversation beginning with the term PTSD will be about veterans. The truth is it happens to millions of people surviving many other events.  It happens to men, women, and children. If they feel ashamed of what surviving did to them, they won't talk about it until we change the conversation and let them know we care about them. 

The other thing most people never hear about are the scriptures they will not hear in church. Because they hold the power to bring people closer to God and discover the spiritual power they were created with, people will realize they don't need someone else to get in the middle. The spiritual battle is one of our most important ones, yet too often is ignored. 

The characters in the books helped him fight against what he was becoming so he could become what he was meant to be. He lost hope. They restored it. He loved God so much that he wanted to become a priest. Then he regarded God as "that He’s a vindictive son of a bitch playing around with people’s lives and making us suffer for fun." Surviving was some sort of punishment. Despite all of his pain, he still cared about being able to help his friends and others. He couldn't see how much compassion he held onto. 

A secret society took action to help him heal. One of them was a woman many called a witch but she was so much more. She opened his eyes and taught him to understand that he was sent to change the conversation from suffering in silence to sharing healing.

I hear your voice on the wind

And I hear you call out my name

"Listen my child," you say to me

"I am the voice of your history

Be not afraid, come follow me

Answer my call and I'll set you free"

I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain

I am the voice of your hunger and pain

I am the voice that always is calling you

I am the voice, I will remain

The Voice Celtic Women

All the characters had their own past struggles and suffered until someone else came to help them heal. They dedicate their lives to doing the same for others. 

The books are supernatural in nature and spiritual because that's what PTSD is. Our events are the horrible parts of our story. Our nightmares are our horror movies. A battle of good vs evil because our spirits filled with all that is good within us, are being treated by the memories of the bad that happened to us. We believe the darkness is all there is because no one showed us the light we can live in again, was there all along. Who we were, what made us "us," is all still there but trapped behind hopelessness.

That is why the ebooks are free for May. It is time for you to see there is so much more possible in your life than you could ever dream of.

Manik Chaturmutha for Readers' Favorite
In The Scribe of Salem: Ministers of the Mystery by Kathie Costos, readers are introduced to Chris Papadopoulos, who has witnessed his fair share of tragedies in life. As a newspaper correspondent, he has traveled the world, including the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. His life fell apart while working there. Back in America, Chris tries to survive as he suffers from trauma. He despises changes since most of them have made his life worse. However, one night at the Bishop Hotel bar in Salem, Chris gets an opportunity to turn his life around. A minister is waiting to help him in New Hampshire, and all he has to do is agree to meet her.
This book goes into great detail about topics not brought to light due to the stigma associated with them. It refers to the Salem witch trials in North America and how people were brutally tortured and executed based on hearsay and gossip. The Scribe of Salem explores themes like PTSD and domestic violence against men in marriage along with the stigma attached to it. It discusses meeting the right people, healing, the light and the darkness, addiction, and mental health. The book emphasizes how important it is to help people recover after trauma in their lives. Kathie Costos also explores feelings of hopelessness and the power within all of us to help one another achieve our life purpose. The book is recommended for those with an interest in mental health.

K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
Kathie Costos weaves an engrossing and spine-tingling tale that beautifully blends dark fantasy, gothic fiction, and supernatural horror to deliver the best of all these genres combined. This is an area of history that I’ve read a lot about and enjoyed exploring. I loved the perspective that Costos takes with the idea of secrets, gossip, whispers, and the written word being more dangerous than any otherworldly monster could ever be. The writing style is sharp and focused on the moment at hand, moving quickly through different scenes with swift dialogue that helps keep the pace. Overall, The Scribe of Salem is a work filled right to the brim with intrigue, emotional depth, and historical horror, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the series holds in store.

Cloie Belle Daffon for Readers' Favorite
The first book in the Ministers of the Mystery Series is mysterious, unique, and spiritual. Kathie Costos’ The Scribe of Salem took me on an emotional, healing journey. The characters each have had their struggles. They have all reached a low point in their lives that made them think of giving up but a fateful encounter changes their hearts and minds. I was drawn in by the characters’ struggles and stayed to see how their stories would turn out. None of their journeys have been easy but the characters persevered and pushed through. I greatly admired the strength it took for them to face another day and to continue hoping against adversity. It is hope that allows them to listen for their salvation and see a brighter day. I learned a powerful and unforgettable lesson about faith and hope and the important role it plays when it comes to reclaiming one’s life again. Good job!

Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers' Favorite
The Scribe of Salem by Kathie Costos is a great start to a new series. It’s an intriguing story, blending fantasy and supernatural horror as it delves deep into the Salem Witch Trials. Plenty of novels are based on the Witch Trials, but none are quite like this. It goes into great, descriptive detail about the horrors faced in those times and touches on other themes, such as domestic violence and PTSD. It’s also about having faith, not just in God, but in yourself and the power of friendship. It is a story of horror but also a story of pain, compassion, and healing, a gripping tale that will draw you into its tight clutches. It’s clear that Kathie Costos has done her research, and her characters are realistic people, easy to identify with, and infinitely likable. This wonderful story would make a great movie, and I highly recommend this author. I am looking forward to reading book two.

Monique Snyman for BookTrib
Kathie Costos was able to craft a wonderful, realistic — albeit terrifying — story that is both memorable and unputdownable. The Scribe of Salem will leave readers wanting more as soon as you close the book. Fortunately, two more titles are planned in the series, which means lovers of the dark and macabre can rest easily … More is on the way, rejoice!

We know these things are true

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 2, 2024

The knowledge that it happened to innocent people caused what we know as PTSD because they knew it could happen again...and they could be next.

Going through a hard time has been rough.  I wanted to stop watching the news. It's just too depressing. I've been binge-watching series on Netflix and Amazon to escape reality. (Or at least I try to.) I just finished watching the series Reign on Netflix. It is a great series with good actors. It is also a prime example of how religion has been used by powerful people to get whatever they wanted out of it. It is fascinating that Queen Mary was besieged because of her Catholic faith by Protestants. Both faiths claimed to belong to Jesus yet proved they only used His name. Had they truly followed Him, they would be more interested in what they could give than gain. It is still happening and turning people away from anything religious. The truth is, we have the power within us to stay connected to God without ever having to enter into a building.

“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent”

― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Reality reminded me of what Tolstoy wrote about "simplicity, goodness, and truth." I wonder where all that is when so many use the need for them to cause the opposite result. 

Over and over again we've seen something good corrupted by others for the power it yields. Their actions never produced good outcomes. It required the actions of good people standing up with good intentions along with bravery to attempt it.

Most of us have encountered people using their beliefs against us. They believe strange things. I've heard that our suffering came from God's judgment against us. Others claimed He was testing us. They believe that "God only gives us what we can handle." That is not as comforting as believing God gives us what we need to handle it. When we survive the cause of our PTSD, we know that help came when we least expected it just as the event came without warning. 

We know these things are true because of our experiences and what we've learned from history.

The Salem Witch trials have been the subject of countless books and movies. What's been missing from the fictional accounts are people finding the courage to take a stand against all of it. History claims that the trials ended because Governor Phips stopped them after his wife was charged.

As accusations of witchcraft spiraled, even Phips' own wife, Lady Mary Phips, was named as a witch. Soon after that, in October of 1692, Phips ordered spectral evidence and testimony would no longer suffice to convict suspects in future trials. Three weeks later Phips prohibited further arrests of witches, released 49 of the 52 of the accused witches still in prison, and dismissed the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In May of 1693, Phips pardoned the remaining suspected witches still in prison.

Religion was used to cover up greed and rhetoric designed to fuel fear was followed up by charges and arrests. History focuses on the 20 people killed but hardly mentions the other 200 arrested, jailed, and tormented before they were released.

During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Twenty of those people were executed, most by hanging. One man was pressed to death under heavy stones, the only such state-sanctioned execution of its kind. Dozens suffered under inhumane conditions as they waited in jail for months without trials; many of the imprisoned were also tortured, and at least one died in jail before the hysteria abated in 1693.

The fictional accounts never compare to the reality of the horrors the people faced during and after the trials ended. Faith was being tested by God but by humans.

In June 1630 the Arbella sailed for New England with 300 English Puritans determined to establish “a Model of Christian Charity.” During the ten-week passage across the Atlantic, passengers were confined to narrow quarters for ten weeks, living on short rations and without comfort. During the following decade, the Great Migration brought nearly 14,000 Puritan settlers, successful, mostly highly educated persons unprepared for the hardships that awaited them. Building a new society in the wilderness while surrounded by wild animals and hostile Indians induced transgenerational trauma and psychological symptoms that we now recognize as post-traumatic stress and mass conversion disorder, culminating in the Salem Witch Trials. (PTSD in the Massachusetts Bay Colony)

The knowledge that it happened to innocent people caused what we know as PTSD because they knew it could happen again...and they could be next. How did all the terror end? People found the courage to stop it. That's the way our suffering ends today. We take a stand to prevent it from inflicting more pain. It begins when we stop being ashamed of what surviving did to us.

We know the pain others are feeling because we remember the pain we felt. We remember what it was like to lose hope that our lives would ever be better than the miserable way we were living. We also remember what it was like finally hearing we were not alone because others spoke up about what they were going through. We remember what it was like when someone helped us heal because they remembered what it was like for them.

We want to feel as if we belong so we seek out others. Are they the wrong ones? Yes, if you are trying to find people who will understand you, but have yet to learn about what you're going through. Trying to fit in with them should wait until you've healed. Seek out others in the club no one wants to belong to but needs to be there as survivors. They will help you heal so that PTSD does not control your whole life and you can help others too.

That's why I wrote the Ministers Of The Mystery series. For May, all three are being offered for free as ebooks. All I ask is that if you find hope for yourself and a greater understanding of how much power you do have within you, is that you leave a review and pass it on to others because you know what they are going through too. 

The Scribe Of Salem

The Visionary Of Salem

13th Minister Of Salem