There was a time in this country when the majority of citizens had integrity. Now it seems as if all they need is a social media account.
Integrity
noun
1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished:
to preserve the integrity of the empire.
3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition:
the integrity of a ship's hull.
There are many leaders in the veteran community appalled by what has been passed around as factual when folks with a following are pushing veterans off a cliff. It is time for all the claims of "experts" to stop unless they actually are experts and not simply doing research from falsehoods.
I've been working with, plus living with my own veteran, for over 30 years. Some consider me an expert after all these years and I suppose it is accurate however, I am still learning more and more all the time. I make sure what I learn is tied to what was discovered, proven and put into use from trusted sources. If not, if it is nothing more than someone making claims and no one stops them, we will continue to see such deadly results.
The latest news has folks in shock to discover Vietnam veterans are still suffering after all these years. That is unless you've been paying attention all along and know the report is wrong.
More Than 200,000 Vietnam Vets Still Have PTSD, TIME, Mandy Oaklander July 22, 2015, leads with "New research reveals considerable PTSD in some vets, even decades after war" by
JAMA, (Journal of the American Medical Association)
This is the title of the research,
Measuring the Long-term Impact of War-Zone Military Service Across Generations and Changing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Definitions and this is the part that should have gotten more attention from the press.
The comparability across generations is concerning. Although screening and treatment services are unparalleled now compared with the Vietnam era, challenges persist, including low use of mental health services for those most in need and high rates of treatment dropout. During the past decade, greater numbers of veterans from Vietnam and the first Gulf War have sought Department of Veterans Affairs services than veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, likely reflecting emergence of chronic health conditions and other life transitions associated with aging. Thus, despite unprecedented efforts to encourage earlier treatment access for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, their need for services will undoubtedly grow over time.
There has never been more groups to "raise awareness" and claim to be doing something for veterans with PTSD and there has never been more of a threat to their lives than right now. It will just keep getting worse as long as people support the instant experts with nothing more than the ability to do a Google search.
Here are some things to watch out for.
"Raising awareness" is the hot answer of "About 15,100,000 results (0.46 seconds)" in Google search. Think about that for a second. That many, but far from "new"
Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism, popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group of people on some cause or condition.
There is a great piece about this on
Harsh Critic ‘Raising awareness’, are you? Be aware of this: you’re about to be slapped
Nothing ever comes of raising awareness. Because raising awareness is the best way we know of not actually doing anything concrete about anything. Raising awareness is big, languid and warty cock. It is a diseased mewling animal that needs to be put down with a bullet to its intelligence-insulting skull. And then it needs to be kicked and kicked and kicked until you’ve sprained your foot and need to sit down and take the weight off it for a bit.
Ask your brain to engage and then see if what it is they really intend to raise awareness of. Most of the time it boils down to themselves for an answer. After all, it has turned into an industry raising huge sums of money for the raiser and not for the cause they are using.
We see that all the time with a mega charity using it as their "mission" statement and folks just donate without ever once thinking about the ramifications when it is more about the money than anything else. The head of the unnamed group said he treats it like a business. That sent shock waves across the veteran community because he actually admitted what they suspected for about a decade.
Watch out for the "22 a day" referring to the number of veterans committing suicide. If they repeat it, run! The research came from the
Department of Veterans Affairs and they even had a disclaimer on it that the numbers were just an average of death certificates from 21 contributing states.
Limitations of Existing Data
Currently available data include information on suicide mortality among the population of residents in 21 states. Veteran status in each of these areas is determined by a single question asking about history of U.S. military service. Information about history of military service is routinely obtained from family members and collected by funeral home staff and has not been validated using information from the DoD or VA. Further, Veteran status was not collected by each state during each year of the project period. Appendix B provides a listing of the availability of Veteran identifiers by state and year. Further, this report contains information from the first 21 states to contribute data for this project and does not include some states, such as California and Texas, with larger Veteran populations. Information from these states has been received and will be included in future reports.
That was on page 15 but since most of the people quoting it read it from news reports instead of the actual report, they took the lazy way out.
The truth is this, Vietnam veterans and
those over the age of 50 are 78% of the suicides with most states reporting veteran commit suicide double the civilian population.
It was that way back in 2007 when By ARMEN KETEYIAN CBS News wrote "
Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans" November 13, 2007
Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.
It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)
One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)
Nothing has gotten better with all these folks "raising awareness" but it has gotten much worse.
Why? Because what worked has been tossed in a ditch. Too many are getting attention for result of all of this but too few notice the connection.
The press pushed families after a member committed suicide, gave them plenty of attention and then support got out of whack with folks looking to them for answers. Some of them caved in and started to portray themselves as experts on healing when the truth was they are experts on what failed their loved one.
That one is really tough since Congress has had them testifying year after year listening to their heartbreaking stories instead of actually searching for what worked so that more families wouldn't suffer the same results.
I am a quasi PTSD expert on healing but also one on failing. I failed my husband's nephew. He was also a Vietnam veteran. At the time I knew everything I needed to know about PTSD and how to help him heal. I had all the answers except the biggest one of all. How could I get him to get him to listen? Not finding a way in time to save his life is a pain that does not go away. Everytime I read about another suicide, I remember getting the call that he took his own life in a motel room.
Without a full approach, it fails. Medication alone fails because it does not heal. It only numbs. Doing things to gain control over their bodies only goes so far. Cognitive therapy only goes so far because the past is not resolved and they do not find closure. The list of bullshit answers goes on and on and the result will always be the same. Tragedy will always follow.
What works is a blend from three areas. Mind-Psychologists trained in trauma, Body-teachers who understand how the body works to calm down and relax and Spiritual-teachers on how to take a look at what has been forgotten plus leading veterans toward forgiveness for others as well as for themselves.
The Department of Veterans Affairs National Center on PTSD has advice on this
Finding a Therapist
Things to consider
Make sure the provider has experience treating people who have experienced a trauma.
Try to find a provider who specializes in evidence-based medications for PTSD or effective psychotherapy for PTSD (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT); Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT); prolonged exposure therapy (PE); or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)).
Find out what type(s) of insurance the provider accepts and what you will have to pay (out-of-pocket costs) for care.
You may find more than one therapist. We also have information about Types of Therapists and Choosing a Therapist, (en Español).
First steps
Contact your family doctor to ask for a recommendation. You can also ask friends and family if they can recommend someone.
If you have health insurance, call to find out which mental health providers your insurance company will pay for. Your insurance company may require that you choose a provider from among a list they maintain.
Yet the troubling thing is, they don't always follow their own advice and have hired non-trauma experts to take care of veterans. If you ever hear of a veteran getting misdiagnosed, that is part of the problem since PTSD has a lot in common with mental illness. PTSD used to be called an anxiety disorder but now has a classification all by itself.
Not supplying links of those since most of the posers have no clue on any of this and can look it for themselves. Hell, maybe they'll finally learn something that will actually be worth raising awareness of!
