PTSD Patrol Empowerment Zone Out of Danger Zone

This is the Empowerment Message for today considering the news is urgent! We need to get them out of the Danger Zone!

No More Excuses!

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 27, 2019

The number of service members committing suicide continues to rise. The number of veterans committing suicide continues to rise. The number of people actually in charge with a clue of what needs to be done, continues to be absent without leave!!!! Yes, they are AWOL!

How is it that there are people all over this country knowing exactly what works, what the troops need to hear, what veterans need to hear, YET WE ARE NEVER HEARD BY THOSE IN CHARGE? How is it that we have known what works for decades but the "experts" are clueless? 

They come up with slogans when we come up with results. They come up with excuses, when we come up with plans.

What makes all of this worse for us is, we know there is absolutely no need of all this suffering when they could be healing and still serving.

This is totally unacceptable because all of these suicides were preventable!

Suicide rate among active-duty Marines at a 10-year high

CNN
Barbara Starr
January 25, 2019

"While there is no dishonor in coming up short, or needing help, there is no honor in quitting. For those who are struggling ... our Marine Corps, our families, and our Nation need you; we can't afford to lose you." General Robert Neller

(CNN)The number of confirmed and suspected suicides in the active-duty Marine Corps reached a 10-year high in 2018 with 57 cases, according to new Marine Corps data obtained by CNN.

The United States Marine Corps emblem hanging on a wall at the Joint Detention Forces Headquarters at Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba, April 09, 2014. AFP PHOTO/MLADEN ANTONOV

Another 18 Marines in the Reserve forces either are confirmed to have committed suicide or their deaths are being investigated as suspected suicides.

Marine Corps sources say the service is concerned that 2018 may have seen 75 suicides even with the extensive mental health programs available. Many of the cases are young Marines who have not deployed overseas and have not been in combat -- a situation that has been seen in other branches of the military as well.

"Don't make them just numbers," one Marine Corps official pleaded when making the data available to CNN.
read more here

Yet again, one more reminder that when the DOD bought all the FUBAR "resilience" BS, they failed to notice that if it did not work for those who did not deploy, THEN IT WOULD NOT WORK FOR THOSE WHO WERE DEPLOYED MULTIPLE TIMES!!!

Here are a couple of videos from a Marine veteran with PTSD. Listen to him and know that you can #TakeBackYourLife and live stronger!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Dec 31, 2016
This is Jonnie. He has survived three attempted suicides and spent time as a homeless veteran. A year ago, he never thought he would be where he is today. He is healing and he wants to make sure other veterans get the message of something worth living for instead of the message spread about suicides. Spend next year healing and let this New Year be the year you begin to change again, only this time, for the better!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Mar 11, 2018
Sunday morning empowerment zone features Marine veteran filmed yesterday at the Orlando Nam Knights bikeweek party. His simple message is empowerment! Take control of your life from this moment on. It's up to you where you go from here!

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Apr 14, 2018
My buddy Jonnie has been fighting to take his life back from PTSD. He is doing everything possible to make his life better. Working on his mind, his spirit and his body! He is at the American Combat Club in Downtown Orlando.

Kathie Costos DiCesare
Published on Jul 22, 2018
PTSD Patrol Sunday Morning Empowerment Zone Jonnie shares his message of getting in control over the road you choose to be on. You can sit back and feel miserable as a victim or you can choose the road to heal as a survivor.

Cross posted on Combat PTSD Wounded Times

Raising awareness is the wrong lane to be in

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?"

They did not even bother to find out first. So they get into the lane of people trying to changed the outcome and lead the way into healing. People like me end up being trapped behind them with no safe way to pass them.

They need to stop blocking the road until they actually deserve to be there. Avoid them like any other road hazard.

It is time to take another road! The one that will take you to a happier life!

PTSD Patrol: Melting Black Ice

The biggest danger on your road trip

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 13, 2019

Right now a lot of people are dealing with dangerous driving conditions. When it snows, you can see it. You know it is there. You know what you may not be seeing...ice under the snow. You tend to drive with more caution than you normally would have. 

But what about seeing something an assuming it is harmless? You may see something in the road and think that it is just a puddle. Unless you have been paying attention to the reports about temperature changes, you would not think that puddle can harm you.

Black ice: How to spot this winter driving danger

AccuWeather

Among the many threats facing drivers during winter is the most dangerous of them all: Slippery, hard-to-spot and potentially deadly black ice."The biggest danger [with black ice] is that you are at the mercy of your vehicle and the ice until your car passes over it," said Julie Lee, vice president and national director of AARP Driver Safety.Black ice forms most often when it's raining and air is at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Andrew Mussoline.The low ground temperature causes the precipitation to freeze upon impact, thus creating ice.

In your own life there is black ice right in front of you but you have no idea what you are seeing. Thinking something is true, is far from what it actually is.

Too many are settling for PTSD being attached to a stigma. They have a huge problem with the term itself, instead of actually being aware of what it means.

Post means after.
Trauma that is Greek for wound.
Stress is what happens to you after you survived it.
Disorder comes when you go from being a victim of it, into surviving it.

Just because something gets into disorder, that does not mean you cannot put things into order again.

Last week, I posted Making A You Turn and showed my office as a total disaster. Things were piled up everywhere. Stacks of books and research papers. Nothing made sense! In the video, it shows how things were just a mess.

It took a lot of work, but yesterday, I put the last of the books into order. 

So, watch the video and then ask yourself if you think it is time to get the black ice to melt and make your road trip a lot less hazardous.

If you think you are stuck as you are right now, you're fooling yourself!


Fooling Yourself 
STYX
You see the world through your cynical eyes
You're a troubled young man I can tell
You've got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand's wet with sweat and your head needs a rest

And you're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
Why must you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it

You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're killing yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it

Songwriters: Tommy Shaw Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

PTSD Patrol: Making A YouTurn

Making A YouTurn

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 6, 2019

If you risked your life protecting and saving others, and you give up on yourself, what kind of message does that deliver to us?

Over 7 million Americans have PTSD because we survived something that could have killed us. It didn't because someone like you put your lives on the line to make sure that did not happen.

So now, when the life you need to save is your own, it is time to make a YouTurn and ask for help because if you don't, then we'll wonder how much we are supposed to feel ashamed you got PTSD because of us!

This is a video with a message from a Marine veteran delivered for New Year's Eve a few years ago.