Trauma Changes Your Brain’s Response To New Events, Increasing Activity In Emotional Memory Regions
Medical City
By Susan Scutti
Jun 23, 2015
“This traumatic incident still haunts passengers regardless of whether they have PTSD or not,” Palombo said. “They remember the event as though it happened yesterday.”Following a trauma, we see the world through different eyes.
While many people intuitively agree with this statement, a new MRI study offers some hard evidence in support of this belief.
Remembering a near-plane crash they had experienced, a group of participants showed greater responses in brain regions involved in emotional memory — the amygdala, hippocampus, and midline frontal and posterior regions.
Interestingly, these same former passengers showed a remarkably similar pattern of brain activity when recalling the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which occurred shortly after the emergency plane landing, even though none of them had personal experience with the attacks.
“Mundane experiences tend to fade with the passage of time, but trauma leaves a lasting memory trace,” said Dr. Daniela Palombo, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at Boston University School of Medicine, in a press release. read more here
Showing posts with label after trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label after trauma. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Brain's Response to Trauma, Increase Emotional Memory
This is for anyone who cannot understand what trauma does. It is not mental illness. It is not just psychological. It is also emotional. The only way to get PTSD is by surviving traumatic events. Hope you caught the word "surviving" since the victims did not survive to tell us anything. You were stronger than the event when it happened and you are strong enough to defeat it now. Get help to fight for your life again.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Trauma Is When Life As You Know It Ends
Life As I Knew It Ended
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 21, 2015
When something bad happens in our lives, I doubt anyone remembers all of the way it happened especially if it happens when we're young. I know the life I had known ended and the life I ended up with actually began.
I was looking through my baby book for a picture and found this entry.
"Had 10 stitches on chin. Fractured left side of skull when she fell off a slide at the drive in movie, hospitalized. Brainwave negative. Shingles on waste lasted 5 weeks." That all happened between February and October.
I was told I was 4 when the worst happened. I guess my parents were no longer able to remember it either. Actually telling me life changed when I was 4 really did begin then.
Too many things happened that year.
In February, my Mom was driving near the hospital when someone stopped short. She slammed on the brakes and I slammed into the dashboard. Covered in blood, she rushed me into the emergency room and 10 stitches later, we went home. My chin healed but the scar never went away. I never told her but I was afraid every time she drove after that but it wasn't even her fault.
In July, I learned that there were many other dangers in the world that left deeper scars than can be seen.
My Mom filled the paper bag with fresh popcorn while I put on my pajamas. It was movie night! My brothers and I jumped into the station wagon. Mom was in the front seat getting a kick out of us begging her to let us have some popcorn. Nothing like the smell of home cooked popcorn. I don't remember what movie we were going to watch at the drive-in. We never got to see it. Before it started, life as I knew it ended.
While the cartoons were playing at the drive-in, my brothers and I went to the snack stand for drinks to go with the popcorn. On the way back, I saw the slide in the big kids park and wanted to slide down. They didn't notice me sneak away. I didn't think about being alone for the first time on top of that huge slide. After all, why be afraid when I went down it a hundred times on my brother Nick's lap?
I climbed to the top, sat my bottom down and that's when I knew I just made a huge mistake. I was too afraid to slide down it. With a line behind me of other kids waiting, I knew I couldn't walk back down. My fingers were frozen on the bars. The kid behind me was yelling at me to move. I guess he got tired of waiting and gave me a shove. I went over the side.
By then my brother Nick was looking for me. He found me passed out on the ground. My parents told me he carried me back to the car thinking I was dead most of the way. Then I opened my eyes just before we reached the car.
My Dad drove as fast as he could to the hospital. I don't remember what my brother Warren was doing or my Mom. I can remember is Nick held me in the back of the station wagon and telling him he was holding me too tight.
The next thing I remember was the doctor telling my parents to take me home and I'd be fine. I was lucky I didn't die from the fall but lucky again I didn't die during the night. It turned out the doctor didn't read the x-ray right. The next morning my parents rushed me to the children's hospital where they were told I had a fractured skull and a concussion. Letting me sleep after that kind of head trauma was the worst thing they could have done but they didn't know it. I woke up with my left eye swollen shut and wasn't talking right.
I was in the hospital for 4 days. After the swelling went down, I remember doctors and nurses coming into the children's ward wondering what was wrong with me because I looked fine to them. They couldn't see anything wrong with me until someone explained to them what happened.
A month later, according to the baby book, they did a brain scan that came out negative. All I know is that must have been done because I still couldn't talk right. The doctor told my parents to have me see a speech therapist. A month after school started I had shingles.
Life as I knew it ended again. My parents were fighting more and my Dad was drinking more. He became a violent alcoholic. Someone how I think he ended up blaming Nick because the abuse was mostly centered on him.
It was so bad that one night as my parents were shouting at eachother I was in bed, banging my head against the wall to crack it open again so they would go back to the way they were before the accident.
Folks saw the scar on my chin and knew something happened to me. They never saw the scars inside of me.
I had to learn how to talk right again, so I was reluctant to talk at all to anyone outside of my family. They talked everything to death. In other words, when something happened we all talked about it until I was done needing to. They gave lousy advice but I knew I was loved and talking about it helped. Years later after seeing family counselors I began to understand talk therapy works to bring people out of the dangers they survived into a normal place of relative safety.
I started to write my thoughts more than talk about them because as I got older I grew more self conscious about saying things especially if it was emotional and my words got jumbled up when I talked too fast.
When I turned 13, my Dad was destroying the living room in a rage without noticing me on the couch. As I got up, he had thrown a chair and it hit me. I fell to the floor and that was the last time he drank. My Mom made him leave and he stayed in an apartment for a long time while going to AA and we went to Alanon.
He moved back home but the damage had been done. After that, he had heart attacks and a couple of strokes. What I later learned was that my Dad changed a lot while in the Army. He was a Korean War veteran. By the time Nick was about 2, he was stationed in Japan and my Mom took Nick there for a year. My other brother Warren was born at Fort Dix. Dad was out of the Army when I was born. Something happened to him while he was in the service because he was 100% disabled.
Now it is obvious he must have had PTSD and I think the rest of my family suffered as well.
I made one bad decision after another jumping at what made me feel better about living. I drank at an early age, smoked cigarettes and pot. I also became a jock, as if that made sense, but it made me feel good being in control of something only I did. My high school English teacher told me I should become a writer but my parents wouldn't support that and told me I had to go to college to get a "real job" and make a living for myself.
I hated the thought. I got a good job right out of high school at the same time I was taking college classes in business. I quit two colleges but kept the job.
One night on my way home from work, I was hit in the rear by a car with failing brakes in the passing line on the highway. I threw my arms over my face as the spin sent the car into the guardrail. I thought I was going to die and my Mom would be pissed off if she couldn't have an open casket. Dumb thinking I know but that was all I could think about.
I got out of the car and pushed it from the passing lane to the breakdown lane after I knew the people in the other car were ok. I couldn't stop laughing. The EMTs got me to the hospital and I am sure they did a drug test considering my reaction to the whole thing. I am sure that I was more shocked about being alive than the accident happening. I didn't even know what hospital I was taken to when the nurse handed me the phone to talk to my Mom. The nurse had to tell her I was telling the truth. My Dad made me drive his car after we drove to see what happened to my Mom's car. Yep, I totaled it.
Driving down the same highway I almost died on was the best thing my Dad could have done because I doubt I would have gotten behind the wheel again if I waited to long.
The next time I shocked people by living was when my ex-husband came home from work one night and decided I needed to die. He started an argument, then hit me. My brothers made sure I knew how to fight and after years of swimming, I was strong enough to fight back for my life. He had me on the floor with his hands on my throat when our landlady banged on the door screaming she called the police.
The divorce papers were filed for the next day with our family lawyer.
My ex stalked me for about a year. Time and time again, we called the police but there was nothing they could do since they never caught him near me. Even the neighbors saying they saw him was not enough to stop him. Going to court over and over again did nothing. When we got divorced, the judge made me cover his health insurance and he got to keep the money I gave him to start his own business.
He finally stopped when I went after him with a 2x4 telling him next time he wouldn't be so lucky to drive away in his car.
By the time I met my current husband, I thought I had been rid of my ex until we got engaged and he walked over to Jack to introduce himself. "You're marrying my wife" he said as he reached out his hand to shake Jack's. Then I knew he must have been stalking us without being seen.
Jack and I have been married for over 30 years. He's a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and I keep saying that everything I have done in all these years is because of him and how wonderful he really is. Now I as look back on my life more I am sure the only reason why I understood what was happening to him was because of what happened to me.
I had a call from a young man who had been given my card from a friend. He wanted to know if I would help him since he was not a veteran. I told him I would simply because I knew how much he needed someone to talk to.
He told me that no one understood what was happening to him and too many people in his life walked away from him. I told him that happens all the time simply because most people just don't understand PTSD. While I have never been diagnosed with it I knew exactly what he was talking about. Then I told him the story of trying to explain it to a group a few years ago.
When I talk to non-military folks, I remind them of things they had been through that were very traumatic. Most of the people in this group started to recount things that happened in their own lives but one guy sitting in the back of the room had his arms folder around his chest giving a look of disbelief. I looked him right in the eyes and asked him if he was born or not. "What" he asked with a scowl. Then I told him that his life changed in a that one second of time.
One minute life is good and we are all being well taken care of feeling safe in the only home we've ever known with our Moms. We're there for 9 months until like a flash, we're being evicted! Tossed into the hands of a total stranger. We cry and shake while someone cleans us up in those first few seconds of life alone. That was not just our introduction into the world, it all began with that first traumatic event that changed us.
If all of us looked back on times that were traumatic in our own lives, then we'd be a lot closer to not just understanding PTSD, but healing it. Closer to less suffering and more healing but not many want to take the time to do it. So much easier to just judge someone and what scars they carry on their body instead of what they carry inside their souls.
I studied trauma and crisis intervention years after I faced most of mine so that I could understand my husband. I ended up understanding myself more.
The life I knew ended with each event I could not control but I was in control over what I did afterwards. The scar on my chin had me walking with my head down for years until I started to look upwards and forward. The problem I had talking once prohibited me from public speaking to the point where a speech I wrote in high school had to be read by a classmate for a national contest and won first prize but no one outside the class knew I wrote it. Now I talk all the time.
My faith in God has been tested more times than I can even remember but today it is strong to be able to talk about His love and the power our souls have to overcome anything. My belief in love was shattered but after spending over half my life with my husband and still holding hands, I believe that love can be stronger than anything else.
What happens to us is not all there is. Just because life as we know it ends with trauma, that doesn't mean the next chapter in the book of us can't be even better than the last. Don't close the book on your life. Heal and put the rest of your life back into your own hands. You are not trauma's victim. You are a survivor!
You can read the rest of what happened in For the Love of Jack, His War My Battle
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 21, 2015
When something bad happens in our lives, I doubt anyone remembers all of the way it happened especially if it happens when we're young. I know the life I had known ended and the life I ended up with actually began.
I was looking through my baby book for a picture and found this entry.
I was told I was 4 when the worst happened. I guess my parents were no longer able to remember it either. Actually telling me life changed when I was 4 really did begin then.
Too many things happened that year.
In February, my Mom was driving near the hospital when someone stopped short. She slammed on the brakes and I slammed into the dashboard. Covered in blood, she rushed me into the emergency room and 10 stitches later, we went home. My chin healed but the scar never went away. I never told her but I was afraid every time she drove after that but it wasn't even her fault.
In July, I learned that there were many other dangers in the world that left deeper scars than can be seen.
My Mom filled the paper bag with fresh popcorn while I put on my pajamas. It was movie night! My brothers and I jumped into the station wagon. Mom was in the front seat getting a kick out of us begging her to let us have some popcorn. Nothing like the smell of home cooked popcorn. I don't remember what movie we were going to watch at the drive-in. We never got to see it. Before it started, life as I knew it ended.
While the cartoons were playing at the drive-in, my brothers and I went to the snack stand for drinks to go with the popcorn. On the way back, I saw the slide in the big kids park and wanted to slide down. They didn't notice me sneak away. I didn't think about being alone for the first time on top of that huge slide. After all, why be afraid when I went down it a hundred times on my brother Nick's lap?
I climbed to the top, sat my bottom down and that's when I knew I just made a huge mistake. I was too afraid to slide down it. With a line behind me of other kids waiting, I knew I couldn't walk back down. My fingers were frozen on the bars. The kid behind me was yelling at me to move. I guess he got tired of waiting and gave me a shove. I went over the side.
By then my brother Nick was looking for me. He found me passed out on the ground. My parents told me he carried me back to the car thinking I was dead most of the way. Then I opened my eyes just before we reached the car.
My Dad drove as fast as he could to the hospital. I don't remember what my brother Warren was doing or my Mom. I can remember is Nick held me in the back of the station wagon and telling him he was holding me too tight.
The next thing I remember was the doctor telling my parents to take me home and I'd be fine. I was lucky I didn't die from the fall but lucky again I didn't die during the night. It turned out the doctor didn't read the x-ray right. The next morning my parents rushed me to the children's hospital where they were told I had a fractured skull and a concussion. Letting me sleep after that kind of head trauma was the worst thing they could have done but they didn't know it. I woke up with my left eye swollen shut and wasn't talking right.
I was in the hospital for 4 days. After the swelling went down, I remember doctors and nurses coming into the children's ward wondering what was wrong with me because I looked fine to them. They couldn't see anything wrong with me until someone explained to them what happened.
A month later, according to the baby book, they did a brain scan that came out negative. All I know is that must have been done because I still couldn't talk right. The doctor told my parents to have me see a speech therapist. A month after school started I had shingles.
Life as I knew it ended again. My parents were fighting more and my Dad was drinking more. He became a violent alcoholic. Someone how I think he ended up blaming Nick because the abuse was mostly centered on him.
It was so bad that one night as my parents were shouting at eachother I was in bed, banging my head against the wall to crack it open again so they would go back to the way they were before the accident.
Folks saw the scar on my chin and knew something happened to me. They never saw the scars inside of me.
I had to learn how to talk right again, so I was reluctant to talk at all to anyone outside of my family. They talked everything to death. In other words, when something happened we all talked about it until I was done needing to. They gave lousy advice but I knew I was loved and talking about it helped. Years later after seeing family counselors I began to understand talk therapy works to bring people out of the dangers they survived into a normal place of relative safety.
I started to write my thoughts more than talk about them because as I got older I grew more self conscious about saying things especially if it was emotional and my words got jumbled up when I talked too fast.
When I turned 13, my Dad was destroying the living room in a rage without noticing me on the couch. As I got up, he had thrown a chair and it hit me. I fell to the floor and that was the last time he drank. My Mom made him leave and he stayed in an apartment for a long time while going to AA and we went to Alanon.
He moved back home but the damage had been done. After that, he had heart attacks and a couple of strokes. What I later learned was that my Dad changed a lot while in the Army. He was a Korean War veteran. By the time Nick was about 2, he was stationed in Japan and my Mom took Nick there for a year. My other brother Warren was born at Fort Dix. Dad was out of the Army when I was born. Something happened to him while he was in the service because he was 100% disabled.
Now it is obvious he must have had PTSD and I think the rest of my family suffered as well.
I made one bad decision after another jumping at what made me feel better about living. I drank at an early age, smoked cigarettes and pot. I also became a jock, as if that made sense, but it made me feel good being in control of something only I did. My high school English teacher told me I should become a writer but my parents wouldn't support that and told me I had to go to college to get a "real job" and make a living for myself.
I hated the thought. I got a good job right out of high school at the same time I was taking college classes in business. I quit two colleges but kept the job.
One night on my way home from work, I was hit in the rear by a car with failing brakes in the passing line on the highway. I threw my arms over my face as the spin sent the car into the guardrail. I thought I was going to die and my Mom would be pissed off if she couldn't have an open casket. Dumb thinking I know but that was all I could think about.
I got out of the car and pushed it from the passing lane to the breakdown lane after I knew the people in the other car were ok. I couldn't stop laughing. The EMTs got me to the hospital and I am sure they did a drug test considering my reaction to the whole thing. I am sure that I was more shocked about being alive than the accident happening. I didn't even know what hospital I was taken to when the nurse handed me the phone to talk to my Mom. The nurse had to tell her I was telling the truth. My Dad made me drive his car after we drove to see what happened to my Mom's car. Yep, I totaled it.
Driving down the same highway I almost died on was the best thing my Dad could have done because I doubt I would have gotten behind the wheel again if I waited to long.
The next time I shocked people by living was when my ex-husband came home from work one night and decided I needed to die. He started an argument, then hit me. My brothers made sure I knew how to fight and after years of swimming, I was strong enough to fight back for my life. He had me on the floor with his hands on my throat when our landlady banged on the door screaming she called the police.
The divorce papers were filed for the next day with our family lawyer.
My ex stalked me for about a year. Time and time again, we called the police but there was nothing they could do since they never caught him near me. Even the neighbors saying they saw him was not enough to stop him. Going to court over and over again did nothing. When we got divorced, the judge made me cover his health insurance and he got to keep the money I gave him to start his own business.
He finally stopped when I went after him with a 2x4 telling him next time he wouldn't be so lucky to drive away in his car.
By the time I met my current husband, I thought I had been rid of my ex until we got engaged and he walked over to Jack to introduce himself. "You're marrying my wife" he said as he reached out his hand to shake Jack's. Then I knew he must have been stalking us without being seen.
Jack and I have been married for over 30 years. He's a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and I keep saying that everything I have done in all these years is because of him and how wonderful he really is. Now I as look back on my life more I am sure the only reason why I understood what was happening to him was because of what happened to me.
I had a call from a young man who had been given my card from a friend. He wanted to know if I would help him since he was not a veteran. I told him I would simply because I knew how much he needed someone to talk to.
He told me that no one understood what was happening to him and too many people in his life walked away from him. I told him that happens all the time simply because most people just don't understand PTSD. While I have never been diagnosed with it I knew exactly what he was talking about. Then I told him the story of trying to explain it to a group a few years ago.
When I talk to non-military folks, I remind them of things they had been through that were very traumatic. Most of the people in this group started to recount things that happened in their own lives but one guy sitting in the back of the room had his arms folder around his chest giving a look of disbelief. I looked him right in the eyes and asked him if he was born or not. "What" he asked with a scowl. Then I told him that his life changed in a that one second of time.
One minute life is good and we are all being well taken care of feeling safe in the only home we've ever known with our Moms. We're there for 9 months until like a flash, we're being evicted! Tossed into the hands of a total stranger. We cry and shake while someone cleans us up in those first few seconds of life alone. That was not just our introduction into the world, it all began with that first traumatic event that changed us.
If all of us looked back on times that were traumatic in our own lives, then we'd be a lot closer to not just understanding PTSD, but healing it. Closer to less suffering and more healing but not many want to take the time to do it. So much easier to just judge someone and what scars they carry on their body instead of what they carry inside their souls.
I studied trauma and crisis intervention years after I faced most of mine so that I could understand my husband. I ended up understanding myself more.
The life I knew ended with each event I could not control but I was in control over what I did afterwards. The scar on my chin had me walking with my head down for years until I started to look upwards and forward. The problem I had talking once prohibited me from public speaking to the point where a speech I wrote in high school had to be read by a classmate for a national contest and won first prize but no one outside the class knew I wrote it. Now I talk all the time.
My faith in God has been tested more times than I can even remember but today it is strong to be able to talk about His love and the power our souls have to overcome anything. My belief in love was shattered but after spending over half my life with my husband and still holding hands, I believe that love can be stronger than anything else.
What happens to us is not all there is. Just because life as we know it ends with trauma, that doesn't mean the next chapter in the book of us can't be even better than the last. Don't close the book on your life. Heal and put the rest of your life back into your own hands. You are not trauma's victim. You are a survivor!
You can read the rest of what happened in For the Love of Jack, His War My Battle
Monday, March 16, 2015
Combat Isn't the Same As Understanding What It Does
What Trauma Does Is Easier To Understand Than Trauma Itself
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2015
Understanding PTSD is not the same as being there when the trauma happened.
You don't have to have been in combat to understand what it did to far too many. The other good part of this is, you don't have to before you can help them. The truth is, they don't understand you either.
How can they understand someone who spends their time on Facebook looking at pictures of what someone had for dinner or watching the latest reality TV show while they were risking their lives in Afghanistan? How can you understand watching bombs blow up friends or worrying about it all the time for a year when you were here?
The trick is, you can understand what the experience did even if you can't understand the experience itself.
A friend of mine wanted to know what to say to a veteran she was talking to when he told her that there is no way she'd ever understand him because she was never in the military. I told her, quite simply, she didn't have to go to understand what it is like to be human and experience the aftermath of a traumatic event. Then I told her what I usually say. "You can't understand my life story either, but you can understand what it did to me.
It happens a lot when I get into conversations with veterans but one veteran stands out in my memory right now. We had talked a few times before the game of who had it worse got started. He didn't want to hear me say I understood because he knew I wasn't a veteran. I started out with asking him if he ever heard about trauma caused by different causes. He said none of them were worse than the hell he went through. I told him he was probably right but that didn't mean no one could understand what it did to him.
See, the first time I almost died, someone did it to me. I was only 4, escaped the watchful eye of my older brother, headed to the top of a slide at a drive-in movie (yes I'm that old) and got scared. Going up was easy. It wasn't until I got to the top without my brother that I knew I made a mistake. I didn't know what to do. If I laid down, shut my eyes I might have made it but at 4, didn't even think of that. The kid behind me was tired for waiting so he gave me a shove. Trouble is, the shove was too hard and sent me over the side.
I landed on cement, head first. To this day I get teased by folks saying "Oh so that's what's wrong with you." But they don't really know. They don't know what it was like for my brother finding me, thinking I was dead carrying me back to the car. They didn't know what it was like for my family when I opened my eyes or what it was like in the hospital for a week.
They didn't know what it was like to suddenly have to see a speech therapist, had memory problems or what it was like to go from daredevil to being terrified of heights.
Well, the veteran finally understood I knew what TBI was even though when I was young, they didn't know much about what happens to the brain after something like that.
We ended up comparing notes on how it hit us, had some laughs over it and then we moved onto the other contest. He challenge me on PTSD.
I told him straight out "I don't have PTSD but would have if I wasn't so weird."
He was confused. After hearing the story of the slide, he must have assumed my life after that was normal. It was far from just getting my brain to make peace with the rewiring job that just happened.
My Dad (Korean War) was also a violent alcoholic until I was 13. The only time he hurt me, it was an accident. He was destroying the living room, not knowing I was there when he picked up the chair, threw it across the room and hit me in the head. It was the last day he drank. He ended up joining AA. All those years of what can cause PTSD, didn't. It did change me but it didn't destroy me.
Then there was a car accident that I shouldn't have survived, health issues and oh, my ex husband really should have caused it because he came home from work one night and tried to kill me. Then he stalked me for over a year. To this day I thank God my brothers made sure I knew how to fight because I fought back and saved my own life.
More health issues and the loss of far too many family members, including my husband's nephew. He was also a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and committed suicide many years after I'd been helping other veterans go for help. I couldn't help him.
One of the reasons why when I do a suicide article now it is still like a dagger to my heart.
Then there is what my family went through when PTSD was worse for my husband, but don't be sad since things are so much better now and we've been married for 30 years.
Then I told the veteran, I didn't expect him to understand what my life was like, but he could understand what it did to me.
He got the point, then he wanted to know what I did to fix it.
"Fix it?" as if there was some kind of magic trick I could pull off. There was nothing magical about it but there an abundance of spiritual about all of it.
I had to forgive. Forgive the people who did something to me as much as I had to forgive myself. Human nature demands we damn ourselves finding causes for what happened. By the time I had to, I was already conditioned to do it.
Start with faith and what Jesus did on the Cross.
Jesus spent His entire life talking about forgiveness.
Prayer
Sure I had to rationalize God being able to forgive me because I believed in Christ and what He said, but how could I forgive myself? After all there had to be something wrong with me for all this to happen to me, especially what other people did to me. It had to be my fault. Right?
Then it dawned on me that I forgave the people how hurt me on purpose more easily than I forgave myself.
Dumb, I know, but true.
I still deal with some of it like when someone comes up behind me, I jump. I cringe every time I hear car brakes squeal. The list goes on but I am no longer a victim of things that happened. I am a survivor of them and far too stubborn to let those times win.
I refuse to let the trauma destroy me afterwards when it didn't destroy me when it all happened.
If you are a veteran, don't have to either.
PTSD doesn't have to defeat you after you defied it. Don't let it define your life even though it has been able to define who you are today, it doesn't have the power to determine who you are tomorrow.
Talk to someone. You don't have to tell your family or friends everything that happened in combat, but share with them that you are hurting and what you're going through today.
I came from a big extended family. Remember the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and the everyone knowing everything about everyone? Well, that was what my family was like. While I knew they loved me and we talked everything to death, they gave lousy advice most of the time, but they listened until I didn't need to talk anymore.
It helped as much as any psychologist could but even with them on my side, I had to see a psychologist when stress was getting to me years later. Between living with PTSD and working with veterans for so long, I needed help. Again, I talked, she listened until I didn't need to talk anymore.
My family and friends were able to understand the human part of me even if they couldn't understand what it was like to survive all the stuff I went through. They didn't have to. Your family and friends don't have to either.
Anyway, the veteran in the first part of this story ended up feeling worse for me than for himself. Not because of what I went through but because he judged me. I told him I was used to it and so was he. Folks were judging him one way or another as well. Either they thought he should be tougher or they thought he should have been a wreck. No one is ever right all the time and that is the beauty of being human.
We learn from each other, we share what we have in common and can stand side by side with folks from different past experiences. Give people a chance to understand what they can and you may be surprised by how much they can connect to you today even they were not where you were.
I never stop being amazed by how much others do understand. PTSD cannot be cured but you can heal. You can live a better life and what you can't "fix" you can adapt to. You are not stuck right where you are today anymore than I was stuck forever on that damn slide or on the ground below it.
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2015
Understanding PTSD is not the same as being there when the trauma happened.
You don't have to have been in combat to understand what it did to far too many. The other good part of this is, you don't have to before you can help them. The truth is, they don't understand you either.
How can they understand someone who spends their time on Facebook looking at pictures of what someone had for dinner or watching the latest reality TV show while they were risking their lives in Afghanistan? How can you understand watching bombs blow up friends or worrying about it all the time for a year when you were here?
The trick is, you can understand what the experience did even if you can't understand the experience itself.
A friend of mine wanted to know what to say to a veteran she was talking to when he told her that there is no way she'd ever understand him because she was never in the military. I told her, quite simply, she didn't have to go to understand what it is like to be human and experience the aftermath of a traumatic event. Then I told her what I usually say. "You can't understand my life story either, but you can understand what it did to me.
It happens a lot when I get into conversations with veterans but one veteran stands out in my memory right now. We had talked a few times before the game of who had it worse got started. He didn't want to hear me say I understood because he knew I wasn't a veteran. I started out with asking him if he ever heard about trauma caused by different causes. He said none of them were worse than the hell he went through. I told him he was probably right but that didn't mean no one could understand what it did to him.
See, the first time I almost died, someone did it to me. I was only 4, escaped the watchful eye of my older brother, headed to the top of a slide at a drive-in movie (yes I'm that old) and got scared. Going up was easy. It wasn't until I got to the top without my brother that I knew I made a mistake. I didn't know what to do. If I laid down, shut my eyes I might have made it but at 4, didn't even think of that. The kid behind me was tired for waiting so he gave me a shove. Trouble is, the shove was too hard and sent me over the side.
I landed on cement, head first. To this day I get teased by folks saying "Oh so that's what's wrong with you." But they don't really know. They don't know what it was like for my brother finding me, thinking I was dead carrying me back to the car. They didn't know what it was like for my family when I opened my eyes or what it was like in the hospital for a week.
Well, the veteran finally understood I knew what TBI was even though when I was young, they didn't know much about what happens to the brain after something like that.
We ended up comparing notes on how it hit us, had some laughs over it and then we moved onto the other contest. He challenge me on PTSD.
I told him straight out "I don't have PTSD but would have if I wasn't so weird."
He was confused. After hearing the story of the slide, he must have assumed my life after that was normal. It was far from just getting my brain to make peace with the rewiring job that just happened.
My Dad (Korean War) was also a violent alcoholic until I was 13. The only time he hurt me, it was an accident. He was destroying the living room, not knowing I was there when he picked up the chair, threw it across the room and hit me in the head. It was the last day he drank. He ended up joining AA. All those years of what can cause PTSD, didn't. It did change me but it didn't destroy me.
Then there was a car accident that I shouldn't have survived, health issues and oh, my ex husband really should have caused it because he came home from work one night and tried to kill me. Then he stalked me for over a year. To this day I thank God my brothers made sure I knew how to fight because I fought back and saved my own life.
More health issues and the loss of far too many family members, including my husband's nephew. He was also a Vietnam veteran with PTSD and committed suicide many years after I'd been helping other veterans go for help. I couldn't help him.
One of the reasons why when I do a suicide article now it is still like a dagger to my heart.
Then there is what my family went through when PTSD was worse for my husband, but don't be sad since things are so much better now and we've been married for 30 years.
Then I told the veteran, I didn't expect him to understand what my life was like, but he could understand what it did to me.
He got the point, then he wanted to know what I did to fix it.
"Fix it?" as if there was some kind of magic trick I could pull off. There was nothing magical about it but there an abundance of spiritual about all of it.
I had to forgive. Forgive the people who did something to me as much as I had to forgive myself. Human nature demands we damn ourselves finding causes for what happened. By the time I had to, I was already conditioned to do it.
Start with faith and what Jesus did on the Cross.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:34
Jesus spent His entire life talking about forgiveness.
Prayer
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Sure I had to rationalize God being able to forgive me because I believed in Christ and what He said, but how could I forgive myself? After all there had to be something wrong with me for all this to happen to me, especially what other people did to me. It had to be my fault. Right?
Then it dawned on me that I forgave the people how hurt me on purpose more easily than I forgave myself.
Dumb, I know, but true.
I still deal with some of it like when someone comes up behind me, I jump. I cringe every time I hear car brakes squeal. The list goes on but I am no longer a victim of things that happened. I am a survivor of them and far too stubborn to let those times win.
I refuse to let the trauma destroy me afterwards when it didn't destroy me when it all happened.
If you are a veteran, don't have to either.
PTSD doesn't have to defeat you after you defied it. Don't let it define your life even though it has been able to define who you are today, it doesn't have the power to determine who you are tomorrow.
Talk to someone. You don't have to tell your family or friends everything that happened in combat, but share with them that you are hurting and what you're going through today.
I came from a big extended family. Remember the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and the everyone knowing everything about everyone? Well, that was what my family was like. While I knew they loved me and we talked everything to death, they gave lousy advice most of the time, but they listened until I didn't need to talk anymore.
It helped as much as any psychologist could but even with them on my side, I had to see a psychologist when stress was getting to me years later. Between living with PTSD and working with veterans for so long, I needed help. Again, I talked, she listened until I didn't need to talk anymore.
My family and friends were able to understand the human part of me even if they couldn't understand what it was like to survive all the stuff I went through. They didn't have to. Your family and friends don't have to either.
Anyway, the veteran in the first part of this story ended up feeling worse for me than for himself. Not because of what I went through but because he judged me. I told him I was used to it and so was he. Folks were judging him one way or another as well. Either they thought he should be tougher or they thought he should have been a wreck. No one is ever right all the time and that is the beauty of being human.
We learn from each other, we share what we have in common and can stand side by side with folks from different past experiences. Give people a chance to understand what they can and you may be surprised by how much they can connect to you today even they were not where you were.
I never stop being amazed by how much others do understand. PTSD cannot be cured but you can heal. You can live a better life and what you can't "fix" you can adapt to. You are not stuck right where you are today anymore than I was stuck forever on that damn slide or on the ground below it.
Friday, February 20, 2015
"We Can Swear to You That These Things Pass" and PTSD Can Lose
Welcome Back The New You
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 20, 2015
We hear a lot of people say "Welcome Home" to veterans. It sounds nice but would be better to say "Welcome Back" because everything that happens in our lives removes us from where we were and we return changed.
I am not a veteran. I am just an Army brat daughter of a Korean War veteran and wife of a Vietnam veteran. I moved from my home town and returned many times but I changed and so did the place where I grew up.
The house I was raised in belongs to someone else. The first apartment I lived in is occupied by someone else and the first home I bought is in someone else's name. The church I attended all my life until the move has changed so much I hardly recognized it. Home isn't the same anymore. My home now is here and I am a stranger back there.
My experiences changed me little by little. When I was a child I didn't pay much attention to my Dad or my uncles (WWII veterans) because they were there all the time. I just thought it was odd when friends parents didn't serve in the military. As I grew older I understood that I was the odd one in their world.
When I met my husband my life became even odder to everyone else. We were living with PTSD that few talked about. My Dad called it shell shock. Even with that, we've been married over 30 years now.
Veterans bring home their experiences with them and little by little, they changed. How can they return back to families and friends when they didn't take the journey with them? The man/woman walking in the doorway isn't the same person they were when they walked out the door.
Thomas Wolfe wrote about "You Can't Go Home Again" and several parts apply to what is happening today as more veterans return from combat and leave the military.
I have been all too hard on myself through every event. Finding it harder to forgive myself than it was to forgive others, to offer help easier than to ask for it, I learned that the only thing that could defeat me, was me.
Where you go from here is up to you as well. If you believe healing is easy, it isn't but then again, the events that set off PTSD were not easy in the first place.
First know who you were back when you decided that you wanted to serve. What made you want to? Was it something you always wanted to do or was it a decision made because something happened? Then ask yourself if it was motivated to give or for what you'd get out of it.
If it was because of what you'd get in return, then take a closer look at why you picked the military since you could have gained a lot more with a lot less dangerous profession. Look deeper. The hardships you were willing to accept to be part of this minority had to have been motivated by a deeper reasoning.
Then what were you trying to achieve risking your life with others? Easy bet it was to get as many as possible back home with you. Safe bet to think that your family motivated you as well.
Then take all the events that happened, the good as well as the bad because the good ones are important but mostly outweighed by the bad stuff. Easy to say that God wasn't there and then you could blame Him but then again, if you remember things they way they happened, you'll see He was all around you.
He was there when one of you shed a tear. He was there when one of you put out your arms to offer a simple, pure gesture of compassion. That kind of emotion doesn't survive without participants willing to hear the needs of others.
Look at everything that happened then accept your power to change any of it was gone the second it was over as much as you accept the fact your power was even limited back then.
Give yourself superhuman powers and take the event without any limits on what you could have done. Then understand that superhuman powers were not really within you and you did the best you could at the moment you had a chance to do anything about anything. The outcome was out of your hands but the future is.
None of you are frozen or condemned to suffer. Fight back to change tomorrow with the same determination you had to go from civilian kid to soldier. That wasn't easy but you came out after training stronger. You can come out of this stronger too.
Forget about forgetting but start to plan of taking power away from yesterday. It is a part of you but that doesn't mean it is supposed to suck the life out of you or control what you can become.
The last piece of this puzzle you need to know is the most important. Being resilient does not mean you are impervious. There is a price to pay for being human exposed to unacceptable limits. Pay the price and cry. Grieve for those you need to grieve for. Forgive what you need to be forgiven for and forgive others. Pay the price and then be free of the debt you assumed on you owed.
Then take tomorrow as the beginning of the journey back to home. Familiar but different territory you have to explore to get comfortable with.
Take the past and make peace with it instead of trying to escape it. It is all part of you but while you can't change it, you can change what it keeps doing to you.
This is one of my old videos from 2006, so the numbers are lower than now, but the idea is the same. You can come out of the dark. So work on it and then welcome back the new you.
Having PTSD and not knowing what it is, is like living in darkness. Nothing seems the same. When you know what it is, you can begin to heal the wounds you brought back home with you.
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 20, 2015
We hear a lot of people say "Welcome Home" to veterans. It sounds nice but would be better to say "Welcome Back" because everything that happens in our lives removes us from where we were and we return changed.
I am not a veteran. I am just an Army brat daughter of a Korean War veteran and wife of a Vietnam veteran. I moved from my home town and returned many times but I changed and so did the place where I grew up.
The house I was raised in belongs to someone else. The first apartment I lived in is occupied by someone else and the first home I bought is in someone else's name. The church I attended all my life until the move has changed so much I hardly recognized it. Home isn't the same anymore. My home now is here and I am a stranger back there.
My experiences changed me little by little. When I was a child I didn't pay much attention to my Dad or my uncles (WWII veterans) because they were there all the time. I just thought it was odd when friends parents didn't serve in the military. As I grew older I understood that I was the odd one in their world.
When I met my husband my life became even odder to everyone else. We were living with PTSD that few talked about. My Dad called it shell shock. Even with that, we've been married over 30 years now.
Veterans bring home their experiences with them and little by little, they changed. How can they return back to families and friends when they didn't take the journey with them? The man/woman walking in the doorway isn't the same person they were when they walked out the door.
Thomas Wolfe wrote about "You Can't Go Home Again" and several parts apply to what is happening today as more veterans return from combat and leave the military.
“Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.This will pass and the pain you feel right now will change but not by itself. Healing from any experience is a constant battle until you defeat it. Take it with you but make peace with it because it is a part of you.
Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we.
You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them - but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth.
And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again
I have been all too hard on myself through every event. Finding it harder to forgive myself than it was to forgive others, to offer help easier than to ask for it, I learned that the only thing that could defeat me, was me.
“The human mind is a fearful instrument of adaptation, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in its mysterious powers of resilience, self-protection, and self-healing.
Unless an event completely shatters the order of one's life, the mind, if it has youth and health and time enough, accepts the inevitable and gets itself ready for the next happening like a grimly dutiful American tourist who, on arriving at a new town, looks around him, takes his bearings, and says, "Well, where do I go from here?”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again
Where you go from here is up to you as well. If you believe healing is easy, it isn't but then again, the events that set off PTSD were not easy in the first place.
First know who you were back when you decided that you wanted to serve. What made you want to? Was it something you always wanted to do or was it a decision made because something happened? Then ask yourself if it was motivated to give or for what you'd get out of it.
If it was because of what you'd get in return, then take a closer look at why you picked the military since you could have gained a lot more with a lot less dangerous profession. Look deeper. The hardships you were willing to accept to be part of this minority had to have been motivated by a deeper reasoning.
Then what were you trying to achieve risking your life with others? Easy bet it was to get as many as possible back home with you. Safe bet to think that your family motivated you as well.
Then take all the events that happened, the good as well as the bad because the good ones are important but mostly outweighed by the bad stuff. Easy to say that God wasn't there and then you could blame Him but then again, if you remember things they way they happened, you'll see He was all around you.
He was there when one of you shed a tear. He was there when one of you put out your arms to offer a simple, pure gesture of compassion. That kind of emotion doesn't survive without participants willing to hear the needs of others.
Look at everything that happened then accept your power to change any of it was gone the second it was over as much as you accept the fact your power was even limited back then.
Give yourself superhuman powers and take the event without any limits on what you could have done. Then understand that superhuman powers were not really within you and you did the best you could at the moment you had a chance to do anything about anything. The outcome was out of your hands but the future is.
None of you are frozen or condemned to suffer. Fight back to change tomorrow with the same determination you had to go from civilian kid to soldier. That wasn't easy but you came out after training stronger. You can come out of this stronger too.
Forget about forgetting but start to plan of taking power away from yesterday. It is a part of you but that doesn't mean it is supposed to suck the life out of you or control what you can become.
The last piece of this puzzle you need to know is the most important. Being resilient does not mean you are impervious. There is a price to pay for being human exposed to unacceptable limits. Pay the price and cry. Grieve for those you need to grieve for. Forgive what you need to be forgiven for and forgive others. Pay the price and then be free of the debt you assumed on you owed.
Then take tomorrow as the beginning of the journey back to home. Familiar but different territory you have to explore to get comfortable with.
Take the past and make peace with it instead of trying to escape it. It is all part of you but while you can't change it, you can change what it keeps doing to you.
This is one of my old videos from 2006, so the numbers are lower than now, but the idea is the same. You can come out of the dark. So work on it and then welcome back the new you.
Having PTSD and not knowing what it is, is like living in darkness. Nothing seems the same. When you know what it is, you can begin to heal the wounds you brought back home with you.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
90% of firefighters suffer psychological trauma
While the research was done in Israel, think about our firefighters in the US.
90% of firefighters suffer psychological trauma, expert tells Knesset committee
Jerusalem Post
By JUDY SIEGEL
01/01/2014
Safety engineer Dr. Mark Lugasi presented research into the situation of firefighters: More than 43 percent have been hurt in work accidents.
Nine out of 10 firemen suffer from symptoms of psychological trauma, according to an expert who spoke before a session of the Knesset Labor, Social Welfare and Health Committee on Tuesday.
The meeting was part of a day to honor the Israel Fire Service and its personnel.
Safety engineer Dr. Mark Lugasi presented research into the situation of firefighters: More than 43 percent have been hurt in work accidents.
Fully 24% of those who actually fight fires suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and 67% suffer from partial trauma – compared to 5% and 45%, respectively, in the general population.
According to Lugasi, firemen who undergo blood tests have significantly higher cholesterol and glucose levels than the general population.
“They are exposed to a wide variety of dangers, including collapsed buildings, dangerous chemicals, missiles and rockets, accidents, terrorism, natural disasters and more,” he continued.
The chief of the Fire Service, Shahar Ayalon, added firemen have poor lifestyles and quality of life. “There is inadequate information and research into the field. Quite a few firemen suffer from cancer and are being treatment. Much needs to be done in this field,” he said.
read more here
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Changing the rules of PTSD
Changing the rules of PTSD
Philly.com
Jonathan Purtle, Doctoral candidate in public health. Works at Drexel's Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice
NOVEMBER 13, 2013
Last week, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies had its annual meeting in Philadelphia. I was there, and discussions abound about “Criterion A.” Contrary to what its name might suggest, Criterion A is not a vitamin, nor is it a short-course bicycle race. Criterion A defines the types of experiences that are considered traumatic enough to cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Criterion A has long been a point of contention, in part because it has significant bearing on who receives a PTSD diagnosis and is eligible for evidence-based treatments covered by insurance.
There are special rules when it comes to PTSD. As opposed to most other disorders in the DSM, for which diagnoses are based on symptoms alone, PTSD requires that a person be exposed to a “potentially traumatic event” and then develop specific symptoms. Criterion A defines what counts as: 1) a potentially traumatic event, and 2) a level of exposure sufficient to cause PTSD. Last May, Criterion A was changed with along with other modifications to the PTSD diagnosis in the new DSM 5.
What are considered potentially traumatic events in the DSM 5? A potentially traumatic event is one that involves “death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence.” As with the previous version of the DSM(4), a serious car accident is considered a potentially traumatic event, getting laid off, while highly stressful, is not. The definition of a potentially traumatic event in the DSM 5 is quite similar to that in the DSM 4, but differs in that sexual violence is explicitly named instead of being lumped together with other threats to “physical integrity.” This change can be interpreted as a small milestone in breaking the silence about sexual violence and its consequences. Depending upon the circumstances of the event, 30%-80% of sexual assault survivors develop PTSD—a rape takes place about every six minutes in the United States.
Philly.com
Jonathan Purtle, Doctoral candidate in public health. Works at Drexel's Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice
NOVEMBER 13, 2013
Last week, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies had its annual meeting in Philadelphia. I was there, and discussions abound about “Criterion A.” Contrary to what its name might suggest, Criterion A is not a vitamin, nor is it a short-course bicycle race. Criterion A defines the types of experiences that are considered traumatic enough to cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Criterion A has long been a point of contention, in part because it has significant bearing on who receives a PTSD diagnosis and is eligible for evidence-based treatments covered by insurance.
There are special rules when it comes to PTSD. As opposed to most other disorders in the DSM, for which diagnoses are based on symptoms alone, PTSD requires that a person be exposed to a “potentially traumatic event” and then develop specific symptoms. Criterion A defines what counts as: 1) a potentially traumatic event, and 2) a level of exposure sufficient to cause PTSD. Last May, Criterion A was changed with along with other modifications to the PTSD diagnosis in the new DSM 5.
What are considered potentially traumatic events in the DSM 5? A potentially traumatic event is one that involves “death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence.” As with the previous version of the DSM(4), a serious car accident is considered a potentially traumatic event, getting laid off, while highly stressful, is not. The definition of a potentially traumatic event in the DSM 5 is quite similar to that in the DSM 4, but differs in that sexual violence is explicitly named instead of being lumped together with other threats to “physical integrity.” This change can be interpreted as a small milestone in breaking the silence about sexual violence and its consequences. Depending upon the circumstances of the event, 30%-80% of sexual assault survivors develop PTSD—a rape takes place about every six minutes in the United States.
Criterion A in the DSM 5 also states that repeated, indirect exposure to the gruesome details of potentially traumatic events can be sufficient to cause PTSD, even if the person who experienced the event was a not a loved one. This mainly applies to people working in professional capacities such as first responders, like firefighters and police, or social workers who learn about the traumas of their clients.
read more here
Sunday, October 27, 2013
If one storm causes PTSD, why can't we understand hundreds of them?
If one storm causes PTSD, why can't we understand hundreds of them?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 27, 2013
I read a lot of mental health news reports, especially when the topic is the aftermath of trauma. The list of causes is long from weather events to abuse and crimes. I read them after 9-11 when survivors from the Towers as well as the people around the country were diagnosed with PTSD. Reading them about police officers, firefighters and emergency responders battling PTSD while still trying to save lives in our communities. Most of the time the reports I read are about our veterans and the troops risking their lives everyday.
There is a question no one seems to be asking. How can we understand PTSD from one weather event but we can't seem to understand when war fighters and first responders face hundreds of times with their lives on the line?
Is it because we expect them to be better than the rest of us? Well, for the most part, that is pretty obvious but then there are many average folks always showing up when people are in trouble and need help. We saw that in Boston after the bombing during the marathon. Some folks ran away as others ran toward the wounded. What makes them do it? What makes them willing to risk their lives when so many do not?
After 9-11 firefighters did what they do best. They rushed in to save lives, then stayed to recover as many as possible even though they didn't know if there would be another attack.
Everyone was changed after 9-11 because of the example they lived by.
Even after the bombing in Boston people showed up on the street in large groups to come together and share the sadness gaining strength from others.
For the responders it was not just one day from hell. It was another one followed by many more yet we cannot seem to understand how they would need more help healing.
For the war fighters, we seem to think they are trained to do their jobs so there should be no problems when they come home. After all, they are better than us. Tougher than us. But they are still human with all the same fears no matter what is asked of them and they manage to meet every challenge head on so we forget that part.
So how is it that we can understand the support average folks in our communities need from us but we can't seem to manage to understand how the responders putting themselves in danger for the rest of us need more from us?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 27, 2013
I read a lot of mental health news reports, especially when the topic is the aftermath of trauma. The list of causes is long from weather events to abuse and crimes. I read them after 9-11 when survivors from the Towers as well as the people around the country were diagnosed with PTSD. Reading them about police officers, firefighters and emergency responders battling PTSD while still trying to save lives in our communities. Most of the time the reports I read are about our veterans and the troops risking their lives everyday.
There is a question no one seems to be asking. How can we understand PTSD from one weather event but we can't seem to understand when war fighters and first responders face hundreds of times with their lives on the line?
Is it because we expect them to be better than the rest of us? Well, for the most part, that is pretty obvious but then there are many average folks always showing up when people are in trouble and need help. We saw that in Boston after the bombing during the marathon. Some folks ran away as others ran toward the wounded. What makes them do it? What makes them willing to risk their lives when so many do not?
Survivors struggle with emotional toll of Hurricane Sandy
Press Of Atlantic City
By DONNA WEAVER Staff Writer
October 27, 2013
Ken Turner’s physical and mental health deteriorated in the days and months after Hurricane Sandy.
He knew something was wrong. He was anxious, fearful, and living with a constant sense of doom.
Watching, from his neighbor’s window, the water rush through his home was an image he couldn’t get out of his head. He began to forget things, and his speech was affected.
Earlier this year, Turner, 46, was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He smiles and refers to it as “Post Traumatic Sandy Disorder.” It didn’t help Turner’s condition that he had spinal surgery this past spring after an injury unrelated to the storm.
PTSD is a vestige of Hurricane Sandy that many people continue to live with. It is silent, and not visible the way destroyed homes are, so it has not gotten a great deal of focus in the media during the storm’s aftermath.
But it is real.
“I’m suffering with it. I see a psychiatrist every month for it. I had to get help,” Turner said.
read more here
After 9-11 firefighters did what they do best. They rushed in to save lives, then stayed to recover as many as possible even though they didn't know if there would be another attack.
Everyone was changed after 9-11 because of the example they lived by.
Even after the bombing in Boston people showed up on the street in large groups to come together and share the sadness gaining strength from others.
For the responders it was not just one day from hell. It was another one followed by many more yet we cannot seem to understand how they would need more help healing.
For the war fighters, we seem to think they are trained to do their jobs so there should be no problems when they come home. After all, they are better than us. Tougher than us. But they are still human with all the same fears no matter what is asked of them and they manage to meet every challenge head on so we forget that part.
So how is it that we can understand the support average folks in our communities need from us but we can't seem to manage to understand how the responders putting themselves in danger for the rest of us need more from us?
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
You can fight against PTSD
You can fight against PTSD
De-Tour Combat PTSD
Kathie Costos
July 10, 2013
There is yet one more news story of "new PTSD research" that is not really new and misleading.
There are somethings science has gotten right on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, however they seem to be getting more wrong. Keep in mind that PTSD has been researched for over 40 years, so there has been very little that has actually been new coming out.
One of the things science got right was when they started to scan brains of PTSD survivors. These scans have shown how the mind reacts proving that PTSD is not just in your head. It has changed your mind.
This is only partly right.
De-Tour Combat PTSD
Kathie Costos
July 10, 2013
There is yet one more news story of "new PTSD research" that is not really new and misleading.
There are somethings science has gotten right on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, however they seem to be getting more wrong. Keep in mind that PTSD has been researched for over 40 years, so there has been very little that has actually been new coming out.
One of the things science got right was when they started to scan brains of PTSD survivors. These scans have shown how the mind reacts proving that PTSD is not just in your head. It has changed your mind.
This is only partly right.
According to the model, changes in two brain areas — the amygdala and the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex (dACC) — may predispose people to PTSD. Both of these regions are involved in feeling and expressing fear, and both appear to be overactive in people with PTSD, even before they develop the condition. read more here
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors develop PTSD, study shows
Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors develop PTSD, study shows
USA TODAY
Cathy Payne
June 19, 2013
About one in nine stroke or mini-stroke patients have chronic PTSD more than a year later, a new study finds.
A stroke may leave some survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder, which may hinder their recovery, according to a study released today.
About 23% of patients who survive a stroke or transient ischemic attack, a brief interruption of blood flow to the brain, have PTSD symptoms within a year, the study finds. About 11% have chronic PTSD, in which symptoms last three months or longer, more than a year later. The study, led by Columbia University Medical Center researchers, was published online today in the journal PLOS ONE.
"Strokes are among the most terrifying life-threatening events," says lead author Donald Edmondson.
read more here
USA TODAY
Cathy Payne
June 19, 2013
About one in nine stroke or mini-stroke patients have chronic PTSD more than a year later, a new study finds.
A stroke may leave some survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder, which may hinder their recovery, according to a study released today.
About 23% of patients who survive a stroke or transient ischemic attack, a brief interruption of blood flow to the brain, have PTSD symptoms within a year, the study finds. About 11% have chronic PTSD, in which symptoms last three months or longer, more than a year later. The study, led by Columbia University Medical Center researchers, was published online today in the journal PLOS ONE.
"Strokes are among the most terrifying life-threatening events," says lead author Donald Edmondson.
read more here
Monday, June 3, 2013
Wounded Times proven right by new research on Resilience
Wounded Times proven right by new research on Resilience
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
June 3, 2013
I get it and that should freak everyone out. I am an average person. I don't have a PHD. I do not get millions in research grants. As a matter of fact I am so average I still haven't figured out how to get enough donations to keep my head above water while working 70 hours a week 365 days a year. The real frightening thing is, I got it back in 2008 when I came out and said the training the military was doing was harmful. I got it even more when the next year I wrote that if the military pushed "resilience training" they would see an increase in suicides.
This is from 2008 and posted with the question, "Is Battlemind better than nothing?"
Last year after spending many years working with families after it was too late to help their veteran heal, I agreed to write THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR. They wanted their stories told but above that, they wanted someone to finally tell the truth about what was going on with this training. What I discovered was sickening. Billions spent every year by multiple government agencies and no one held accountable for any of it. Parents were visiting graves of soldiers who were supposed to have been safely back home and not being in more danger than during war.
They were reading what research was contained on Wounded Times and they knew why their lives turned out the way they did. They also discovered they were not responsible for the suicide. We were. They could finally stop blaming themselves and start blaming people defending resilience training.
As part of Point Man International Ministries we address the spiritual healing in small groups. There you have the spiritual and social support. We cannot help with the financial needs because most of us are operating out of our pockets. We don't have a powerful PR agency behind us. The kicker is, this approach was understood in 1984 when Vietnam Veterans were back home and in a lot of pain. The same pain we see in the eyes of the OEF and OIF veterans. Nothing has changed. War is still war and basic human needs are the same. PTSD has been researched since the 70's but it is almost as if nothing was learned if you read the press reports. Again, leaders of Point Man are average people but we have above average understanding of what it takes to heal.
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
June 3, 2013
I get it and that should freak everyone out. I am an average person. I don't have a PHD. I do not get millions in research grants. As a matter of fact I am so average I still haven't figured out how to get enough donations to keep my head above water while working 70 hours a week 365 days a year. The real frightening thing is, I got it back in 2008 when I came out and said the training the military was doing was harmful. I got it even more when the next year I wrote that if the military pushed "resilience training" they would see an increase in suicides.
After tragedy, who bounces back? Keys to resiliency may lie in childhood
By Rebecca Ruiz, contributor
NBC News
June 2, 2013
After a tornado hit the Henryville, Ind., home of Stephanie Decker last year, injuring her so badly that both her legs had to be amputated, the 38-year-old mother of two knew she had to "push forward and thrive," she told NBC News. “If not only for myself, but also to show other amputees who have struggles of their own that the impossible is possible.”
Since that day in March 2012, Decker, known as "Tornado Mom," has become famous for her resiliency and spirit. She's now a motivational speaker and has created a foundation to help other amputees.
As the nation recovers from recent tragedies in Boston and Oklahoma, "resiliency" has become the buzzword for recovery, a promise to rebound made almost before the full emotional impact of a disaster has been absorbed. Studies have shown that the majority of trauma survivors do go on to lead happy, productive lives -- but not everyone.
Emerging research on the biology of resilience suggests a person’s ability to recover – or risk of spiraling into depression -- may depend on an elusive combination of early life experiences, genetics and brain chemistry. In fact, recovering from trauma or heartbreak is a far more complicated response than scientists once thought, says Dr. Farris Tuma, chief of the Traumatic Stress Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health.
“This is the Holy Grail – to understand what makes people resilient,” Tuma said.
Social relationships, faith, health and financial stability are factors in resilience, while negative childhood experiences, such as trauma, abuse and chronic stress, can prime the body to react to both major hardship and everyday setbacks with the same degree of fear and panic.
But not all victims of trauma are able to bounce back as Decker has.
read more here
This is from 2008 and posted with the question, "Is Battlemind better than nothing?"
Battlemind skills helped you survive in combat, but may cause you problems if not adapted when you get home.It was followed up by this Excuse my language but BattleMind is Bullshit! Everything I was seeing and hearing from the veterans given this training told a much different story than what the military was saying and it was obvious for one simple reason. This average person paid attention.
Although 89% of Soldiers report receiving suicide prevention training, only 52% of Soldiers reported the training to be sufficient, indicating the need to revise the suicide prevention training so that it is applicable in a combat environment.
Last year after spending many years working with families after it was too late to help their veteran heal, I agreed to write THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR. They wanted their stories told but above that, they wanted someone to finally tell the truth about what was going on with this training. What I discovered was sickening. Billions spent every year by multiple government agencies and no one held accountable for any of it. Parents were visiting graves of soldiers who were supposed to have been safely back home and not being in more danger than during war.
They were reading what research was contained on Wounded Times and they knew why their lives turned out the way they did. They also discovered they were not responsible for the suicide. We were. They could finally stop blaming themselves and start blaming people defending resilience training.
As part of Point Man International Ministries we address the spiritual healing in small groups. There you have the spiritual and social support. We cannot help with the financial needs because most of us are operating out of our pockets. We don't have a powerful PR agency behind us. The kicker is, this approach was understood in 1984 when Vietnam Veterans were back home and in a lot of pain. The same pain we see in the eyes of the OEF and OIF veterans. Nothing has changed. War is still war and basic human needs are the same. PTSD has been researched since the 70's but it is almost as if nothing was learned if you read the press reports. Again, leaders of Point Man are average people but we have above average understanding of what it takes to heal.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
911 Dispatcher pushes for change after research project
911 dispatcher who took terrifying call pushes for change
Dispatcher gives new insight into deadly salon shooting rampage
WESH News
May 31, 2013
Emergency calls flooded the 911 dispatch center when four people were gunned down inside of a Casselberry hair salon in October 2012.
"I went on the back porch and cried for a few minutes, then I had to compose myself and go back in to take the next call like it never happened," Brooklyn Mundo said.
Mundo was the dispatcher on duty and took some of the calls.
She turned her experience into a research project, surveying fellow dispatchers.
Mundo's results show 911 operators experience the same level of stress as law enforcement officers.
read more here
Dispatcher gives new insight into deadly salon shooting rampage
WESH News
May 31, 2013
Emergency calls flooded the 911 dispatch center when four people were gunned down inside of a Casselberry hair salon in October 2012.
"I went on the back porch and cried for a few minutes, then I had to compose myself and go back in to take the next call like it never happened," Brooklyn Mundo said.
Mundo was the dispatcher on duty and took some of the calls.
She turned her experience into a research project, surveying fellow dispatchers.
Mundo's results show 911 operators experience the same level of stress as law enforcement officers.
read more here
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Military should learn Army of civilians show up after tornadoes
From 2008 to 2010 I took as much training as possible to be able to hit trauma head on as soon as it happens. Why? Because it works. It takes the survivors out of the event and into safe places. It removes them from what they just went through instead of just leaving them there in shock.
My family did that for me using common sense and wisdom. One time it was a bad car accident. When my parents picked me up at the hospital, my Dad drove us to see what was left of the car I walked away from. We stood there until I didn't need to look at it anymore. My Dad handed me the keys to his car. I thought he was out of his mind after what happened but he explained to me that I needed to get back to "normal" and drive or I may never drive again. He was right.
He took me out of that moment when I was sure I was going to die as the car was out of control heading for the guard rail. Not thinking right, I relaxed, covered my face with my arms and crashed. As I stood looking at the car my parents didn't need to say anything or "fix" me right then and there. They waited for me to talk with their arms around me. Then I said it trying to make sense out of surviving all that with bruises and friction burns. "I survived that!"
As I drove down the same highway I almost died on hours earlier, my hands were shaking as I stayed in the slow lane of traffic tensing up as soon as another car came up behind me. It wasn't a fun ride but when I pulled into the driveway, I was relieved.
Civilians have been doing this for decades but the military hasn't. That is really inexcusable considering war is what clued civilians into responding to traumatic events. Vietnam veterans came home suffering the way all other generations did but they refused to just go home and die. They fought the government and service organizations to fund research. Those efforts led to mental health providers and crisis intervention teams much like trauma centers treat traumatic wounds after what the military learned. So how is it the military is the last to learn what they taught everyone else?
My family did that for me using common sense and wisdom. One time it was a bad car accident. When my parents picked me up at the hospital, my Dad drove us to see what was left of the car I walked away from. We stood there until I didn't need to look at it anymore. My Dad handed me the keys to his car. I thought he was out of his mind after what happened but he explained to me that I needed to get back to "normal" and drive or I may never drive again. He was right.
He took me out of that moment when I was sure I was going to die as the car was out of control heading for the guard rail. Not thinking right, I relaxed, covered my face with my arms and crashed. As I stood looking at the car my parents didn't need to say anything or "fix" me right then and there. They waited for me to talk with their arms around me. Then I said it trying to make sense out of surviving all that with bruises and friction burns. "I survived that!"
As I drove down the same highway I almost died on hours earlier, my hands were shaking as I stayed in the slow lane of traffic tensing up as soon as another car came up behind me. It wasn't a fun ride but when I pulled into the driveway, I was relieved.
Civilians have been doing this for decades but the military hasn't. That is really inexcusable considering war is what clued civilians into responding to traumatic events. Vietnam veterans came home suffering the way all other generations did but they refused to just go home and die. They fought the government and service organizations to fund research. Those efforts led to mental health providers and crisis intervention teams much like trauma centers treat traumatic wounds after what the military learned. So how is it the military is the last to learn what they taught everyone else?
Army of mental health volunteers search for tornado victims
KFOR News
May 28, 2013
by Ed Doney
MOORE, Okla. – The streets of Moore and other communities devastated by the May 19 and 20 tornadoes are filled with residents who have yet to process the mental toll those storms took.
“This lady was saying ‘My husband won’t cry, I need him to cry.’ Well, maybe it’s not time for him to cry,” Jackie Shipp said, with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS).
Shipp wants to hear more of those stories while walking the streets of Moore.
She’s offering the simplest of things, water and food, hoping people will open up and let her offer them psychological first aid.
She said, “They need someone to ground them and say, ‘What are the two things you need to do today? Did you eat today? When’s the last time you had something to drink?’”
It’s an effort by more than 400 mental health professionals and volunteers from across Oklahoma and several states to help as many people as they can.
read more here
Sunday, May 19, 2013
What happens in the brains of combat veterans?
For PTSD combat vets, ‘fear circuitry’ in the brain never rests
Chronic trauma can inflict lasting damage to brain regions associated with fear and anxiety. Previous imaging studies of people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, have shown that these brain regions can over-or under-react in response to stressful tasks, such as recalling a traumatic event or reacting to a photo of a threatening face.
Now, researchers at NYU School of Medicine have explored for the first time what happens in the brains of combat veterans with PTSD in the absence of external triggers.
Their results, published in Neuroscience Letters, and presented today at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatry Association in San Francisco, show that the effects of trauma persist in certain brain regions even when combat veterans are not engaged in cognitive or emotional tasks, and face no immediate external threats. The findings shed light on which areas of the brain provoke traumatic symptoms and represent a critical step toward better diagnostics and treatments for PTSD.
read more here
Chronic trauma can inflict lasting damage to brain regions associated with fear and anxiety. Previous imaging studies of people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, have shown that these brain regions can over-or under-react in response to stressful tasks, such as recalling a traumatic event or reacting to a photo of a threatening face.
Now, researchers at NYU School of Medicine have explored for the first time what happens in the brains of combat veterans with PTSD in the absence of external triggers.
Their results, published in Neuroscience Letters, and presented today at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatry Association in San Francisco, show that the effects of trauma persist in certain brain regions even when combat veterans are not engaged in cognitive or emotional tasks, and face no immediate external threats. The findings shed light on which areas of the brain provoke traumatic symptoms and represent a critical step toward better diagnostics and treatments for PTSD.
read more here
Monday, May 13, 2013
When being "resilient" is part of the problem
A fascinating reaport came out of Boston this morning about the slogan "Boston Strong" being an issue for some mental health professionals.
In the article, this came out.
RESILIENT : characterized or marked by resilience: as
The word does not mean "untouched" or "unchanged" by what happens. The first part of the definition is not about a person but is about an object.
Being resilient does not mean they are unbreakable. All it means is they are able to hold out a little bit longer than others. It does not mean they be unchanged. It just means the change in them will not destroy them. If they have a misunderstanding of what resilience is, that can cause a whole new problem.
The military has been pushing the term of "resilience" as if it is supposed to mean they can overcome everything without being changed or harmed. When they believe that is what comes next after "it" happened to them, they have a harder time when reality sinks in and they discover they are only human after all.
Mental health experts worried about ‘Boston Strong’ slogan
By Deborah Kotz
GLOBE STAFF
MAY 13, 2013
The slogan “Boston Strong” that emerged days after the Marathon bombings resonates with many — including two-thirds of the more than 500 readers who answered a Boston.com poll.
More than 50,000 Boston Strong T-shirts have been sold to raise money for a victims’ charity fund, and the phrase has been plastered on posters and signs throughout the city.
But mental health specialists are concerned that some still traumatized by the Marathon attacks might deem themselves weak or inadequate for not feeling that Boston strength.
“I think it is probably attempting to speak to a sense of resilience and strength on the level of the community,” said Dr. Michael Leslie, a psychiatrist who treats trauma patients at McLean Hospital in Belmont. “But there are people who will read this in a personal way, as an exhortation that they themselves need to be strong” no matter what they’re actually feeling. That would be “an unfortunate conclusion to draw from the phrase,” he added.
read more here
In the article, this came out.
"Nearly 9 percent of poll respondents said they didn’t like the slogan because it makes them feel like they have to be strong."
RESILIENT : characterized or marked by resilience: as
a : capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture
b : tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
The word does not mean "untouched" or "unchanged" by what happens. The first part of the definition is not about a person but is about an object.
Being resilient does not mean they are unbreakable. All it means is they are able to hold out a little bit longer than others. It does not mean they be unchanged. It just means the change in them will not destroy them. If they have a misunderstanding of what resilience is, that can cause a whole new problem.
The military has been pushing the term of "resilience" as if it is supposed to mean they can overcome everything without being changed or harmed. When they believe that is what comes next after "it" happened to them, they have a harder time when reality sinks in and they discover they are only human after all.
Friday, May 10, 2013
93% of financial advisers had PTSD after 2008?
This is a very odd day for Wounded Times. Two stories on PTSD and Wall Street but I have to admit when I read the headline on this one, I thought it was a joke.
Maybe that is why they do actually seem to understand what the troops are going through.
Wall Street party to "stop soldier suicides"
93% of financial advisers had PTSD after 2008
Study finds emotional fallout had lasting impact on decision making
Wall Street Journal
May 09, 2013
Quentin Fottrell
Financial advisers were shellshocked in the months and perhaps years following the 2008 financial crisis. Many couldn’t sleep, they suffered bouts of anxiety and depression and self-doubt. In fact, according to just-published academic research: some 93% of advisers and planners surveyed wrestled with post-traumatic stress disorder. And many are still reeling from the effects.
Nearly every single financial professional interviewed as part of the research reported medium to high levels of post-traumatic stress, according to the study published in the Journal of Financial Therapy. The survey — “Financial Trauma: Why the Abandonment of Buy-and-Hold in Favor of Tactical Asset Management May be a Symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress” — found that another 40% of planners reported severe symptoms. The respondents managed assets with an average value of between $20 million and $40 million.
read more here
Maybe that is why they do actually seem to understand what the troops are going through.
Wall Street party to "stop soldier suicides"
Sunday, May 5, 2013
“In the past, they were just telling a guy to suck it up and move on”
Officer in shooting incident named
By Jessica Bruha
The Norman Transcript
May 5, 2013
NORMAN — The female officer involved in Wednesday’s shooting at Main Street and Hal Muldrow Drive was identified by fellow officers as Glenda Vassar.
Vassar repeatedly issued verbal warnings to him, but she shot him after he began to approach her in an aggressive manner armed with a small kitchen knife, eyewitnesses said.
By Jessica Bruha
The Norman Transcript
May 5, 2013
NORMAN — The female officer involved in Wednesday’s shooting at Main Street and Hal Muldrow Drive was identified by fellow officers as Glenda Vassar.
Vassar repeatedly issued verbal warnings to him, but she shot him after he began to approach her in an aggressive manner armed with a small kitchen knife, eyewitnesses said.
"Earlier this year, Vassar was recognized as the first female officer to receive the Police Officer of the Year award. She has worked as a Norman officer for two-and-a-half years and was commended during the awards ceremony by Chief of Police Keith Humphrey."
During Vassar’s administrative leave, she was required, as part of the policy, to talk to a peer support responder (PSR).
The Peer Support Team was developed to help officers “defuse” or “debrief” from incidents such as officer-involved shootings, Jackson said. The team allows officers involved in critical incidents to sit down and talk to someone who has been in their shoes.
“Suicide is the No. 1 cause of death of police officers,” Jackson said. “In the past, they were just telling a guy to suck it up and move on.”
That was before many realized that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and other conditions were affecting officers after being involved in critical incidents, he said.
read more here
Sunday, April 21, 2013
1st sgt., fellow Guardsmen aid injured at Boston tragedy
1st sgt., fellow Guardsmen aid injured at Boston tragedy
Apr. 20, 2013
QArmy Times
By Meghann Myers
Staff writer
First Sgt. Bernard Madore spent most of the Boston Marathon doing what first sergeants do: keeping his men on track, joking around, playfully shouting at the other runners to “get up the hill!”
The fun came to an abrupt end the afternoon of April 15, when two explosive devices went off near the finish line, killing three and injuring more than 180. That’s when Madore’s training kicked in.
“I started looking up and around as soon as it went off to see where’s it going?” Madore told Army Times. “And then there was a secondary bomb, so we paused to look around, because you don’t know if somebody’s going to start shooting or what.”
Madore and several other soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard’s 1,060th Transportation Company had ruck-marched the 26.2-mile race to raise money for the nonprofit Military Friends Foundation. They were waiting in a medical tent for the last members of their group to catch up when the first blast went off around the corner.
The men rushed toward the scene and immediately began helping first-responders tear down a barricade that separated spectators from the marathon route. When the uninjured were freed, it was on to the next step.
read more here
Apr. 20, 2013
QArmy Times
By Meghann Myers
Staff writer
First Sgt. Bernard Madore spent most of the Boston Marathon doing what first sergeants do: keeping his men on track, joking around, playfully shouting at the other runners to “get up the hill!”
The fun came to an abrupt end the afternoon of April 15, when two explosive devices went off near the finish line, killing three and injuring more than 180. That’s when Madore’s training kicked in.
“I started looking up and around as soon as it went off to see where’s it going?” Madore told Army Times. “And then there was a secondary bomb, so we paused to look around, because you don’t know if somebody’s going to start shooting or what.”
Madore and several other soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard’s 1,060th Transportation Company had ruck-marched the 26.2-mile race to raise money for the nonprofit Military Friends Foundation. They were waiting in a medical tent for the last members of their group to catch up when the first blast went off around the corner.
The men rushed toward the scene and immediately began helping first-responders tear down a barricade that separated spectators from the marathon route. When the uninjured were freed, it was on to the next step.
read more here
Making peace after trauma comes with knowing the different types
Making peace after trauma comes with knowing the different types
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
April 21, 2013
It does not just happen. It does not take time to heal all wounds. It takes a lot of work but what has happened after men and women are out of combat zones proves what does not work. "Resilience" during combat is one thing but expecting it to work on preventing PTSD is a deadly notion.
I was reading this article about "Mindfullness"
It claims that,
There are three components to healing. One is the mind and that requires a trauma specialist to respond right after "it" hits the "fan" and then the event is not allowed to take over. This does not have to be a "professional" but can be done with someone trained to respond the right way. Someone who will not dismiss or minimize what the serviceman or woman is experiencing. Someone who is trained to stay away from the wrong choice of words. I've actually heard people try to "fix" someone by saying "God only gives us what we can handle." That ends up enforcing what they already think. People walk away from trauma either believing they are one lucky SOB or they just got nailed by God. God either saved them or did it to them. If they believe God did it to them, then bingo, they just heard they were right and God gave it to them. I have also heard well trained crisis responders do it to perfection. They listened right, saying very little and with compassion. They focused on the person they were helping. Not taking phone calls, checking their watch or looking around the room as if they had something better to do.
If that doesn't happen then you need to have a mental health professional but even that is an issue if they are not trauma specialists. Otherwise they get it wrong too. Psychiatrists and psychologist come with the same issues. If they are not experts on what trauma does, they get it wrong. If they are not specialists there is also the issue of many not believing PTSD is real even though brain scans have shown the changes in the brain. Some of them know so little all they offer is medication as if "they have a pill for that" is the answer to everything. Medication numbs. It does not heal. There is also the issue of many medications coming with a warning they could increase suicidal thoughts being prescribed. The right ones can work to calm things down enough so the other part of treatment can start to work.
The body is the second part that needs to be treated. Everything is being drained by flashbacks, nightmares following a year of being constantly on edge. The body has to relearn soothing and calming down. There are many ways to get there. Yoga, meditation, martial arts, writing, swimming, walking and playing a musical instrument help with that as long as they can train themselves to focus on what they are doing and not the negative thing that happened to them. If they start to think of the events they survived, they need to push it out and think of what they are doing.
The other, and I think the most important part of healing, is spiritual. Forgiving. Knowing they are forgiven for whatever they feel they need to be forgiven for and forgiving whomever they have to forgive. That is not up to anyone to judge or dismiss. It is the only way they being to make peace with what happened. With combat and a close cousin law enforcement, it is not just surviving the event. Often it is participating in it with the use of weapons.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about being confused over something I said about this. It is a good time to clarify. There are different causes of PTSD but all are being diagnosed and treated the same way. They treat someone surviving a hurricane (one time event) the same way they treat a rape victim even though a hurricane always comes with a warning but rape does not. The threat of something happening again or not is part of what has to happen in therapy. Something that happens in a natural disaster is not man made. Rape is. It is done to the person by another person's actions. Worrying about it happening again is part of what PTSD does. Then the human issue of forgiving comes into it. Forgiving their attacker while seeking justice is tricky. It requires a lot of work to do that but once it is done, life gets better not carrying that burden on top of everything else.
Abuse is another one especially when you live with the person. For me it was my Dad, a violent alcoholic until I was 13. Then my ex-husband tried to kill me. Huge difference between what nature does and what people do.
They treat someone with PTSD after a car accident the same way as the other three even though the threat to them is the repeated every time they get into a vehicle. Again it is the human factor of someone causing the trauma or worse, when they caused it.
Firefighters are another different group. They put their lives on the line everyday and when they are not rushing to a fire, they are waiting for it. They don't know when the next alarm bell will ring. The friend I talked to yesterday is involved with firefighters. He told me that some of them are armed when we were talking about how cops and military folks use weapons. (That is something we can explore later as I learn more about that aspect.) For the average firefighter, again, there is a huge difference between the type of PTSD they get hit with because of the nature of the trauma, the threat to their lives and concern for facing it all over again. There is survivor guilt when they couldn't save someone or when one of their friends die in the line of duty.
We are all talking about the bombs in Boston last week and people seeking things no one should have to see because other humans decided to do it and others decided to help afterwards. They will have a lot to deal with on a whole different level. It is close to what firefighters/first responders face on a daily basis. Lives on the line and seeing things no one should have to see but they know someone has to do it.
Then you have police officers and the troops. Cops know the risk every time they clock in but they get to go home at the end of their shift. The troops don't while they are deployed into combat zones. The troops get to go back to the states away from combat, but cops have to get up and do it all over again everyday. (Getting how complicated all this is yet?) Both groups have to use force and become part of the event itself. The nature of the trauma is much different for them from the other groups and they have to be treated differently.
Then you also have the secondary stressor. I had a DEA agent years ago contact me because he was worried about losing his security clearance. He was a combat veteran and had been through a lot working on both jobs yet it was not until his younger brother was killed in Iraq that it hit him like a ton of bricks. What he discovered was he was pushing past mild PTSD and not addressing it. He was not ready when he was hit by the event that was the thing to wake up sleeping PTSD.
That is something that is happening right now after the bombings in Boston. People will react differently when they go out in public and need help right now. The victims will need a different kind of help. For the responders, they will need help too. Yet if they are treated the same way, then they will need a lot more help then they would have if they are treated properly right now.
There are experts who are not experts in trauma, but there are experts in trauma that I learned from over all these years. They are out there and those are the people who should be running the studies like the one you just read about. They are the ones who should be listened to if we are ever going to get any of this right. If we keep listening to the ones doing the talking most of the last 40 years, the ones getting the attention and funding, then we are all screwed.
They say take care of all parts of the survivors of trauma with their minds, bodies and spirits and then you have healing. Otherwise we have the history of PTSD being repeated.
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
April 21, 2013
It does not just happen. It does not take time to heal all wounds. It takes a lot of work but what has happened after men and women are out of combat zones proves what does not work. "Resilience" during combat is one thing but expecting it to work on preventing PTSD is a deadly notion.
I was reading this article about "Mindfullness"
"New study from University of Michigan, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System shows group mindfulness activities have positive effect on PTSD symptoms."First, it is not new in the world of psychiatry but it may be new to University of Michigan. Part of PTSD is the loss of ability to calm down. The function of the human body has been compromised by the constant stress of combat, multiple traumas topped off with the treat of them happening again. In other words, the body learned how to survive on "alert" and it needs to learn how to calm down again.
It claims that,
"After eight weeks of treatment, 73 percent of patients in the mindfulness group displayed meaningful improvement compared to 33 percent in the treatment-as-usual groups."Sounds great but any help can make people feel better when it comes to PTSD because as soon as they start talking about it, it stops getting worse. What this study does not address is the longterm.
There are three components to healing. One is the mind and that requires a trauma specialist to respond right after "it" hits the "fan" and then the event is not allowed to take over. This does not have to be a "professional" but can be done with someone trained to respond the right way. Someone who will not dismiss or minimize what the serviceman or woman is experiencing. Someone who is trained to stay away from the wrong choice of words. I've actually heard people try to "fix" someone by saying "God only gives us what we can handle." That ends up enforcing what they already think. People walk away from trauma either believing they are one lucky SOB or they just got nailed by God. God either saved them or did it to them. If they believe God did it to them, then bingo, they just heard they were right and God gave it to them. I have also heard well trained crisis responders do it to perfection. They listened right, saying very little and with compassion. They focused on the person they were helping. Not taking phone calls, checking their watch or looking around the room as if they had something better to do.
If that doesn't happen then you need to have a mental health professional but even that is an issue if they are not trauma specialists. Otherwise they get it wrong too. Psychiatrists and psychologist come with the same issues. If they are not experts on what trauma does, they get it wrong. If they are not specialists there is also the issue of many not believing PTSD is real even though brain scans have shown the changes in the brain. Some of them know so little all they offer is medication as if "they have a pill for that" is the answer to everything. Medication numbs. It does not heal. There is also the issue of many medications coming with a warning they could increase suicidal thoughts being prescribed. The right ones can work to calm things down enough so the other part of treatment can start to work.
The body is the second part that needs to be treated. Everything is being drained by flashbacks, nightmares following a year of being constantly on edge. The body has to relearn soothing and calming down. There are many ways to get there. Yoga, meditation, martial arts, writing, swimming, walking and playing a musical instrument help with that as long as they can train themselves to focus on what they are doing and not the negative thing that happened to them. If they start to think of the events they survived, they need to push it out and think of what they are doing.
The other, and I think the most important part of healing, is spiritual. Forgiving. Knowing they are forgiven for whatever they feel they need to be forgiven for and forgiving whomever they have to forgive. That is not up to anyone to judge or dismiss. It is the only way they being to make peace with what happened. With combat and a close cousin law enforcement, it is not just surviving the event. Often it is participating in it with the use of weapons.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about being confused over something I said about this. It is a good time to clarify. There are different causes of PTSD but all are being diagnosed and treated the same way. They treat someone surviving a hurricane (one time event) the same way they treat a rape victim even though a hurricane always comes with a warning but rape does not. The threat of something happening again or not is part of what has to happen in therapy. Something that happens in a natural disaster is not man made. Rape is. It is done to the person by another person's actions. Worrying about it happening again is part of what PTSD does. Then the human issue of forgiving comes into it. Forgiving their attacker while seeking justice is tricky. It requires a lot of work to do that but once it is done, life gets better not carrying that burden on top of everything else.
Abuse is another one especially when you live with the person. For me it was my Dad, a violent alcoholic until I was 13. Then my ex-husband tried to kill me. Huge difference between what nature does and what people do.
They treat someone with PTSD after a car accident the same way as the other three even though the threat to them is the repeated every time they get into a vehicle. Again it is the human factor of someone causing the trauma or worse, when they caused it.
Firefighters are another different group. They put their lives on the line everyday and when they are not rushing to a fire, they are waiting for it. They don't know when the next alarm bell will ring. The friend I talked to yesterday is involved with firefighters. He told me that some of them are armed when we were talking about how cops and military folks use weapons. (That is something we can explore later as I learn more about that aspect.) For the average firefighter, again, there is a huge difference between the type of PTSD they get hit with because of the nature of the trauma, the threat to their lives and concern for facing it all over again. There is survivor guilt when they couldn't save someone or when one of their friends die in the line of duty.
We are all talking about the bombs in Boston last week and people seeking things no one should have to see because other humans decided to do it and others decided to help afterwards. They will have a lot to deal with on a whole different level. It is close to what firefighters/first responders face on a daily basis. Lives on the line and seeing things no one should have to see but they know someone has to do it.
Then you have police officers and the troops. Cops know the risk every time they clock in but they get to go home at the end of their shift. The troops don't while they are deployed into combat zones. The troops get to go back to the states away from combat, but cops have to get up and do it all over again everyday. (Getting how complicated all this is yet?) Both groups have to use force and become part of the event itself. The nature of the trauma is much different for them from the other groups and they have to be treated differently.
Then you also have the secondary stressor. I had a DEA agent years ago contact me because he was worried about losing his security clearance. He was a combat veteran and had been through a lot working on both jobs yet it was not until his younger brother was killed in Iraq that it hit him like a ton of bricks. What he discovered was he was pushing past mild PTSD and not addressing it. He was not ready when he was hit by the event that was the thing to wake up sleeping PTSD.
That is something that is happening right now after the bombings in Boston. People will react differently when they go out in public and need help right now. The victims will need a different kind of help. For the responders, they will need help too. Yet if they are treated the same way, then they will need a lot more help then they would have if they are treated properly right now.
There are experts who are not experts in trauma, but there are experts in trauma that I learned from over all these years. They are out there and those are the people who should be running the studies like the one you just read about. They are the ones who should be listened to if we are ever going to get any of this right. If we keep listening to the ones doing the talking most of the last 40 years, the ones getting the attention and funding, then we are all screwed.
They say take care of all parts of the survivors of trauma with their minds, bodies and spirits and then you have healing. Otherwise we have the history of PTSD being repeated.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Boston bombings bring chaplains into new ground
They say Chaplains have the ministry of presence.
This is from Webster
Definition of PRESENCE
The job of a chaplain is supposed to take care of people. That is it. We are not supposed to care about anything but the people in need. When I am called, lately way too often, I care about what they need and what I can do for them to ease their pain and give them comfort. I don't care about what happened to me at the grocery store or like Wednesday when my dog almost broke my finger. It swelled up to twice the size before I could get my engagement and wedding band off that has been on my hand for 29 years. The doctor had to cut them off. I had an emergency call to take and the veteran didn't want to hear my problems. I didn't even try to tell him because his were bigger. I don't care I can't pay my bills when I respond to an email. They are my job no matter what.
They also don't want to hear me tell them they go to the wrong church, need to go back to church, or anything that has to do with division in religious groups. Being a Chaplain isn't supposed to be about anything other than the person in need. If done right, it can make all the difference in the world. Friends of mine are in Boston right now doing just that. Putting others first. While I don't know Sister Maryanne Ruzzo, there are many like her and this is a good story to read.
This is from Webster
Definition of PRESENCE
The job of a chaplain is supposed to take care of people. That is it. We are not supposed to care about anything but the people in need. When I am called, lately way too often, I care about what they need and what I can do for them to ease their pain and give them comfort. I don't care about what happened to me at the grocery store or like Wednesday when my dog almost broke my finger. It swelled up to twice the size before I could get my engagement and wedding band off that has been on my hand for 29 years. The doctor had to cut them off. I had an emergency call to take and the veteran didn't want to hear my problems. I didn't even try to tell him because his were bigger. I don't care I can't pay my bills when I respond to an email. They are my job no matter what.
They also don't want to hear me tell them they go to the wrong church, need to go back to church, or anything that has to do with division in religious groups. Being a Chaplain isn't supposed to be about anything other than the person in need. If done right, it can make all the difference in the world. Friends of mine are in Boston right now doing just that. Putting others first. While I don't know Sister Maryanne Ruzzo, there are many like her and this is a good story to read.
Boston bombings bring chaplains into new ground
Washington Post
By G. Jeffrey Macdonald
Religion News Service
Updated: Friday, April 19, 3:21 PM
BOSTON — Two days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston Medical Center chaplain Sister Maryanne Ruzzo was checking on staffers who’d been caring for the injured when she received a page. A bombing victim wanted to see her.
The bedside was fraught with worry. A woman in her 30s had lost a leg to amputation as surgeons deemed it unsalvageable. Still suffering multiple injuries, she was now heading into surgery again, knowing she might wake up with no legs at all.
Ruzzo stood among the woman’s parents and siblings and did what she does best: listen. She heard their fears, including concern for the woman’s husband, who was being treated at a different hospital and who also might lose a leg to amputation. Then she prayed.
“Other people might not want to feel the pain and say,’Oh, it’s going to be fine,’” said Ruzzo, the Archdiocese of Boston’s coordinator of Catholic services at BMC. “We just try to be present and listen to them. ... I prayed for the surgeons and the nurses.”
In a week when Boston hospitals cared for more than 170 bomb victims, staff chaplains were suddenly in great demand. They moved calmly from emergency departments to waiting rooms and employee lounges, offering a compassionate ear and much-needed comfort to anxious patients, family members and staffers.
“People think,’OK, here’s the guy who kind of represents the universe, or God, or the infinite or eternity,’” said Sam Lowe, a Quaker staff chaplain at BMC.
“If I stand there and I’m able to hear their story ... it reconnects them to the rest of humanity,” at a time when they’re apt to feel terribly alone.
read more here
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Another stupid piece of news about another PTSD study
Another stupid piece of news about another PTSD study
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
January 1, 2013
Sickening how the first post of 2013 has to be about going after another stupid piece of news about another PTSD study.
This report has been passed around the web for a couple of weeks now and I cannot just ignore it any longer.
Click the link to read more if you want to but I am still sitting here wondering how much more money they will waste on rediscovering the same thing.
PTSD comes with a long list of mental health symptoms that can be misdiagnosed as something else unless the mental health professional has been specially trained in trauma. They know what to look for. That is what you really have to know. You can be healed, but not cured. PTSD can be prevented and professionals have been doing that for about 30 years now because of studies done on Vietnam Veterans that began 40 years ago. You should know all of that too.
Actually this is wrong too. It should be after the event itself, before PTSD has a chance to take hold.
That is why there are Crisis Intervention Teams.
My family unknowingly was practicing this all my life. By the time I was in grade school, I almost died plus grew up with a violent alcoholic Dad, and oh by the way, my house had been broken into. By the time I was in Junior High School, all of that was topped off with a two cars burning and another hospital stay. By the time I was in High School, all that came with me but had not claimed me. Then there was my ex-husband tried to kill me, a bad car accident should have killed me but I walked away from it. Then there was being married to this husband, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, another life threatening situation when I was suffering a miscarriage of twins and hemorrhaged. That was followed by another hospital stay after the birth of my daughter and an infection nearly killed me. So please understand that while I'm reading the load of bullshit about chronic worry, I am shaking my head wondering how much money will keep being wasted.
The difference is, my family talked about everything until there was nothing left to say about any of it. They did what crisis intervention teams have been doing well before there was any "scientific data" to prove it worked.
Chronic worry? Well I guess I had that all my life but didn't end up with PTSD. Just worrying about something before being exposed to a traumatic event does not create PTSD. Not doing the right thing afterwards does. That is part of PTSD when paranoia sets in.
I have plenty of reasons to have PTSD, but only one reason I don't have it. Talking about it to someone I knew cared about me and was willing to listen made all the difference in the world. The rest of these so called "research" projects are a waste of time and money.
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
January 1, 2013
Sickening how the first post of 2013 has to be about going after another stupid piece of news about another PTSD study.
This report has been passed around the web for a couple of weeks now and I cannot just ignore it any longer.
Chronic worry linked PTSD
Created: Monday, December 31, 2012
Constant worriers are at increased risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study.
Many people experience traumatic events - such as witnessing violence, being assaulted or the death of a loved one - but only a few develop PTSD, noted study author Naomi Breslau, a professor of epidemiology at Michigan State University.
People with PTSD feel stressed and fearful after experiencing or seeing a dangerous event long after the danger is over.
"So the question is, 'What's the difference between those who develop PTSD and the majority who don't.' This paper says people who are habitually anxious are more vulnerable. It's an important risk factor," Breslau said in a university news release.
The study included about 1 000 people who answered questions meant to assess their level of neuroticism, which is marked by chronic anxiety, depression and a tendency to overreact to everyday challenges and disappointments.
Click the link to read more if you want to but I am still sitting here wondering how much more money they will waste on rediscovering the same thing.
PTSD comes with a long list of mental health symptoms that can be misdiagnosed as something else unless the mental health professional has been specially trained in trauma. They know what to look for. That is what you really have to know. You can be healed, but not cured. PTSD can be prevented and professionals have been doing that for about 30 years now because of studies done on Vietnam Veterans that began 40 years ago. You should know all of that too.
"Getting treatment as soon as possible after post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms develop may prevent long-term post-traumatic stress disorder."
Actually this is wrong too. It should be after the event itself, before PTSD has a chance to take hold.
That is why there are Crisis Intervention Teams.
My family unknowingly was practicing this all my life. By the time I was in grade school, I almost died plus grew up with a violent alcoholic Dad, and oh by the way, my house had been broken into. By the time I was in Junior High School, all of that was topped off with a two cars burning and another hospital stay. By the time I was in High School, all that came with me but had not claimed me. Then there was my ex-husband tried to kill me, a bad car accident should have killed me but I walked away from it. Then there was being married to this husband, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, another life threatening situation when I was suffering a miscarriage of twins and hemorrhaged. That was followed by another hospital stay after the birth of my daughter and an infection nearly killed me. So please understand that while I'm reading the load of bullshit about chronic worry, I am shaking my head wondering how much money will keep being wasted.
The difference is, my family talked about everything until there was nothing left to say about any of it. They did what crisis intervention teams have been doing well before there was any "scientific data" to prove it worked.
Chronic worry? Well I guess I had that all my life but didn't end up with PTSD. Just worrying about something before being exposed to a traumatic event does not create PTSD. Not doing the right thing afterwards does. That is part of PTSD when paranoia sets in.
I have plenty of reasons to have PTSD, but only one reason I don't have it. Talking about it to someone I knew cared about me and was willing to listen made all the difference in the world. The rest of these so called "research" projects are a waste of time and money.
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