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

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

PTSD healing awareness videos

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 17, 2020

The following videos are all about healing PTSD. Since my work was focused on veterans for the last 38 years, these are about them. The only difference is the numbers are higher than they were when I started these in 2006.

If you are not a veteran, they should help you understand PTSD enough to know that no one is beyond healing it! I pray you find enough hope in these to #BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from PTSD.
In 2006 I created this video on Wounded Minds. Long before PTSD was in the news, families like mine were doing the best we could to make our veterans lives better. Sometimes we failed but after three decades, I'm still married. I still have no idea how other families do it when they know hardly nothing about PTSD. I knew almost everything and there were times when it was almost impossible to find hope. The key is to learn as much as you can, love as an active partner in their healing and find what works to make your lives better!

This is from my old website, NamGuardianAngel. Go to Combat PTSD Wounded Times to learn more.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

COVID-19 Dreams of Invisible Horror

In all the times I survived traumatic events, the dreams started. Vivid, strange dreams that made me think I was getting worse. After a while, they started going away. With COVID-19, they are back but now I have a better understanding of them. Instead of letting them haunt me, I laugh at them knowing they will go away again.


Insomnia and Vivid Dreams on the Rise With COVID-19 Anxiety


Smithsonian
By Theresa Machemer
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
APRIL 23, 2020
“One of the earliest patterns that I noticed was people associating hugging with danger or menace,” Gravley tells NPR. “So there are a couple dreams where the dreamers described that someone wanted to hug them, and it made them very frightened, even to the point where they would yell, like, you're hurting me; you're going to kill me.”

An ongoing study by the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center has found a 35 percent increase in dream recall and a 15 percent increase in negative dreams. ( Nuca Lomadze / EyeEm via Getty Images)


A novelist recalls a trip to a comic store with Ronald Reagan, who swipes his wallet before he can make a purchase; someone else remembers escaping a collapsing building by climbing into a pilotless plane, where he hid in a toilet; and NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly says that one night, she broke into a colleague’s apartment and stole from a hoard of toilet paper—and then she woke up.

As parts of the United States enter their second month of stay-at-home orders, people’s day-to-day lives are becoming paired with an increasingly strange and vivid dreamscape. And a growing group is experiencing insomnia, an inability to fall asleep, as Quartz’s Amanat Khullar reports. Both seem to be symptoms of stress, part of the shared anxiety surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Common dream scenarios collected by a group of psychoanalysis students in London, called Lockdown Dreams, include the dreamer running away from something or discovering that they’ve done something wrong.

“These are typical anxiety dreams. It’s very pedestrian stuff in that sense, but it’s acted out with such vivid imagination, it becomes very strange,” Jake Roberts, a spokesperson for Lockdown Dreams, tells Donna Ferguson at the Guardian. “Everyone’s quite shocked by the fact that they’re having incredibly vivid dreams. That’s so interesting because our material waking lives have become, in a way, more dull.”

The London-based group is not the only research project tracking the pandemic’s parallel rise in strange dreams. In France, a group at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center began a study on dreams and dream recall in March, National Geographic’s Rebecca Renner reports. And Bay Area resident Erin Gravley and her sister have begun a website called “i dream of covid” that asks visitors to share their recent dreams.
For those who find their vivid dreams unsettling, the good news is that the phenomenon will probably fade with time. read it here

and they will!

Monday, April 13, 2020

UCF Restores Program helping people under stress from Coronavirus Pandemic

UCF Restores Program Offering Coronavirus Mental Health Help


My News 13
BY JUSTIN SOTO ORANGE COUNTY
APR. 12, 2020
"We thought this was a good opportunity to reach out to the community in general, talk about stress, talk about how to manage stress and give us an opportunity to see if we can help people during this time when a lot of us may be feeling kind of shut in and alone," Beidel said.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Starting Monday, the University of Central Florida will be bringing a new mental health resource geared towards helping people manage stress during these uniquely challenging times.

UCF Restores will post video sessions on Facebook page twice a week
Sessions aimed at providing tools to help deal with stress
Learn more at UCFrestores.org

The University of Central Florida Restores program is working to help you and your family deal with the stress the coronavirus pandemic can bring.

UCF Restores is a clinical research program that regularly helps veterans, active duty personnel, and survivors of mass shootings or sexual assault through post-traumatic stress disorder.
read it here A couple of years ago, I interviewed Dr. Beidel about this progam.
Dr. Deborah Beidel delivered a message that veterans and responders need to hear. You can fight to #TakeBackYourLife. It takes a lot of work, but there are a lot of people out there who are ready, willing and able, to fight right by your side.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Isolated veterans to have story time on PTSD Patrol

update and confession on the other delay.


update project delay due to camera issues.....

Story time coming to PTSD Patrol


PTSD Patrol
Cross Posted on Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 23, 2020

Four years ago, I wrote Residual War. It was the first fiction book I wrote as a way to tell some stories that were factual mixed with stuff my mind came up with.


Residual War: Something Worth Living For (Volume 1) Paperback – October 2, 2016
Heroes do not think. They react to someone in danger. The Army was Amanda Leverage's life and she was willing to die to save the two lives she ended up blaming for spreading misery and suffering. She never needed to think of why she was willing to die but needed help finding something worth living for. She found it within a group of outcast heroes with their own history of selfless acts being punished for what they did wrong but protected for what they did right. PTSD, survivors guilt, homeless veterans, dishonorable discharges, flashbacks, nightmares and yes, even suicides were part of their lives but so was redemption.
Since I was supposed to be starting an Out Post for female veterans, here in New Hampshire just before the COVID-19 virus hit, it has been very depressing for me. I was offered room at the local American Legion to meet, but it is too dangerous for everyone now.

Experts say that the worst thing a veteran with PTSD can do, is to isolate, but now it is more dangerous for you to be out, and even worse to be in crowds. I needed to think outside the box on this to give you some comfort and fill up some of your time. I'll be reading this book on video, with a bit of a twist to it. I am setting a timer of 3 minutes. Whenever it goes off, whatever word I am on, that will be the end of the video.

We will then play a game as to what that final word means to you. If the word is "and" reply back withy something like "me and" or "and then" or whatever you think about. Should get some interesting replies on that.

It will pick up on the next word in the next video. You can cheat since Amazon has it for free on Kindle and apparently, for whatever reason, you can also read it on their preview page for free.

I am also opening up my YouTube and Facebook pages so you can share your thoughts and to answer questions from 12:00 pm eastern to 1:00 when the first video goes up this week. You can always email me at woundedimes@aol.com too.

Check back tomorrow for the official announcement on PTSD Patrol when the first video will go up!

Please share this since word of mouth has been the only way this site was able to be viewed over 4 million times!

Monday, August 5, 2019

Point Man getting to the point of love and what heals PTSD

Point Man weekend lifting up healing


Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 5, 2019

Of all the things you have been hearing about lately, you may have received the impression that it is all new stuff. Peer support...not new. Healing of mind-body and spirit...not new. Suicides and attempted suicides...not new. None of what you hear about today is new, but most of it is not an improvement on what had already been done without the glow of reporters covering stunts.

This weekend I was in Buffalo for the Point Man International Ministries conference. Dana Morgan, the President of Point Man for longer than I have been involved, has stepped down and is taking on leading an Out Post instead of the whole thing after over 20 years.

Want to know what works? Listen to these speeches and know what the rest of the groups should be doing because if you end the video and are not awakened to possibilities...not much else will open your eyes.



There will be a few more videos up tomorrow but they will have to wait until I get back from work.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Boise Fire Department FINDING HOPE

FINDING HOPE: Boise Fire Department coping with suicide death, fighting stigma of mental illness


KIVI News
By: Karen Lehr
Jun 25, 2019
"New firefighters saw veteran firefighters break down, and they talked about their feelings and how they were feeling that day, and really that has changed the stigma around it," Doan explained. "Other firefighters are seeing it's okay to seek treatment, that it's okay to not be okay."
BOISE, Idaho — Tuesday, May 21 is a day most Boise firefighters will never forget. Early that morning, firefighters at Station #6 discovered Senior Firefighter Charlie Ruffing died by suicide while working overnight.
It was known within the department Ruffing was facing struggles with his mental health. He was undergoing counseling to deal with post traumatic stress injuries as a result of incidents witnessed on the job over the course of his 20 year career.

A recent bill - passed this legislative session - will soon allow those working on the front lines in Idaho to file for workers compensation to cover the cost of treating psychological injuries incurred while on the job, but Boise Fire is doing even more to make sure this never happens again on their watch.
read more here

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

“Voices of Service” send message to troops and veterans with PTSD...RISE!

Caps anthem singer Caleb Green’s military quartet was a hit on ‘America’s Got Talent’


The Washington Post
By Scott Allen 
June 19 at 4:00 PM

Caleb Green, a regular singer of the “Star-Spangled Banner” before Capitals home games for years and a well known face to D.C. sports fans, burst on the national scene this week with a stirring performance on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”

Green’s a cappella quartet, “Voices of Service,” which is composed of veterans and active duty service members, delighted the studio audience and all four celebrity judges with its rendition of Katy Perry’s 2016 hit “Rise” on Tuesday’s episode of the popular talent show competition, now in its 14th season.

“The song, your voices, your ability, I can’t thank you enough for all of it,” judge Gabrielle Union said after the group received an extended standing ovation. “Thank you.”
read more here

Voices of Service: Military Members Cover Rise by Katy Perry - America's Got Talent 2019

America's Got Talent Published on Jun 18, 2019 Wow! The singing quartet of veterans and active duty service members perform “Rise” by Katy Perry like you’ve never heard it before.

Sunday, June 9, 2019

PTSD Patrol For The Love of Jack

PTSD Patrol post went up late today because I was being interviewed for my book, For The Love of Jack.

If someone you love needs you to fight for them, this is the way to start being able to do it!

When your battle begins after their battle was supposed to end


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 9, 2019

The PTSD Patrol video is late today because I was doing an interview with Sgt. Dave Matthews for KLRN Radio show Remember the Fallen. It is heard on Thursdays at 8:00 pm eastern time.

We were talking about my book FOR THE LOVE OF JACK. This is part of the interview. If you want to hear the rest, you'll have to wait until  Thursday.

Next week, I'll have more of this.
go here to see the video

Monday, May 13, 2019

Texas veterans remind others they do not have to fight PTSD alone

Veterans try to combat depression, suicides after return to civilian life


Houston Chronicle
Robert Downen
May 11, 2019


But little of that prepared them for their new battle - the war with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide that has claimed 14 men from the battalion since they returned in 2006.


Smith’s funeral was the third that year. O’Neel felt like he’d failed him. Danny O’Neel could not help but feel guilt as he stared over his former sniper’s casket.


As a 23-year-old squadron leader, he’d protected Adam Smith and the other soldiers of the Army’s 3rd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment while deployed to one of Iraq’s most violent parts.

Sadr City in 2006 was “terrible,” “one of the most dangerous places on earth,” O’Neel said Saturday.

Some men lost limbs; nine lost their lives.
“We want to remind them all that they didn’t go through war alone,” Faun said. “They didn’t have gunfights alone. And they don’t need to battle things at home alone.”
read more here

Yale researcher find elevated risk of suicide with PTSD

Biomarker reveals PTSD sufferers at risk of suicide


Yale News
By Bill Hathaway
May 13, 2019
There are two FDA approved treatments for PTSD, both of which are anti-depressants. It can take weeks or months to determine whether they are effective. That can be too late for those who are suicidal, note the researchers.

Brains of individuals with PTSD and suicidal thoughts (top) show higher levels of mGluR5 compared to healthy controls (bottom).


The risk of suicide among individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is much higher than the general population, but identifying those individuals at greatest risk has been difficult. However, a team at Yale has discovered a biological marker linked to individuals with PTSD who are most likely to think about suicide, the researchers report May 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers used PET imaging to measure levels of metabotropic glutamatergic receptor 5 (mGluR5) — which has been implicated in anxiety and mood disorders — in individuals with PTSD and major depressive disorder. They found high levels of mGluR5 in the PTSD group with current suicidal thoughts. They found no such elevated levels in the PTSD group with no suicidal thoughts or in those with depression, with or without current suicidal thoughts.
read more here

Wonder if they ever thought to study people who are healing PTSD instead?

Can you imagine what that scan would look like or how much hope it would offer to people with PTSD to see that they could not just change their lives but actually change the way their brain works by filling it up with more hopeful thoughts?

Imagine if they took a scan of someone before they believed they were worthy of being forgiven and then one after they accepted the fact they were? 

Why do researchers only track what is failing instead of tracking people who have managed to take control of their lives again?

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Instead of dismissing your own emotions, honor what you are feeling

Break Pads


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 14, 2019

When you are grieving, sometimes you need to apply the brakes...so that you can #BreakTheSilence of what you are going through. 

Most of the time people do not know what to expect from themselves. You may judge yourself, or expect more from your core.

Instead of dismissing your own emotions, honor what you are feeling so you can being the healing.

If you are angry, then honor it. I yelled at my Dad at the cemetery a few days after his funeral. I chewed out my brother at the funeral home before everyone else got there. I was angry because I wanted them to still be here.

If you are sad, then honor that. They were a part of your life and they still can be in your memories of them. There comes a time when those memories will stop being painful reminders they are gone. The memories become fond ones of times when they were here.

Do not judge yourself or let anyone else judge you for not grieving enough or too much, or taking too long to "get over it" because they did it another way.
read more here

Friday, April 5, 2019

First responders often haunted by what they see

Strong, brave and traumatized: Upstate SC first responders often haunted by what they see


The Greenville News
Liv Osby
April 1, 2019

James Kaiser loved being a paramedic.
It’s all he ever wanted to do.

At 49, he’d been helping people for nearly three decades, shocking a heart attack victim back to life or stanching the bleeding wounds of a teenager who crashed his car into a tree, and keeping them alive in the ambulance until they could reach the hospital.
Then one February night in 2016, after preparing a special meal for his family, he walked out into the front yard, put his gun to his head, and took his own life.

“He had not been diagnosed with PTSD,” his wife, Sheila Kaiser, told The Greenville News.

“But I know from living with him ... that he did suffer from it.”

Strong and courageous
James Kaiser is among an alarming number of first responders contemplating and dying by suicide.
Of 4,022 EMS staffers and firefighters responding to a 2015 survey, 37 percent had contemplated suicide and 6.6 percent had attempted to take their own lives, according to research published in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services.
read more here


This may help explain the difference between civilians with PTSD and the responders who try to save their lives every day.

Grieving does not mean you are weak...it means you are human. While you are heroic, you are not superhuman and the way you may think things could have turned out differently, the events were not scripted and it was not a movie where the director allows the impossible to be possible.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

The Resilient, band like no other

"We just wear our scars on the outside": Band of wounded warriors healing through music


CBS NEWS
By DAVID MARTIN
March 25, 2019
"There's something about it, that just, the motivation, the drive, the just the soul of it. It doesn't feel it can go anywhere but up," Donley said.

Bethel, Pa. — In a house in the woods in the middle of Pennsylvania, some of the most important music in America is being played by a band called The Resilient. But you don't need to be a music critic to say that. All you have to do is look.

Nate Kalwicki on guitar lost his right leg in Afghanistan. Marcus D'Andrea on bass lost both legs. So did lead vocalist Tim Donley. Juan Dominguez lost both legs and an arm, yet somehow plays the drums with a special pedal and drum stick. He's not some novelty act.

"I am a drummer. I am the drummer for The Resilient and we're gonna do big things," Dominquez said.

The only member of The Resilient with all his body parts is Greg Loman, a professional musician who met the others in their darkest hour, searching for a purpose in life while recovering from their wounds.

"Through the recovery we all discovered this really intense passion for honest musicianship and they've all gotten so good," Loman said.
read more here

Sunday, February 17, 2019

What is your dash telling you?

It is the middle that matters


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
February 17, 2019

When you look at your dash, there are a lot of things it can tell you. In the center, you see how far you've traveled and how fast you are going at this very moment.



THE DASH by Linda Ellis is one of those poems that is usually delivered when it is too late for the person being remembered to benefit from. It is not so much for the person being buried, but for those gathered to be able to think about their own lives.

This is part of that poem.

"He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years."
While we have no control over when we arrive into this world, we do have control over what we do between the dates used to acknowledge we were here at all.

"FOR THAT DASH REPRESENTS ALL THE TIME THEY SPENT ALIVE ON EARTH AND NOW ONLY THOSE WHO LOVED THEM KNOW WHAT THAT LITTLE LINE IS WORTH."

Question; What is your line worth? Can you see it all or is it mostly a blur with symbols you cannot really understand?
read more here

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Soldier's heart does not have to include head full of demons

You are smarter than slogans


Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 5, 2019

Someone lied to you. Someone told you something and you believed it because you trusted them. You never bothered to ask them to prove it was true.

I do not need someone to prove God is real. I see it everyday. I see it in the unique people who always put others first, even if it means they will be last for everything.

I see it when men and women are willing to endure all kinds of hardships, including the judgment of fools, for the sake of others.

I see God's Love in all types of acts of kindness and compassion, mercy, inspiration and unselfishness.

I also see what evil can do pretending to be good. I do not need proof that the Demon is real. I see what he does to those who find purpose serving others.

I also see it when people claim they are doing something to change what is wrong, when the result proves they lied to us. They can deny it all they want, but after all these years of hearing how important it is to prevent suicides, and how expensive it is according to them, we see suffering increase every year.

We hear it from the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Congress and especially from all the "awareness" fundraisers running around the country with their BS stunts. Did they think we wouldn't notice that they are spreading messages of despair instead of anything helpful?

Before they were "paying attention" we were way ahead of all of them. We were talking about what failed as well as what worked. Ignorance failed but knowledge heals.
Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Oct 21, 2012
There are many things that keep getting missed when we talk about Combat and PTSD. This is to clear up the biggest one of all. What is courage and how does it link to being "mentally tough" so that you can push past what you were told about "resiliency" training. Chaplain Kathie "Costos" DiCesare of Wounded Times Blog tries to explain this in interview done by Union Squared Studios. woundedtimes.blogspot.com

So we were told over and over again, that everyone in charge was paying attention at the same time they tried to come up with excuses. Then they asked for more money, to keep doing the same thing that already failed, and we were no longer able to count the number of the dead. Well, at least not in the veterans community, but because Congress mandated the DOD to track suicides within the military, we have a more up to date report with data that proves none of the "awareness" they actually needed to become aware of was able to get to them. All the crap got in the way.

So, here are the latest headlines on military suicides. 


Suicides among active-duty soldiers are up about 20 percent


Army Times
By: Meghann Myers
February 4, 2019


“We must continue to ensure commanders have the policies and resources they need to prevent suicides, that all leaders have the tools to identify soldiers who are suffering and to positively intervene, and that all soldiers view seeking mental health care as a sign of strength.” Col. Kathleen Turner

The Army reported an uptick in active-duty suicides in 2018, according to service statistics, though deaths by suicide were slightly down in the total force.

Out of 303 total reports, 138 came from the active-duty side ― 22 more than in 2017, Defense Department statistics show.

“Like the rest of America, the Army continues to grapple with the loss of too many of our people to suicide," Army spokeswoman Col. Kathleen Turner told Army Times in a statement Friday. “The loss of any soldier or Army family member to suicide is a tragedy.”

The most recent DoD quarterly suicide report goes back to 2012, showing a six-year high of 325 total suicides in the Army. That number dropped to 300 in 2013 and then to a low of 245 in 2014, before ramping back up to 279 in both 2015 and 2016, then jumping again to 303 in 2017.

During that time, active-duty numbers also fluctuated. The Army reported 165 active-duty suicides in 2012, which dropped to 121 in 2013, then 126 in 2014 and 120 in 2015. The past three years, the numbers have swelled and dipped from 120 in 2016 to 116 in 2017, then back up to 138.

“While the Army has made progress, more work needs to be done,” Turner said.
read more here


US Special Ops suicides triple in 2018, as military confronts the issue


CNN
Barbara Starr
February 2, 2019

Washington (CNN)Suicides among active duty military personnel assigned to US Special Operations Command tripled in 2018, in a disturbing and as yet unexplained spike, CNN has learned.
Special Operations units saw 22 deaths by suicide in 2018, almost triple the eight cases seen in 2017, according to figures provided to CNN by the command. SOCOM, as it's known, is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations component of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force that take on counterterrorism and other specialized missions. read more here

Active-Duty Military Suicides at Record Highs in 2018


Military.com
Patricia Kime
January 30, 2019


Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include Army year-end totals.


The U.S. military finished 2018 with a troubling, sad statistic: It experienced the highest number of suicides among active-duty personnel in at least six years.
Lt. Cmdr. Karen Downer writes a name on a Suicide Awareness Memorial Canvas in honor of Suicide Awareness Month at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Sept. 10, 2018. (U.S. Navy/Jacob Sippel, Naval Hospital Jacksonville).
Active duty Military members could save more with GEICO. Get a quote today! A total of 321 active-duty members took their lives during the year, including 57 Marines, 68 sailors, 58 airmen, and 138 soldiers.

The deaths equal the total number of active-duty personnel who died by suicide in 2012, the record since the services began closely tracking the issue in 2001. read more here

Don't you love the slogan? One too many or too few actually paying attention?
The question is, if we knew what had to be done over 4 decades ago, when serious research started, then why haven't they figured it out yet? Do not spend so much time thinking about taking your own life when you can think about how to #TakeYourLifeBack and heal! The road ahead is in your control!

Sunday, January 20, 2019

It is time to take another road!

Stay out of the wrong lane


PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 20, 2019

This morning I was thinking about how people in the wrong lane of traffic can mess up everyones ride.


I go into work at 5 am, which is great most mornings. With only a few cars on the road, it is really a nice commute. That is, until I get behind someone without a clue where they are going, and blocking the passing lane.

That happened Friday. The driver in the right lane was obeying the speed limit. The driver traveling in the passing lane was doing a little under the speed limit. There was no safe way to pass either of them.

Soon there was a group of us trapped behind them.

That is the way it is in life too. You are having a nice trip until someone gets in your way and blocks the road ahead of you, making it take longer to get to where you need to go.

If you are hearing about how many veterans someone thinks committed suicide today, you need to wonder what their point is. Who does it help when they just guess? How serious is the subject them when they cannot answer any questions? 

The most obvious question they should have been finding the answer to, is, "What will change the outcome?"


Sunday, January 13, 2019

Getting rid of the stigma of PTSD is like melting black ice

Getting rid of the stigma of PTSD is like melting black ice.


PTSD Patrol Sunday Morning Empowerment Zone
Kathie Costos
January 13, 2019

Black ice looks like a puddle but it makes the driving conditions dangerous. The stigma attached to PTSD is like black ice in your life. Facts can melt it so you can heal it! #BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife
Read it here and watch the video of my office back in order again.