ORMC Doctor Wore Army Boots Before Sneakers As A Medic

The doctor behind the bloody shoes on Facebook
Orlando Sentinel
Naseem S. Miller Contact Reporter
June 16, 2016

Corsa joined the Army after he finished high school in North Carolina. He spent six years in the Army, where he was a medic. He came back home and got his bachelor's degree in two years and then went to medical school.

A week before the bloody massacre at Pulse nightclub, Dr. Joshua Corsa bought a new pair of shoes from the REI outdoor company.

They were Keens and he liked them because he could put them on quickly – one of those important little details for a senior resident who has to rush around a busy Level I trauma center like Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Little did he know that in a few days those sneakers would become a symbol of all that's good and evil in this world.

It started with a text from an attending physician at the trauma center: possible active shooter and up to three injured with gunshot wounds.

Throughout those years he worked full-time as a firefighter/paramedic.
read more here

Comfort Dogs Arrive With ‘Unconditional Love’ in Orlando

In a Shaken Orlando, Comfort Dogs Arrive With ‘Unconditional Love’ 
New York Times 
By JONAH ENGEL BROMWICH 
JUNE 16, 2016

Melissa Soto with Susie, a comfort dog, on Tuesday near a memorial

site for the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

Credit John Taggart/European Pressphoto Agency

On the Monday following the Orlando massacre, 12 golden retrievers arrived in the Florida city.

They had come to offer comfort to some of the victims of the attack, the families of those killed and the emergency medical workers, as well as anyone else in the city in need of some canine affection after the deadliest shooting in American history.

The animals are part of the K-9 Comfort Dogs team, a program run by the Lutheran Church Charities, based in Northbrook, Ill. Founded in 2008, the team has comforted victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

Tim Hetzner, the president of the charity, said that the dogs in Orlando were helping to provide a feeling of safety, allowing those in distress to relax their guard and express their vulnerability during a difficult time.

“We’ve had a lot of people here that start petting the dog, and they break out crying,” he said.

The dogs and their 20 handlers have visited hospitals and churches, and attended vigils and memorial services.

On Wednesday, they visited some of the hospitalized victims and met with the staff of Pulse, the gay nightclub where the shooting occurred.
read more here

Need Help in Orlando After Pulse?

This is from Mayor Buddy Dyer

I am so proud of our community and how we have come together to support each other during this difficult time. We have shown the world the strength of our city and how we are better together and will not be divided. 

As our community continues to recover from the Pulse tragedy, we have opened a Family Assistance Center to serve as a critical connection between victims and the important services they need as part of their recovery. 

Over the past two days since we opened the center at Camping World Stadium, 94 families and 256 individuals have visited to receive help. But we know there are still more victims in need of help and we want them to know we are here for them. 

The Family Assistance Center isn’t just for those who lost loved ones or were injured, it is for anyone affected by the tragedy. If you, your friends or family members have been affected by the shooting, please encourage them to seek help. 

We have made access to these services as easy as possible. Hours of operations and resources available at the Family Assistance Center are listed on our website cityoforlando.net/familyassistancecenter. 

Thank you for continuing to stand together as one Orlando. 
Buddy Dyer 
Mayor

Orlando to open center for families, survivors of Pulse tragedy

Help Heal Orlando

How to Help Survivors the Most in Orlando
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 15, 2016

When the funerals are over and the media has gone, folks will still be in need of help.  This is not going to be over anytime soon for Orlando.

Families will need more help beyond the fabulous response they are getting right now.  Survivors will need all the support they can get for a very long time and a lot of people are willing to do that.

There have been reports that veterans have been offering to help survivors of the Pulse but have been turned away.  While they are certainly qualified to give support, especially when they know what survivor guilt is, they do not have what is required to do the most good.

They need to be trained. While personal experience is training in itself, the proper training will prevent well meaning veterans from making things worse for some.  There is also the issue of insurance.  Yep, even with this work.

I am certified as a Chaplain and trauma, have been doing this for over 30 years topped off with a lifetime of dealing with my own events, but I am not on anyone's list.  While I can offer to help, I would be shocked if they accepted it.

If you want to help the survivors and families a good thing to do is start a support group. You do this as a volunteer, much like AA is run by volunteers as a peer. 

While you do not need special training, there are some things you need to know to do the most good.

First understand the folks you are trying to help.  OK, you know what it like to put your life on the line knowing anything could happen but please understand these folks were not expecting to die while they were dancing.

Parents thought their greatest worry was that they would get into an accident on the way home from Pulse. They never expected to have to bury their kids when they went out to just have some fun.

We also need to face the fact that while there were survivors in the club when they shooting started and are dealing with their own survival issues, there were many more who left the club before any of this started.  Some of them lost friends and are trying to make sense out of why they left early but their friends decided to stay.

The first thing is that many will be dealing with issues about God.  Why did He let this happen?

This had nothing to do with God. It had to do with a small minded angry hateful little man who wanted to blame others for his miserable existence. What came afterwards had plenty to do with God when folks showed up by the thousands. 

They risked their lives to help total strangers at the club.  Doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters and civilians did whatever they could do to help. Folks stood in long lines to donate blood and then they donated money to help the families and survivors.  One act of hate caused acts of true selfless compassion.

Who lived and who died had nothing to do with God but everything to do with the murderer.  It was all about him.

If you want to start a support group, here are some things to know beyond that.

It is not a contest.  Do not add in what you went through while they are talking. Just let them know you can understand what it did to them and then listen.

Do not try to fix them. Too often people want to find the right words to get someone past the trauma.  They say stupid things like "God only gives us what we can handle" telling them that God did it to them. Yep, that happens all the time. 

Every time I survived something my family was there to listen until I was done talking. Most of the time it was letting me sort it all out so I could make sense out of it in a safe place.  They gave lousy advice but I knew they loved me and they helped me make my peace with the fact from that moment on, I would not be the same.  Trauma changes people the next moment after we survive it. What we do afterwards is up to us even though the "thing" was in someone else's hands. 

When I needed professional help, I was not afraid to go for it and between the professionals and my family, I know that is the only reason why I did not end up with PTSD. 

Let them know you care.  Look them in the eyes. Hold their hand if they want you to.  Offer to give them a hug. Ask them what they need. Above all, shut off the cell phone and if you still wear a watch, forget it is there.  For those moments you are there for the person you are trying to help and no one else. In other words, so not sit down with them if you only have a few minutes to spare. The worst thing you can do is walk away once you finally get someone to open up and trust you enough to share the hell in their mind.

Stars and Stripes had a great article the other day on how talk therapy works best.  It is better to be able to start talking about it as soon as it happens, but in the real world, we have to settle for as soon as possible.

Ask them if they have anyone to talk to at home. If not, then let them know before you leave them that you are there for them and give them your contact information.  Try to have contacts to share with them and look up resources so they are not feeling lost.

On a final note, there is a 30 day rule.  Usually after trauma, days get a little easier to get up out of bed and begin to heal however, if symptoms they are having do not go away or at least become weaker, they need to see a professional.  Let them know that.

VA Deploys Mobile Medical Unit to Orlando

What happened on early Sunday morning will not be the end of the story for a very long time. Some will eventually recover but no one will be the same. Some will end up needing help for PTSD. The thing is, if what you are experiencing is not gone or at least easier in 30 days, get help. Make sure you talk to a trauma specialist. The sooner you get help, the sooner you can help others.

VA Deploys Mental Health Staff in Orlando After Mass Shooting
Military.com
Bryant Jordan
June 13, 2016

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Orlando is providing emergency mental health assistance to people affected by the bloody rampage at a nightclub early Sunday that killed 49 and left 53 wounded.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, the VA said its services would be available to veterans and department employees, as well as the general public "in the wake of the tragic mass shooting."

Police say Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen and Muslim who lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, entered The Pulse, a gay nightspot, early Sunday morning and opened fire with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock handgun.

The medical center's Mobile Medical Unit is located at the Beardall Senior Center, 800 Delaney Ave., about three miles from The Pulse nightclub at 1912 South Orange Ave. The mobile unit will remain open Monday night until 11 p.m., officials said, and can be contacted at 321-277-6672.
read more here

Researchers Forget Emotions Tied To Memories

When will researchers understand there is a lot more going on in the human mind than just remembering? I keep hoping they will do a study involving everything that makes us, us. Our minds hold emotions tied to the memories they want us to just forget.

Memory study shows how people can intentionally forget past experiences
News Medical Life Sciences and Medicine
Published on May 6, 2016

Context plays a big role in our memories, both good and bad. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the car radio, for example, may remind you of your first love -- or your first speeding ticket. But a Dartmouth- and Princeton-led brain scanning study shows that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of those memories.

The findings have a range of potential applications centered on enhancing desired memories, such as developing new educational tools, or diminishing harmful memories, including treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study appears in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. A PDF is available on request.

Since Ancient Greece, memory theorists have known that we use context -- or the situation we're in, including sights, sounds, smells, where we are, who we are with -- to organize and retrieve our memories. But the Dartmouth- and Princeton-led team wanted to know whether and how people can intentionally forget past experiences. They designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to specifically track thoughts related to memories' contexts, and put a new twist on a centuries-old psychological research technique of having subjects memorize and recall a list of unrelated words. In the new study, researchers showed participants images of outdoor scenes, such as forests, mountains and beaches, as they studied two lists of random words, manipulating whether they were told to forget or remember the first list prior to studying the second list.
read more here

There is a long list of times when I almost died and a few others when it was not a matter of I could have died, but I should have died according to doctors treating me. The first time I heard those words I was only five after a series of things going wrong. Long story short, another kid pushed me off a slide. Not down it, but over the side of it at a drive-in movie. When my older brother found me, he thought I was dead but I was just knocked out. At the hospital, the doctor read the X-ray wrong and missed the crack in my scull and she also missed the signs of a concussion. She told my parents to take me home and let me get a good night sleep. Worst thing to do with a concussion and head trauma. The next day I was rushed to another hospital because my eyelid was swollen and I had a hard time talking. Turned out the doctor couldn't figure out why I was still alive.

The next time it was eight months after my daughter was born. I walked around with an infection that was not treated properly and my system turned septic. My doctor said he had never seen a bacteria count that high on a live patient and he was not sure why I was still alive.

Other times when stuff tried to end me included a violent alcoholic Dad up until I was thirteen and an ex-husband who tried to kill me, car accident and other health problems and then the usual bad memories of losing people I loved.

Every memory is tied to my soul/spirit but none of them have control over my life simply because I made peace with all of them while they are still a part of who I am today. The only way to make peace with the things that I survived was to forgive when someone did it to me and view the rest of the things as surviving them.

Making peace with each time was not easy but it was harder to go through them than to deal with them.

Even after all these years, going to a hospital will bring back memories of being a patient in them. Seeing a movie with a drive-in movie as a location brings back the memory of the night going from being a family night out to one of the worst nights of my life. It set off a chain of events including my Dad going from drinking some beers into a full-blown rage filled alcoholic blaming everyone including himself for my close call with death. He especially blamed my older brother for letting me get away from him. A very heavy burden to place on a twelve year old.

My Mom and my brothers never forgave him for the way he was during all those years even when he went to AA and got sober. They hung onto all the negative memories and it ate at their souls robbing them from all the good feelings that could have replaced the bad ones.

Until researchers stop thinking about our brains as if they are simply a super computer with files they can delete, they will never figure out a way to properly treat us with all that comes with that is tied to our memories.

Have PTSD APP On Phone? Forget About It!

PTSD The Quick and Easy Nonsense
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 15, 2015

Before you get PTSD, you need to understand a lot of stuff.  The first one is surviving should never be easier than dealing with the trauma itself afterwards.  It is only harder if you don't kick the crap out of it right away.

I did.  Each and every time.  The thing is, when my life was threatened the first time I was only 5. That was when I knew what trauma could do to a person, even a little kid. The rest of my life was one thing after another including TBI. I am stubborn, refuse to give in to anything so I hit back right away. I know I was changed by what happened but the events did not destroy me.

Crisis Intervention Training taught me why it worked.  The "thing" that had my life on the line stopped trying to end me when I started to talk about it in a "safe place" where I usually lived, free from fear of it following me.

There is a 30 day window after trauma and in that time you may try to do all kinds of things to try to feel more "normal" but if you are not feeling better within that time, get professional help.

We are hard wired to live with normal stuff but unprepared to deal with the freak events that are not supposed to happen.  Believe it or not, there are millions of Americans with PTSD.

Here are some facts (based on the U.S. population):

• About 7 or 8 out of every 100 people (or 7-8% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
• About 8 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
• About 10 of every 100 (or 10%) of women develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 (or 4%) of men. 

We talk about combat PTSD and what happens to police officers and firefighters but then the rest of us have to follow the lead on the major causes of PTSD especially when considering that the government tends to focus on military needs first.  That is where all the research on PTSD started and oh, by the way, that started over 40 years ago.

The DAV started major research in the 70's.

DAV and PTSD

"In 1977, DAV was approached by Dr. John Wilson of Cleveland State University concerning a doctoral thesis he had titled “The Forgotten Warrior Project.” His thesis was to clarify and provide a diagnosis for what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam veterans. Dr. Wilson had previously approached all the major service organizations and they declined any assistance. However, DAV saw the value of this research and agreed to fund and publish the study.

The study resulted in the creation of the DAV Vietnam Veterans Outreach Program, which was implemented in six cities. Within six months, DAV witnessed the benefit of these counseling centers were having on Vietnam veterans—they now had a place to talk to others like themselves. DAV expanded the program to 63 cities, one of which was Boston."

The National Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment Study (NVVRS) was conducted in response to a congressional mandate in 1983 for an investigation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other postwar psychological problems among Vietnam Veterans 

After that it all trickled down to the rest of us.  When they got it right, the rest of us did better but when they got it wrong,  everyone paid the price, from survivors to our family members and everyone else in our lives.

If you think for a second that none of this matters to you, understand that very simple fact because you never know when something will happen to you.

Ok, so coming later on for the rest of us are a lot of things that are being sold as the answer to everything.  There is "no one size fits all" so don't believe half the things you hear.

PTSD service dogs, great for some, help in some way but are not the only thing needed. What if you don't like dogs? What if you are afraid of them? What if the only help you've been offered is something that scares you more?

Equine Therapy, also good for some, but again, not for everyone.  Ever stand next to a horse? They are huge! I happen to love them almost as much as I love dogs but they are not for everyone. What if the only help you can find is tied to horses?

Medications help some but not all medications are good and cannot be viewed as a "cure" since most of them will only numb you.  Same thing with substance abuse.  Numbing is not healing.  Just because you stopped feeling pain doesn't mean you are feeling better and just because you drink to pass out that doesn't mean you are falling asleep.

Therapy has to treat all of you. Not just your mind or your body or just your spiritual needs.  The best way is to treat all of those parts of you equally.  Otherwise you may get by a little easier but you are not healing.

It seems everyone wants quick and easy on living with PTSD but none of that stuff works.  Your life changed but folks kind of forgot to tell you that you can change again for the better.  Just like all the "awareness" folks out there collecting your money to tell you veterans have a problem.  They leave out how to be aware of how to live a better quality of life.

Here is another quick and easy "fix" for you.

Just one more case of laziness and greed. They used to have to prove something worked before they claimed it did and got lots of money for it.

Bummer: No Evidence That Anti-Depression Apps Really Work

England’s publicly funded health care system, the National Health Service (NHS), has endorsed more than a dozen depression treatment apps, but there’s no proof that most of them actually work, according to a report published this week in the journal Evidence Based Mental Health. The authors of the report examined each of the fourteen depression apps the NHS lists in its app library and found that only two of them had been clinically validated using standard metrics.

In the same article it seems the US doesn't really approve of them and has oversight over them.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so far hasn’t taken much of an active stance on validating mental health apps. The agency published guidance in February this year, noting that apps that are intended to help with coping skills for people with depression and other psychiatric conditions may be subject to FDA oversight.

So if you have a APP that isn't doing you much good either, it isn't you. Just more of the same stuff that has been going on for decades dressed up in a new package.

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.

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

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

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 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.

"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.

“Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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