Veterans with PTSD on trial

Wounded Times

Kathie Costos

January 12, 2022

My head is exploding right now. Can any reporter explain to me why they manage to always report on a veteran with PTSD committing crimes, use it in the headline, yet do not notice they do not report on everyone else committing crimes when they have PTSD too?

Apparently veterans with PTSD are on trial but reporters fail to see we all are!

This is the headline the headline that caused a massive headache!

"Veteran with PTSD pleads guilty to killing 2 men in SC in 2017, lawyers say" and is on Stars and Stripes.

Family members for King and McNair spoke on Friday before Melton's sentencing "about the tragedy and loss of their sons," Campbell said.
Mental illness and drugs

Melton served in the military and was stationed in Iraq in 2004, developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of that experience, said his defense lawyer, Justin Kata of the Giese Law Firm in Columbia.

Kata said Melton was later diagnosed by a psychiatrist.

At the time of the killings, "he had PTSD symptoms and he was self-medicating," Kata said.

According to the National Center for PTSD, there are 15 million Americans joining the PTSD club every year but reporters will only cover veterans committing sucide and crimes.

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%). Learn more about women, trauma and PTSD

Let's look at the results of this. 

Veterans have a hard time finding jobs because employers remember reading about a veteran like this one. Because reporters do not cover all the other survivors with PTSD, they have no idea that PTSD does not make people dangerous or even get them to contemplate the simple fact that they have probably already hired a lot of good employees with PTSD unknowingly.

Veterans getting all the attention is a billion dollar industry because people care about veterans. While that is a good thing, we should consider why there are no massive fundraisers for everyone else with PTSD not getting the help we all need.

People in law enforcement, fire departments, emergency responders, medical, you name the occupation, are ignored. No one seems to care.

I was guilty of this too. I spent decades focused on veterans when few others were. I thought that since there were so many other people, they'd have enough help but I did not know no one in the media was putting it all together. It never even dawned on me that after surviving over 10 events, I had a rare form of it. It also didn't dawn on two therapists I saw over the years.

Do we take care of veterans properly? NO!

Do we take care of anyone in need to mental health care properly? NO!

Until we get reporters to cover all of us so that we know how many of us there are after surviving, we will not be able to focus on what is helpful to others, that can help us too. We will not be able to inspire hope to others suffering from something only we can understand. While we may not be able to fully understand the causes if we did not experience it, we can understand what it is doing to them, and they can understand what it has done to us.

Kathie Costos on Amazon

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office lost two deputies to suicide

1-Month-Old Baby Orphaned After Both Parents Die by Suicide Within Days of Each Other

PEOPLE
By Katie Campione
January 05, 2022

"While it is impossible for us to fully comprehend the private circumstances leading up to this devastating loss, we pray that this tragedy becomes a catalyst for change, a catalyst to help ease the stigma surrounding mental well-being and normalize the conversation about the challenges so many of us face on a regular basis," Mascara concluded his statement.

Clayton Osteen, 24, and Victoria Pacheco were both St. Lucie County Sheriff deputies and shared a one-month-old son named Jayce

The infant son of two Florida sheriff's deputies is orphaned after both of his parents took their own lives.

Clayton Osteen, 24, and Victoria Pacheco both died by suicide in the past week, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office said on Tuesday.

Shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, authorities received a call that Osteen had attempted suicide. He was transported to the hospital for his injuries.

On Jan. 2, Osteen's family decided to remove him from life support, the sheriff's office said.

In the wake of her partner's death, Pacheco also died by suicide, the sheriff's department learned on Tuesday. Osteen and Pacheco shared a 1-month-old son named Jayce.

Osteen joined the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office in 2019. In 2020, he was awarded deputy of the year, according to his obituary.
read more here

'Close' Relative to Adopt Baby of Deputies Who Will Be Laid to Rest Together After Tragic Deaths

Osteen — a Florida native — was a former SWAT team member and was named 2020 Deputy of the Year, his obituary said. He also served in the U.S. Marines and as a non-commissioned officer. Loved ones remembered him for his humor and dependability.

with reporters like this...PTSD survivors are doomed

'In simple terms, I feel great:' WRAL Investigates new treatment to help veterans with PTSD

Tags: 

• PTSD, 
• WRAL Investigates

Posted January 3, 2022

    THAT WAS THE HEADLINE BUT IT IS NOT NEW....

First post was 2008 and if it worked....they would be doing it for everyone. After all, PTSD does not just hit veterans. It hits survivors!

Back to the so called news....

By Cullen Browder, WRAL anchor/reporter
More U.S. service members have died by suicide since the War on Terror began than those who died fighting in it.

Now, a pain treatment that’s been around for almost 100 years is revolutionizing the treatment of veterans dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

For years, the WRAL Investigates team has reported on the struggles of service members and veterans dealing with the emotional scars of military duty and their fight for mental health services.

and then came the head spinning moment....

In our latest chapter, we looked into a promising new treatment that’s actually been around for years. The treatment actually attacks trauma through a cluster of nerves in the neck.

Why bother talking about facts? Why bother to mention that over 15 million American survivors from other events end up joining the club every year, searching for help, treatment and hope but cannot find it because reporters would rather close their eyes instead of actually helping.

This is from The National Center for PTSD

 

'True Definition of Soulmates'

Married Couple of 44 Years Dies of COVID While Holding Hands: ​​'True Definition of Soulmates'

William and Carol Stewart of New Hampshire died of COVID-19 within moments of each other

People
By Jason Duaine Hahn
January 05, 2022

A couple from New Hampshire who contracted COVID-19 during the holidays died within moments of each other while holding hands.

According to a GoFundMe set up by their family, William and Carol Stewart died on Dec. 30 after a battle with COVID-19 that "took a turn for the worse" while the couple was hospitalized at Parkland Medical Center.

"Bill and Carol peacefully passed away hand in hand with their loved ones bedside," their nephew, Tim Stewart, wrote on the campaign page. "They fought a long and hard battle with covid, both intubated and on life support."

"I truly believe that the power of prayers and all the kind words that have been shared over the past few weeks is what kept them fighting," he added. "It also kept us hopeful for the best. We sincerely thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We never really have enough time with our loved ones."

Eight members of the family tested positive for COVID-19, Noke said, and her parents were unvaccinated against the virus. She hopes people who haven't received the shots yet do so.
read more here

I wrote about something like this happening in the second part of The Lost Son. The difference was the couple were vaccinated but too many others around them were not. This is from Alive Again by Kathie Costos published on Amazon November 15, 2021

Can I see the future? No. I see what is happening. I see how good people believe liars and rumors more willingly than they see the truth and facts. What I see more is how too many think that God has turned away from them.

I see churches, houses of worship, turn from what scriptures they speak, yet do not practice. I see too many people being turned away from those buildings advertised as God's House, while ignoring the place where God lives within each of us. Too many value the rich and ignore the needy. They condemn the sinner while committing their own sins and justify themselves by saying they not as bad as those they condemn. I see too many fail to search their bibles for what is true as much as they fail to search their own souls to know why they cannot hear God's voice.

But more so, I see miracles happen all around us that prove God's love is alive and competes us to act out of love as well as spread hope to this troubled world.

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

 

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

 

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

 

5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

 

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

 

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

 

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

 

10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

 

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

 

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Don't Die WIth Regrets

Yesterday I lost one of my best friends. Gunny died of COVID. I called him to see if he'd answer, knowing he was in the hospital and unlikely he'd answer, I tried. His wife answered the phone and she told me he passed away a few hours before I called.

I asked her if he ever got the booster and she said he had never been vaccinated. That was the second shock. He told me he was. Knowing Gunny, I have no doubt he didn't want me to worry about him, so he lied to me.

The last time I talked to him, he called me from the hospital and basically made his goodbye call to me. I think he knew he wouldn't be going home to his beloved wife.

Gunny and I had a very odd friendship, but we didn't have to make it work. We had political debates but that was secondary to what mattered most to both of us. He cared about my family and I cared about his. 

I am struggling with losing him. I am also struggling with the fact that had it not been for him, I would have given up on the work I do on PTSD. For fifteen years, he explained things when I was confused, encouraged me when no one else was giving me any feedback from this site or my videos. He corrected me when I made typos, which I did often. We talked a couple of times a week for all those years. Now I have no one to do that for me. Gunny said I helped him and became the voice in his head. He has become mine and I will try to remember all the things he told me when I need hear his voice.

If you have not taken COVID seriously, then take those you love seriously enough that you want to do everything possible to protect them and not leave them with regrets that can never be undone. Every times I get vaccinated, I think about my husband and his health, and does the same for me. No one likes getting a needle in their arm. I got all of them and so did my husband. 

If nothing else, you need to be able to make peace with the fact that what you decided was something you can die with. No, I don't mean live with. What you decide cannot be undone once you have infected someone else, or ended up putting your family through getting their hearts ripped out while you are dying in the hospital. You cannot undo it if you tell someone else something that isn't true, they decide to believe you and end up enjoying their last few days on earth by getting infected by others who carrying the killer inside of them. What you cannot undo, will be carried with you throughout your life. Sure you can ignore it, pass it off, excuse the fact that you believed someone else, but the truth is, you made the choice.

Make a better choice before it is too late for you and those you love.

Reporters talk about PTSD year after attack on Capitol

One year later, reporters are still processing what happened on Jan. 6

CNN Business
By Ramishah Maruf
January 2, 2022

Some journalists have been candid about post traumatic stress disorder following the insurrection. Walker said one hallmark of PTSD is to have eerily clear flashbacks -- something he has experienced when reflecting on Jan. 6.

One of the defining stories of this year was the Jan. 6 insurrection, and its significance is only growing from here, CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter said on "Reliable Sources" Sunday.

Approaching the one year anniversary, journalists are continuing to report on the attack and its aftermath, and many are still reeling from their own experiences covering the insurrection on the ground.

"We're all kind of feeling the same thing right now, this sort of disbelief that already a year has gone by and here we are," Grace Segers, a staff writer at the New Republic, said.

Hunter Walker, author of the newsletter "The Uprising" and a contributor to Rolling Stone, said that many Americans are still not truly aware of the extent of what happened that day, and not just due to active attempts to deny the seriousness of the event. Many journalists were working from home due to Covid, and jammed cell signals delayed the release of videos from the Capitol.

"There's a bit of an informal network of reporters who've been through it that day, and are still coping with that, who are leaning on each other and talking to each other," Walker said.
read more here

PTSD is "invisible" because they don't want to see it

Invisible and unheard: how female veterans suffering trauma are let down by US healthcare

The Guardian
Rose Empson
December 28, 2021

Gender differences exist in trauma exposure. PTSD is twice as common in women than in men, according to a study conducted by Kathryn Magruder at the University of South Carolina.

Neither Jen Burch’s assault nor her PTSD were taken seriously. Photograph: Courtesy Jen Burch/Handout

For Felicia Merkel, the PTSD trigger is any loud sound – an overhead speaker, a slammed car door – transporting her back to the blistering heat of Afghanistan. For Liz Hensel, it is looking into her daughter’s chestnut brown eyes, their color reminding her of those of a young Afghan girl named Medina, who lost her mother and leg at the trauma hospital in Kandahar. For Jen Burch, the intrusive memory is of the man who assaulted her before she deployed.

More than a decade has passed since these three women were deployed to Afghanistan. It’s now almost four months since the US military withdrew from Kabul on 30 August. Still, specific memories consume them. Three hundred thousand female veterans served in the 19-year war, and as media coverage dwindles and the nation slowly forgets, Felicia, Liz and Jen continue to remember.

Their experiences in Afghanistan differed from those of the male soldiers with whom they served. Now, their stateside lives do too. Being a woman in war comes with its own set of distinct traumas. While congressional legislation that has recently been proposed is welcome, essential bills are still being blocked that would help repair the suffering these women have endured for years.

“If it means sharing the darkest details of my story, then I’ll keep doing this,” Jen said, “until the gendered gap in veteran healthcare is finally closed”.
read more here

It is really time for people to stop using the excuse that PTSD is "invisible" because they don't want to see it. They don't want to acknowledge something that can happen to them. They don't want to face the fact that no one with PTSD wanted it, or even saw it coming. They don't want to think about every day of their own life could stop being the way they were used to and come crashing down all around them in an instant.

It is not just military women/veterans who feel invisible. It is all of us. It is the civilians, female as well as male, who survived death only to discover they entered into a whole new reality as a survivor. It is the men and women who put their lives on the line everyday all over this country walking out the door one day and knowing, they may not come home the same way they left. It is the ministers who never even think about hearing the one more story from their flock that could push the pain put on their shoulders to the breaking point and they end up with PTSD too. It is the doctors and nurses facing death and suffering on their normal shifts, being faced with the results of people who will not accept facts or believe science to prevent the spread of the pandemic and then turn to the same people to save their lives.

It is the kids who are abused by parents, family members and strangers along with everyone else they were supposed to be able to trust. It is the woman, like me, paying the price for loving someone who did not even understand that attempted murder and stalking is not something love caused.

It is survivors of natural disasters, accidents, fires, crimes and even living with someone who has PTSD but has not even attempted to heal. It is the mental health professionals counting the number of dead patients as much as they are counting the numbers of their peers who gave up.

Want to talk about invisible? Over 15 million Americans every year join this club that does not want to grow. We're all invisible because the only people anyone is paying any attention to at all when it comes to PTSD are members of the veterans community. Don't believe me? Ask someone if they ever heard about PTSD, because if they did at all, it was about a veteran and not their next door neighbor.

"prove the Holy Spirit"

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 29, 2021
“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9

I put this picture on Facebook and someone left a comment that I needed to "prove the Holy Spirit." Easy to tell that was someone who has never understood it. I wrote that basically it was asking someone to "prove love" when no one can see love, but they can see what love does.

I cannot see God, but I see His work come to life when others act on love for the sake of others. I saw it in the actions of others every time my life was on the line. (Keep in mind that I survived over ten events.) It would have been very easy for them to turn away from the needs of a stranger, but they showed compassion and took the time to help me. That is what love does.

Oh sure, you can talk about the physical kind of love but that is a mutual benefit. When it comes the spiritual kind of love, that is also a mutual benefit but far beyond whatever we feel at the moment we give, or receive, because it does not end with that interaction. It is carried on through the lives of those involved.

For me, after I was helped, it did not end with me. I passed it on every time I saw someone else hurting. It did not end for those who helped me, even thought I never saw them again, but they carried the knowledge of making a difference in the life of someone else with them. It is not hard to figure out they continued to repeat other acts of compassion.

Where did all of that come from? It came from the Holy Spirit that is within them.

It is also clear, that even after all the years I have devoted my life to helping others heal PTSD, these two books were written together and there is no way I could have written them without God's messenger that lives in me.

Read The Lost Son and Alive Again on Amazon and maybe you can start your New Year with a new view of what love is.