GOP delivered message that cause of PTSD is no big deal

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
May 22, 2021

**Warning: If you want to consider this political instead of what it is, then you very well could be part of the problem people with PTSD have been dealing with.**

POLITICS EXTREMISM THE CAPITOL ATTACK WAS THE MOST DOCUMENTED CRIME IN HISTORY. WILL THAT ENSURE JUSTICE?
That is the headline on TIME.

To pierce the mass of people gathered there, each group member placed a hand on the back of the person ahead of them—a military-style tactic prosecutors called a “stack.” The group, clad in tactical vests, helmets and radios, forcibly entered through the Capitol rotunda doors, where James and Minuta followed 25 minutes later. “It’s going down, guys; it’s literally going down right now Patriots storming the Capitol building,” said Minuta, according to court documents. “F*cking war in the streets right now… word is they got in the building… let’s go.”

And now there are members of the GOP House and Senate claiming there was no violence and all the invaders were like regular tourists.

GOP efforts to downplay danger of Capitol riot increase, The Hill

Attempts to whitewash the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection and cast the rioters as sympathetic characters are becoming increasingly common among Republican members of Congress.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) this week said it was a “false narrative” to say “there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol,” while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said the rioters charged with crimes were facing overly harsh treatment in jail and questioned why Congress isn’t also investigating liberal protests over racial justice last year that at times turned violent.

Other Republicans in recent days have falsely claimed the rioters weren’t armed and questioned whether people in the mob were really former President Trump’s supporters. One GOP lawmaker compared one image of the Capitol breach to a “normal tourist visit.”

These lies send the message to everyone there that day and to all the people who watched in on TV, that this threat to their lives was no big deal!

If you want to know what it is like to face death that changes your life...consider the event all of us witnessed. The January 6th attack on the US Capitol.

NBC News’ Hallie Jackson sat down with Rep. Dan Kildee, who took that familiar photo of officers with their guns drawn in the House chamber, for an exclusive interview where he opens up about his mental health struggles since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

After The Attack, Slate, Christina Cauterucci wrote about what some of them went through that day and afterwards.

“It is hard to know who you can trust.” — Rep. Sara Jacobs

Rep. Grace Meng barricaded in a lounge at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Photo courtesy of Grace Meng

Eventually, the legislators got a text from staff members that the Capitol Police force was overwhelmed and wouldn’t be coming to save them. In that moment, Meng feared for her life. “Thank God we were fine afterward,” Frankel told me. “Physically fine—mentally, I don’t know,” she said with a laugh.

She’s also gotten calls from fellow members of Congress and their staffers, some of whom she barely knows, to check in on her after hearing what she’d gone through. “And I said, ‘I’m fine, I’m good now,’ ” Meng said. “And then they would just break down and cry, or they would just say to me, ‘I’m not OK.’ And some of these are grown men.”

Rep. Lois Frankel

For days after the ordeal, Frankel continued her work while battling extreme exhaustion, as her body and mind recovered from the stress of being trapped in a room with violent agitators outside. When we talked eight days after the attack, Frankel said it was the first day since the riot she hadn’t felt “totally wiped out.” Meng has noticed that she now feels “nervous” when she hears people she can’t see making loud noises outside the room she’s in. She’s also gotten calls from fellow members of Congress and their staffers, some of whom she barely knows, to check in on her after hearing what she’d gone through. “And I said, ‘I’m fine, I’m good now,’ ” Meng said. “And then they would just break down and cry, or they would just say to me, ‘I’m not OK.’ And some of these are grown men.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs

Jacobs had served in Congress all of three days before the insurrection. When the rioters breached the Capitol, she was in the House gallery—the balcony. The few dozen members of Congress and journalists who were up there with her were evacuated after those on the floor of the chamber, which meant a much closer brush with catastrophe. They were the ones photographed in those escape hoods and comforting one another while huddled on the ground. Some members were trapped in the gallery for 15 minutes or more, watching Capitol Police officers move furniture in front of the doors on the House floor, while other law enforcement officers outside the chamber struggled to clear a path through the rioters for their escape.

There are more but this is about Rep. Jason Crow, who was an Army Ranger.

On the Sunday after the riot, the congressional text chain moved to Zoom. Organized by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, members of Congress who had been in the gallery spent a couple of hours talking to one another and a trained counselor. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colorado, a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, was on the video chat. “What he has shared with all of us is that the surge of adrenaline that he had, and the fear that he faced—that we all experienced—was the same as combat,” Kuster said.

Since the siege, Crow has been vocal about this comparison. After a photo of him clutching the hand of Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pennsylvania, on the balcony floor made the rounds, Crow gave several interviews about going “into Ranger mode” in that moment of crisis. For Crow, that meant preparing for the possibility of having to fight off the rioters. He told me he double-checked the locks on the doors in the gallery and readied a pen as a makeshift weapon. He also considered asking one of the Capitol Police officers in the gallery to lend him a firearm—“You never know who’s capable of pulling the trigger until you’re put in that position … and I know that I am capable of doing that if necessary,” he said—but decided against it.

When he’s in Ranger mode, Crow said, “I just kind of box up my emotions and my feelings and put them aside.” But, eventually, those feelings come out. Crow says he’s been trying to harness the anger, anxiety, and fear prompted by the attack into action as Congress works to hold Donald Trump and his allies accountable for the attack. But the “hypervigilance” Crow remembers from his military service is back—even though it’s been 15 years since he felt it last. “I never thought the person I was then, and who I had to be as a combat leader, would ever come back and converge on my current life,” he said, noting that he’s had two children since leaving the Army. “But that is what happened. I had to tap back into that, and those two lives converged again.”

And now you know the message they are hearing from people they work with. Not only not worth investigating but not even worth their time to pay attention or care about their other members. It isn't just a matter of the threat still hanging over their heads, it is the approval of the GOP members who want to pretend it didn't happen for political reasons. 

I remember what it was like almost 40 years ago when I started working on PTSD and ended up having to deal with deluded individuals denying that PTSD was real. Nothing would get them open their eyes and see the truth. I often wonder how many people they ended up destroying in the process because of their ignorance. Lies make wounds deeper. 

When I hear elected officials lie about what happened, for political reasons, I am sickened because I know their lies cause more suffering. Not just to the other members, but to everyone in this entire country trying to recover from PTSD.

Without accountability and finding out exactly who was behind and involved in all of this, it can happen again. The thing that escapes most people is, the threat that the member of the House and Senate, know all too well it can, will prevent them from healing.

How do I know this? Because the threat to my life did not end in my life until my ex-husband died. There was no accountability for him. There was no closure for me until I got the obituary notice clipping from my cousin in the mail after I had moved over 1,300 miles and more than a decade after that.

For me, it was only one person. 

For members of the House and Senate, it was not just the people who invaded the Capitol seeking to harm and kill them. Oh no, it is now worse because other members they serve with are supporting what was done and attempting to dismiss it all as nothing to be addressed. The members of the Capitol Police Force are also dealing with that fact, knowing their lives don't matter enough for those they risk their lives for, do not even want to seek the truth for their sake.

If we do nothing but let it just happen to all of them, it will continue to cause more wounds. It is time for all of us to demand accountability and hold those who perpetrated this responsible.

To all the members of the House and Senate, their staffs, Capitol Police and workers, seek healing and know that most of the nation is behind you.

Remember, it is your life...get in and drive it!

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

We’re Not Gonna Take It

Twisted Sister

We're not gonna take it

Oh no, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

We've got the right to choose it

There ain't no way we'll lose it

This is our life, this is our song

We'll fight the powers that be just

Don't pick our destiny 'cause

You don't know us, you don't belong

We're not gonna take it

Oh no, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

Oh, you're so condescending

Your gall is never ending

We don't want nothin', not a thing from you

Your life is trite and jaded

Boring and confiscated

If that's your best, your best won't do

Sing it

We're right, yeah

We're free, yeah

We'll fight, yeah

You'll see

We're not gonna take it

No, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

We're not gonna take it

No, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

No way

Yeah

Sing it

We're right, yeah

We're free, yeah

We'll fight, yeah

You'll see

Sing it for me, Jersey

We're not gonna take it (come on)

No, we ain't gonna take it (louder)

We're not gonna take it anymore

We're not gonna take it

Oh no, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

Sing it, sing it, sing

We're not gonna take it (louder)

No, we ain't gonna take it

We're not gonna take it anymore

One more, one more, one more

We're not gonna take it (what)

No, we ain't gonna take it (yeah)

We're not gonna take it anymore

And don't you take it either

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Dee Snider

We’re Not Gonna Take It lyrics © Universal Tunes, Snidest Music Co.