Carbondale veteran starts PTSD support group
26-year-old Iraq War veteran creates outlet for those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
John Gardner
Post Independent Staff
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
CARBONDALE, Colorado — Adam McCabe knows the affects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder all too well.
McCabe, a 26-year-old Marine veteran of the Iraq War, has been dealing with the disorder since he returned from his second tour of duty in 2006. He found that it was hard to acclimate back into society after having seen the reality of war.
“I've been having a lot of struggles the past few years,” McCabe said.
McCabe found that he was pushing those closest to him away, and he had a tough time connecting with people. Life was very different than he remembered.
“I thought that I would be successful in the civilian world because I was successful in the military,” he said. “But there is a big disconnect here. I couldn't connect with people, family and friends. Not because I didn't want to, but because everything had changed about me.”
He's undergone intensive inpatient treatment for PTSD, he said. And now, he's found solace in talking with other veterans who suffer from the same disorder.
“Once I started talking about it, it was a good thing,” McCabe said.
And now he's helping other veterans in the Roaring Fork Valley, who suffer from the disorder, to deal with it head on.
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Carbondale veteran starts PTSD support group
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Hit-and-run hospitalizes Pearl Harbor veteran
Hit-and-run hospitalizes Pearl Harbor veteran
Friday, January 08, 2010
Bob Banfield
BANNING, Calif. (KABC) -- The highway patrol is asking for the public's help, hoping a tip will lead them to the hit-and-run driver who crashed into a car driven by an 86-year-old survivor of Pearl Harbor.
The incident being investigated occurred Thursday at 9:45 a.m. on Palm and De Waide avenues in Hemet.
The driver of a 1998 Honda stolen from a parking lot in Bulmont collided with a Dodge Neon driven by Benjamin Weat a resident of a retirement home in Hemet.
"Both vehicles were disabled at the scene. He did flee the scene, and we have set up a perimeter for several hours looking for the suspect but were unable to locate him," said Scott Beauchene of the California Highway Patrol.
The driver of the Honda may have been injured but he left the accident site on foot. He is described as a Hispanic male, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short black hair, with a tattoo on the left side of his head and may answer to the name Angel.
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Hit-and-run hospitalizes Pearl Harbor veteran
Friday, January 08, 2010
Bob Banfield
BANNING, Calif. (KABC) -- The highway patrol is asking for the public's help, hoping a tip will lead them to the hit-and-run driver who crashed into a car driven by an 86-year-old survivor of Pearl Harbor.
The incident being investigated occurred Thursday at 9:45 a.m. on Palm and De Waide avenues in Hemet.
The driver of a 1998 Honda stolen from a parking lot in Bulmont collided with a Dodge Neon driven by Benjamin Weat a resident of a retirement home in Hemet.
"Both vehicles were disabled at the scene. He did flee the scene, and we have set up a perimeter for several hours looking for the suspect but were unable to locate him," said Scott Beauchene of the California Highway Patrol.
The driver of the Honda may have been injured but he left the accident site on foot. He is described as a Hispanic male, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short black hair, with a tattoo on the left side of his head and may answer to the name Angel.
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Hit-and-run hospitalizes Pearl Harbor veteran
Iraq War veteran, mother battle the odds
Iraq War veteran, mother battle the odds
B.J. Steed
Steven McFarland is a decorated war veteran who served as a gunner along the front lines in the War on Terror.
After returning home in 2006, his mother, Jan McFarland, noticed something about her son had changed.
"Tossing and turning, he was hyperventilating; if you came up behind him he would jump and scream. He didn't like being cornered in," says McFarland.
Jan, a former nurse with UAMS, recognized her son's symptoms as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
"He would re-enact a person dying that he saw, and the death scene," McFarland says.
The 21-year-old began seeking treatment for the disorder, taking medication prescribed by his doctor.
But his mother says those doses couldn't block the terrible things he had experienced in battle.
He began medicating himself with multiple drugs.
In February, just two months after returning from battle, McFarland's lawyer, Chip Welch, says things took a turn for the worst.
read more here
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=97379&catid=2
video
Iraq War veteran, mother battle the odds
Steven McFarland is a decorated war veteran who served as a gunner along the front lines in the War on Terror.
B.J. Steed
Steven McFarland is a decorated war veteran who served as a gunner along the front lines in the War on Terror.
After returning home in 2006, his mother, Jan McFarland, noticed something about her son had changed.
"Tossing and turning, he was hyperventilating; if you came up behind him he would jump and scream. He didn't like being cornered in," says McFarland.
Jan, a former nurse with UAMS, recognized her son's symptoms as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
"He would re-enact a person dying that he saw, and the death scene," McFarland says.
The 21-year-old began seeking treatment for the disorder, taking medication prescribed by his doctor.
But his mother says those doses couldn't block the terrible things he had experienced in battle.
He began medicating himself with multiple drugs.
In February, just two months after returning from battle, McFarland's lawyer, Chip Welch, says things took a turn for the worst.
read more here
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=97379&catid=2
video
Iraq War veteran, mother battle the odds
Steven McFarland is a decorated war veteran who served as a gunner along the front lines in the War on Terror.
"We've had 7 suicides in 2009."
Watching this video provides a lot of hope that many in leadership are understanding PTSD a lot better than ever before. The story of Steven McFarland should not have happened but it did because when it comes to PTSD, there is a very long way to go but this video should restore hope that we are closer than we ever were before of getting these men and women help to heal.
92 year old man doesn't let car crash stop breakfast
Man Rams Car Into Restaurant, Eats Breakfast
92-Year-Old Cited For Reckless Driving
PORT ORANGE, Fla. -- Diners at the Biscuit's "N" Gravy and More restaurant in Port Orange received a surprise Wednesday when a car plowed into the side of the building.
A 92-year-old man was at the wheel when his vehicle crashed into the busy restaurant on Nova Road.
The driver wasn't hurt, but the cook said a customer had just left the damaged seating area.
read more here
http://www.wesh.com/news/22157235/detail.html
92-Year-Old Cited For Reckless Driving
PORT ORANGE, Fla. -- Diners at the Biscuit's "N" Gravy and More restaurant in Port Orange received a surprise Wednesday when a car plowed into the side of the building.
A 92-year-old man was at the wheel when his vehicle crashed into the busy restaurant on Nova Road.
The driver wasn't hurt, but the cook said a customer had just left the damaged seating area.
read more here
http://www.wesh.com/news/22157235/detail.html
What's the right answer with PTSD and gun rights?
What's the right answer with PTSD and gun rights?
by
Chaplain Kathie
I know a lot of veterans with PTSD and they own guns. For too many not receiving the help they need, having a gun helps them feel "protected" instead of being any kind of danger to themselves or others. While tracking PTSD reports across the country for all this time, I am also fully aware of the fact guns are used to end their pain as well as take the life of someone else when they "freak out" usually due to a flashback and other factors of PTSD. So what's the right answer? Is it to not allow them to have guns or would it be more appropriate to get them the help they need?
Not such a simple answer. When you consider some of the law makers wanting to do the right thing they need to look at the bigger picture. A knee jerk reaction is that it makes sense to take guns away but they need to look at what this ends up doing. It stops PTSD veterans from getting help because they don't want to give up their guns. Do you want them to have no help as PTSD gets worse while they have guns in the house?
I do presentations providing awareness of what PTSD is and what it does. Usually there is a question and answer time following the video. Most of the questions are about gun rights. This is not a good thing. Innocent civilians never being deployed into combat are victims of combat when PTSD takes hold and a veteran opens fire. They know how to use guns and they know how to hit what they aim for. After all, this is what kept them alive in combat. When they come home, they have relied on weapons to stay alive to the point where they cannot even think of being without their guns and knives. Weapons become a part of them and they would never think of leaving them behind or not having one within reach because in combat, every second brings more danger to them, then they take that thought into civilian life.
The best answer to this is to make sure every veteran with PTSD receives the help they need and this requires learning to live a peaceful life again. They cannot do this with medication alone. They need therapy provided by an expert dedicated to healing PTSD and not someone with such limited knowledge they can't even understand what PTSD is. Too often this is exactly what the veterans are getting.
The issue of them not being responsible for their financial affairs is connected to the majority of veterans with high PTSD scores. Short term memory loss and irrational thinking are parts of it as well, but just because they want to go out and spend money they can't afford or can't remember to pay a bill, that does not automatically make them dangerous to themselves or others.
When the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act was first being debated, my knee jerk reaction was supporting this effort. It made sense until it was pointed out to me that it could potentially cause more harm than good. I did not really understand how deep the need was to hang onto guns or how much this would hurt them emotionally. It was pointed out to me by one of my friends that they would end up feeling as if their time in combat meant nothing and that they were suddenly supposed to give up their rights just because they came home wounded by PTSD. PTSD hit them while they were in combat but they still had weapons, trusted to have the weapons and now when they are trying to live a relatively "normal" life again, they are supposed to give up their weapons leaving them feeling they are penalized for serving and risking their lives.
We read about veterans taking the life of someone else and think this is a huge problem. We read about them committing suicide with a gun but we fail to understand they find other ways. What we also fail to understand is that when we're talking about numbers measured by hundreds of thousands the percentage of veterans with PTSD using guns against someone else is low enough to show this is not the answer.
The rate of 18 veterans a day taking their own lives does however prove the need to be better at taking care of them overall not just those deemed too impaired to handle their own finances.
In a perfect world, all our veterans would receive whatever care they need to recover from physical and invisible wounds, would be able to have the financial security when their wounds prevent them from working and would find their families receiving the full support they need to care for them, but this is not a perfect world. Less than half of PTSD veterans seek help to heal even though the sooner they seek help the better the outcome, they fight against getting help, partly because of the stigma but also because they do not trust the government to deliver anything. Can you blame them?
Depending on what part of the country they live in, their claims can be harder to have approved, harder to get to care and harder to find the best care. Even when you look at the National Guards, you'll find some states ahead of the rest with programs to address PTSD and suicides. The Montana National Guards efforts prove this and this program is being taken to a national level, but in between then and now, the Montana National Guardsmen are able to use this program while other National Guardsmen are receiving very little. Then there is the issue of the backlog of claims along with denials. There are too many obstacles already.
Threatening veterans to take away their guns ends up making sure less veterans seek help for PTSD and with the system the way it is, they don't need one more reason to stay away from the VA.
by
Chaplain Kathie
I know a lot of veterans with PTSD and they own guns. For too many not receiving the help they need, having a gun helps them feel "protected" instead of being any kind of danger to themselves or others. While tracking PTSD reports across the country for all this time, I am also fully aware of the fact guns are used to end their pain as well as take the life of someone else when they "freak out" usually due to a flashback and other factors of PTSD. So what's the right answer? Is it to not allow them to have guns or would it be more appropriate to get them the help they need?
Not such a simple answer. When you consider some of the law makers wanting to do the right thing they need to look at the bigger picture. A knee jerk reaction is that it makes sense to take guns away but they need to look at what this ends up doing. It stops PTSD veterans from getting help because they don't want to give up their guns. Do you want them to have no help as PTSD gets worse while they have guns in the house?
I do presentations providing awareness of what PTSD is and what it does. Usually there is a question and answer time following the video. Most of the questions are about gun rights. This is not a good thing. Innocent civilians never being deployed into combat are victims of combat when PTSD takes hold and a veteran opens fire. They know how to use guns and they know how to hit what they aim for. After all, this is what kept them alive in combat. When they come home, they have relied on weapons to stay alive to the point where they cannot even think of being without their guns and knives. Weapons become a part of them and they would never think of leaving them behind or not having one within reach because in combat, every second brings more danger to them, then they take that thought into civilian life.
The best answer to this is to make sure every veteran with PTSD receives the help they need and this requires learning to live a peaceful life again. They cannot do this with medication alone. They need therapy provided by an expert dedicated to healing PTSD and not someone with such limited knowledge they can't even understand what PTSD is. Too often this is exactly what the veterans are getting.
The issue of them not being responsible for their financial affairs is connected to the majority of veterans with high PTSD scores. Short term memory loss and irrational thinking are parts of it as well, but just because they want to go out and spend money they can't afford or can't remember to pay a bill, that does not automatically make them dangerous to themselves or others.
When the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act was first being debated, my knee jerk reaction was supporting this effort. It made sense until it was pointed out to me that it could potentially cause more harm than good. I did not really understand how deep the need was to hang onto guns or how much this would hurt them emotionally. It was pointed out to me by one of my friends that they would end up feeling as if their time in combat meant nothing and that they were suddenly supposed to give up their rights just because they came home wounded by PTSD. PTSD hit them while they were in combat but they still had weapons, trusted to have the weapons and now when they are trying to live a relatively "normal" life again, they are supposed to give up their weapons leaving them feeling they are penalized for serving and risking their lives.
We read about veterans taking the life of someone else and think this is a huge problem. We read about them committing suicide with a gun but we fail to understand they find other ways. What we also fail to understand is that when we're talking about numbers measured by hundreds of thousands the percentage of veterans with PTSD using guns against someone else is low enough to show this is not the answer.
Bush Signs Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill into Law
The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act (H.R. 327) is designed to help address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans by requiring mental health training for Veterans Affairs staff; a suicide prevention counselor at each VA medical facility; and mental-health screening and treatment for veterans who receive VA care. It also supports outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention. The VA had been implementing a number of these programs, but not in a timely manner, whereas the Joshua Omvig bill mandates these programs and subsequent deadlines as a means of expediting the process for returning veterans.
The rate of 18 veterans a day taking their own lives does however prove the need to be better at taking care of them overall not just those deemed too impaired to handle their own finances.
In a perfect world, all our veterans would receive whatever care they need to recover from physical and invisible wounds, would be able to have the financial security when their wounds prevent them from working and would find their families receiving the full support they need to care for them, but this is not a perfect world. Less than half of PTSD veterans seek help to heal even though the sooner they seek help the better the outcome, they fight against getting help, partly because of the stigma but also because they do not trust the government to deliver anything. Can you blame them?
Depending on what part of the country they live in, their claims can be harder to have approved, harder to get to care and harder to find the best care. Even when you look at the National Guards, you'll find some states ahead of the rest with programs to address PTSD and suicides. The Montana National Guards efforts prove this and this program is being taken to a national level, but in between then and now, the Montana National Guardsmen are able to use this program while other National Guardsmen are receiving very little. Then there is the issue of the backlog of claims along with denials. There are too many obstacles already.
Threatening veterans to take away their guns ends up making sure less veterans seek help for PTSD and with the system the way it is, they don't need one more reason to stay away from the VA.
Bill protects rights of wounded veterans
It is clear from your recent editorial about S. 669, the Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act, that you took the time to read the talking points of an organization opposed to my legislation, but never bothered to actually read the bill. I welcome the opportunity to inform your readers what it really does.
The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act requires a judicial process, rather than a bureaucratic one, to determine whether or not veterans are a danger to themselves or others before stripping them of their constitutional rights. These men and women are the only recipients of federal benefits who are automatically deprived of a constitutional right solely because they've been appointed a fiduciary, regardless of the reason. Recipients of Social Security and other federal benefits are not subject to such arbitrary decisions.
You wrote that the current process is "not easy." You are correct in one regard. While it is quite easy for VA to add a veteran--and family members--to the NICS list, it is extremely difficult for a veteran to appeal that decision. Just ask Corey Briest, a veteran who was severely wounded in Iraq. Corey's wife Jennifer, his fiduciary, wrote to me that a VA field examiner admonished them to rid the house of their guns or they could be prosecuted. Never mind that Corey was encouraged to hunt as part of his rehabilitation, and never mind that he owns a heirloom rifle, handed down to him by his grandfather (also a veteran) that Corey wanted to pass on to his son. And never mind that no one bothered in the first place to assess whether Corey was a danger to himself or anyone else.
read more here
Bill protects rights of wounded veterans
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