'I don't know why anybody would be a police officer, you get a target on your back'
Rochester Voice
Harrison Thorp
December 11, 2021
"What really irks me is some people are so quick to place judgment and write negative shit. And then when they're cleared, there's no media coverage. I went through two years of being guilty before proven innocent, which is different than any other person out there." Michael McNeil Jr
Michael McNeil Jr. said he's learned a lot about people and the press during those worst two years of his life.
(Courtesy photo)
A former Rochester man and 20-year Northern Seacoast lawman accused of felony criminal threatening in 2019 said on Wednesday he lost his career in law enforcement "over lies," but is determined to build a new life for himself and stay positive.
Still, it's not easy.
"All this was over selfish lies," Michael McNeil Jr., 41, told The Rochester Voice on Wednesday. "What I went through was horrible. Every time I Google my name and see this stuff, it's heartbreaking."
"The support I've had from people I used to serve have expressed their support for me," he said. "They knew from the beginning this was all a lie. I've had such an outpouring from who I served in towns who reached out on Facebook to show their support. That helped me get through the hard times, the two years I had to go through. They would say. 'We thought you were the best, you cared about people.'"
One of my best friends Gunny is in the hospital fighting for his life. He has COVID and is on oxygen. All he asked for was prayers. He has come to believe in the mighty hand of God and trusts the power of prayers. If it is not His will that Gunny be healed, then he wants prayers for his beloved wife.
If you have PTSD, it can be very hard to believe in miracles. Surviving the cause of it, didn't feel like a miracle, especially if you are suffering afterwards. The thing is, it won't change as long as you only focus on the event and misery that came with it.
Having survived over 10 of them, I can tell you that I felt lucky to still be alive at first. Then came the unanswerable questions filling up my mind. Some were caused by strangers. Some were caused by people I knew. Some were caused by doctors. Some were caused by my own body. Each and every time, there were miracles following the horror shows.
If you learn nothing else from me, learn how to see things in a different way.
The first miracle was, I survived.
Once I stopped asking why it happened to me, I started to wonder why strangers would show up to help me. That was the second miracle I needed to see. All the people dropping what they were doing and helping me, in whatever way they could, helped me heal.
The third miracle was when I started to cry and released all the bad emotions that came with the event. That allowed good emotions to be fed and hope returned to my soul.
The forth miracle was when I used what I learned to help others along the way. I think that is the best miracle of all because it did not stop with me. It spread out. People I helped, helped others. They helped even more and it just kept going.
Survivors are proof that miracles do still happen. The thing you need to decide is, do you want to have your life defined by what tried to kill you, or do you want it defined by the miracles you pass on? Each time I helped someone, I was strengthened. There are no limits on what you can do, just as there are no limits on what God still does.
I hope you find what you're looking for in THE LOST SON because that is what it is all about. Each character in the book survived, regretted it and then, miracles walked into their lives. They became the answer to the miracles others were praying for.
While there are veterans in it, there are other main characters from other events as well. It is time for the other survivors to find comfort too, because there are 15 million Americans fighting PTSD every year and joining this group seeking happiness.
I continue to be stunned by the fact no nation takes care of their service members or veterans with PTSD. As bad as that is, it is even more a sickening they fail to see the rest of the people in their country feel the sting of the stigma inflicted upon them as survivors of the traumas they face too.
Getting PTSD because you serve your nation, was job related. Getting it because Israel requires service of everyone, then being denied mental health care and compensation is mashugana!
The Jersualem Post
By ELIAV BREUER
Published: DECEMBER 5, 2021
47-year-old Itzik Chen, who was injured in Lebanon in the early 90s, committed suicide while fighting for recognition of his post-trauma.
A protest by disabled IDF veterans in Tel Aviv, April 18, 2021
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)
Itzik Chen, who served as a paratrooper in Lebanon and Nablus, committed suicide on Sunday morning, Israeli media reported.
Chen, 47, was recognized by the Defense Ministry as a disabled veteran but had been fighting for additional recognition of mental illnesses stemming from his service.
The Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department has long been criticized for being excessively reticent in recognizing veterans’ claims of injury during military service. Until a veteran’s condition is recognized – a process that can take years in some cases – they are not eligible for assistance.
“We are hurting and stunned by the suicide of the disabled veteran Itzhik Chen,” the IDF Disabled Veterans Association said on Sunday. “This is exactly the cry that we have been raising the whole time. There are disabled IDF veterans who have been waiting for recognition for years, falling through the cracks over time and not receiving proper treatment.” read more here
If you listen to any news program, the chances are, you have no idea what is going on when it comes to PTSD. Until we do, finally, understand that while the causes of PTSD are different, what comes after in the Post-trauma days of living different lives as survivors, will remain the silent suffering of millions around the world.
Survivors had been suffering in silence long before I came along into this life. The issue that grieves me most of all, is the simple fact that none of it had to happen.
None of it will change until we actually manage to change the conversation we're having, and what we settle for the press continuing to ignore.
I read, what are considered to be, strange things all the time. It makes sense to me because as a survivor, I am strange to others, and I'm OK with that. What give me more comfort is the fact that when I read strange things, I find how much we as humans surviving life, are all linked together.
Reading "Front-line healthcare workers at risk of suffering from PTSD", on The Morning Star covered what is happening with healthcare workers facing the continued battle against the pandemic. They are expecting over 200,000 new cases of survivors dealing with PTSD. It shows what most experts know.
Professor Neil Greenberg, a PTSD specialist at the college, said: “It’s a common misunderstanding that only people in the armed forces can develop PTSD — anyone exposed to a traumatic event is at risk.
“However, clearly there are jobs, including working in many healthcare settings, where experiencing traumatic events is more common so the risk of developing PTSD is unfortunately much higher.”
“Early and effective support can reduce the likelihood of PTSD and those affected should be able to access evidence-based treatment in a timely manner,” Prof Greenberg added.
Yes, you read that right. It isn't just about people in the military. PTSD strikes survivors, no matter what they survived. The problem with the article is that it also strikes people going about their daily lives when something happened to them without warning, leaving them to wonder if it was such a good thing they survived it or not.
PTSD from occupations also hit all over the world. Keep in mind that these people are still facing life as the rest of us, and then their jobs are piled onto their shoulders taking care of the rest of us, and all too often, each other as well.
Even before the pandemic, 16% of emergency physicians self-reported symptoms of PTSD. Recent data, including an unpublished survey conducted in the fall of 2020 and presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in May, suggest that as many as 36% of front-line physicians suffer from the condition. And that statistic omits those who don’t meet strict diagnostic criteria but have still experienced powerful psychological effects.
“Health care workers had to worry about not having enough beds, not having enough ventilators. They had to move into fields they didn’t know,” says Jessica Gold, MD, a psychiatrist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who treats physicians. “They saw their colleagues die or had to intubate their co-workers, and they had to worry about ending up that way themselves. Those are huge traumas.”
The article points out many differnt, important points, however, this one applies to everyone suffering as survivors of the causes of our traumas.
For providers suffering from PTSD and the hospitals that rely on them, what lies ahead is unclear.
Once a person develops PTSD, it can last for years. More than a decade after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, 27% of police responders were still suffering symptoms, for example.
But certain treatments, including anti-anxiety medication and cognitive behavioral therapy, have been shown to help. Bankhead-Kendall certainly finds her therapy useful. For one, she’s learned to cry more.
“My counselor told me I needed to not keep things bottled up, and to grieve, so when I’m feeling really sad, I find an appropriate place and I cry,” she says. “It seems really simple, kind of silly, but it helps.”
It doesn't seem silly to me, or any of the other people out there getting the right kind of information about healing. We have to let out the pain before we can heal hope.
If you have PTSD, get help to heal and then pass it on. If you read something in your favorite news source and they get something wrong, let them know what the truth is. If they get it right, praise them so they continue to be beneficial to other survivors.
Reach out to anyone, no matter what caused their PTSD and understand it is not a contest between who is suffering more, but is a quest to help them gain strength from your experiences. Be the miracle for others the way you had someone start yours!
#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD.
My mother married the Korean War. My mother-in-law married WWII. I married the Vietnam War. They fought the battles in combat, but we fought the battles they brought back with them. Chances are, if your reading this site, you did too. Maybe the one coming home was your wife, son, daughter or friend. You know what it's like when things are going fine, as much as you know what things are like when they are not so great.
When I got into all of this, no one was talking about what it was like. My parents kept it all a secret and so did my husband's parents. It was almost as if they felt they should be ashamed of something. I had to learn what it was all by myself and eventually, wrote For The Love Of Jack, His War/My Battle.
Today I received an email about a fabulous documentary, I Married The War, and happy to share this. The thing is, their service is a part of them. Combat is a part of them. When we marry them, that is included in the deal. When I watched some of the videos, I thought, wow, this is for the rest of us who fight their battles back home.
Official Trailer for I Married the War
We are thrilled to release our new Official Trailer for I Married the War. Created by our stellar Director of Photography, Bill Krumm, it offers an introduction to all eleven women, and clear insight into what the film is all about.
We couldn’t be more grateful to these women for their honest and candid interviews about their experience as wives of combat veterans. Even though less than 1% of our country’s population currently serves in the Armed Forces, we still have 5.5 million military caregivers living with veterans from WWII, the Korean War. the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and OEF/OIF (the Middle East Wars).
It is our goal that I MARRIED THE WAR will help foster the national dialogue about supporting our veterans when they return home forever changed, and their families who are not prepared for that change when the war comes home with their loved ones.
When will people ever learn? When will the truth become unhidden? Until that day comes, millions around the country will continue to suffer in silence.
When people hear PTSD, they assume it is related to military service. After all, that is all they hear about.
The number of Veterans with PTSD varies by service era
Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF): About 11-20 out of every 100 Veterans (or between 11-20%) who served in OIF or OEF have PTSD in a given year.
Gulf War (Desert Storm): About 12 out of every 100 Gulf War Veterans (or 12%) have PTSD in a given year.
Vietnam War: About 15 out of every 100 Vietnam Veterans (or 15%) were currently diagnosed with PTSD at the time of the most recent study in the late 1980s, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS). It is estimated that about 30 out of every 100 (or 30%) of Vietnam Veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime.
When they hear about female veterans, they assume it has to be related to sexual trauma. After all, that is all they hear about.
Among Veterans who use VA health care, about:
23 out of 100 women (or 23%) reported sexual assault when in the military.
55 out of 100 women (or 55%) and 38 out of 100 men (or 38%) have experienced sexual harassment when in the military.
Facts about How Common PTSD Is
The following statistics are based on the U.S. population:
About 6 out of every 100 people (or 6% of the population) will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
About 15 million adults have PTSD during a given year. This is only a small portion of those who have gone through a trauma.
About 8 of every 100 women (or 8%) develop PTSD sometime in their lives compared with about 4 of every 100 men (or 4%).
Firefighters end up with PTSD too, but too few hear about them.
As the Florian's Knights full patch motorcycle club, the freedom felt on two wheels inspires North American firefighters to speak truth against the stigma of first responder mental health and outlaw biker culture.
Police officers, emergency responders, and every other human surviving the thing that caused PTSD, pay a price, but too few even know what we're dealing with. PTSD is not limited by age, or occupation. It only knows something terrible happened to survivors of whatever caused it to enter their lives.
The truth is, most groups are only helping veterans with PTSD. Some are doing a great job for the right reasons and have a team in place to take care of the needs of the veterans seeking them out. They are not the ones getting the most attention. The ones with the money to bankroll advertising get the attention. The good groups do the best they can with what support they receive.
When so many are suffering with PTSD, instead of healing as survivors of the cause of it, this harvest field is overgrown because there are not enough workers to tend to all of them.
The Workers Are Few
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:35-37
And the field keeps growing far beyond what our eyes can see.
The front lines of mental health start in a person’s mind and body. Depending on the day, external stressors, resources or medication, that landscape gets smoother or rockier to navigate.
But it doesn’t end there.
The front lines shift and intersect in many environments: It can be a classroom or office, a hospital or church, a jail or shelter. Ultimately what begins as a personal experience ripples through a whole community, affecting not just the person experiencing mental health issues but their families, friends and neighbors.
And while we all have mental health (just like we have physical health), some live with mental illness, a wide range of conditions spanning mood disorders, addiction, PTSD and more. (The Seattle Times)
They can't keep up withthe need it Colorado.
DENVER (KDVR) — Mental health providers are noticing an increase in demand for services, far beyond what they experienced at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recent survey from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing found 78% of behavioral health organizations reported seeing an increase in demand over the past three months. A majority said their waitlists are growing and nearly all respondents said they’re having trouble recruiting employees.
“We’re trying to see as many people as we can, but I don’t see it slowing down,” said Dr. Liz Chamberlain, a licensed psychologist at the CU Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.
Look up what is happening in your own state and see how overloaded the mental health system is in your own location.
Nothing will change until we change the conversation to include all humans trying to heal as survivors. We need to change the conversation we have with them, as much as we need to change the conversation we have with the lawmakers and reporters, or nothing will change.
When I was five years old, I had a fractured skull, concussion and head trauma. Aside from everything else, it caused a speech problem. Kids being kids, I was made fun of and limited what I said out loud. When I got older, it was easier to write instead of speak. My pen was my voice.
In my senior year of high school, my English teacher said I was a natural born writer. I wrote a speech for a national competition and it won first place. The thing was, I had to have one of my classmates read it because when I got nervous, words didn't come out right. My typewriter was my voice.
In 1982 I was introduced to the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I fell in love with a Vietnam veteran. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but I had it too. My ex-husband tried to kill me and then stalked me for years. It helped me to understand what war did to my veteran. The more I learned, the more convinced I was that people needed to know about this. Writing was still my voice and I wrote to local newspapers.
In 1993, I got online and started to write about it on as many places as I could. My computer was my voice.
When I got older, a friend told me I missed my calling and should have become a preacher. The problem with that was, as a Greek Orthodox woman, that wasn't possible. I did not want to renounce my faith to join another church where my preaching would be welcomed. My computer was still my voice.
In 2002, I finished writing my first book on PTSD. For The Love Of Jack told our story and I wrote about the importance of our souls aiding in healing, I had to republish it in 2012.
My computer is still the voice I use most of all, but in today's world, it also because my way of speaking through videos.
One of the first videos I did was back in 2006. Coming Out Of The Dark. My video camera was my voice.
Why be afraid if you're not alone? Life is never easy, the rest is unknown. The song is by Gloria Estefan and the first time I heard it, all I could think about were the Vietnam veterans I spent so much time with including my husband. You are not alone fighting to heal PTSD just as you were not alone during combat.
All these later, almost forty of them, healing PTSD has used everything God planned for me as well as the pain others caused me.
This past summer, I was at a crossroad and not in a good way. After all these years, I had nothing new to say. I did the writing, research, created over 700 videos and had three books. I was depressed reading reports on PTSD and constantly seeing failure after failure, topped off with reporters never telling the whole story of the lives of survivors.
My faith in God was stronger than ever, but my faith in myself was at the lowest point in my life. I did what I usually do. I turned to God and prayed for a way to express what He taught me all these years. I wanted to give knowledge as much as I wanted to give hope.
Before I was done with this one, God delivered a second one to begin. Alive Again
Both book are like the Parable of The Lost Son because the main character was supposed to be a priest, but became a reporter. He walked away from God because he believed God walked away from him first. As with the lost son in the Bible, he went back to his Father and God rejoiced. He used Chris's talents and all the gifts he had to deliver messaged to the world that God still hears prayers and answers them through other people.
The stories involve veterans dealing with PTSD, but also everyone else trying to come to terms with being a survivor. I hope you find understanding and, above all else, hope that your life story is one that you determine and define. We are limited in what we can do but there are no limits on what God can do for us, and through us!
On this Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful for God's plan B for me! God gave me back my voice.
