Live for those you love and heal

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
May 24, 2021

Today the featured video is one I did back in 2012. Alive Day with Donna Summer, I Will Live For Love. I created it when I was working with veterans and their families. It was a few years after I started posting on Wounded Times about the rise in suicides within the military and among veterans. Back then it was thought that there were 18 veterans committing suicide everyday and it was my effort to get them, along with the members of the military to think about PTSD in a different way.

All humans need to think about PTSD and mental health in a different way. Why you didn't see Post Bulletin footage of a suicide attempt? was the headline from The Post Bulletin by Jeff Pieters (May 21, 2021) about a repoter capturing the moment when a suicide was prevented by Police Officers. The reason they made the choice to not release the footage is something that all of us should pay attention to...and oh, by the way, I totally approve!

News reporting that informs you sometimes can hurt vulnerable people. Here's how one coverage decision was made.

As humans in society, we have an interest in our fellow people, the different ways they live their lives, the things that they achieve, and the fates that sometimes befall them. We expect, in our free society, to be informed. And yes, there will be hard and unpleasant stories in the Post Bulletin from time to time.

But when there is a cost to the subject, we have to weigh that against the public's desire to know. Does someone who has a drug addiction deserve to be spotlighted for his or her fairly minor misdeeds? Should the sight of somebody having their worst day — a mental health breakdown on a highway bridge in Rochester — be put on display to thousands of pairs of eyes?

And, as Gayle reminded me, sometimes it's more than the individual who bears the cost of the stigma and shame. "There's so little awareness of the impact on families," she said. "The hidden, invisible and innocent victims."

In the end, after much thought and discussion, we made the choice. We would not publish or post our images of what happened on that bridge.

It is never just the one with PTSD or any other mental health condition, but their families as well. I know what it is like to be "family" as well as what it is like to be the "one" dealing with depression so sever I was praying that God would let me die. It was after my daughter was born and I had walked around with an infection for months before it took over my body. I was in the hospital and so sad about things that I just didn't want to do any of it anymore. (Long story but you can read it in For The Love Of Jack) My husband came into the room when I woke up. He had our daughter in his arms. I looked at her and I knew I couldn't leave her. I decided to live for love.

Part of the reason why I stopped working exclusively with veterans and families was the fact that somehow the desire to expose the fact suicides were going up among veterans and members of the military, so that someone would do something to prevent them, was replaced by people making a lot of noise and money off the fact they were doing it. Prevention efforts were drowned out by the ever crowded growing numbers of people wanting fame and fortune instead of saving lives. Suicide prevention was replaced by suicide awareness. As more and more people were committing suicide, the focus and funding was all about veterans. I thought it was time that all us humans were worthy of living.

Maybe that is why most people decide to fight to take back our lives from whatever we're fighting. The people will love are worth fighting for. That is why I Will Live For Love is the featured video today.

Let it be your alive day and live for those you love by healing and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

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

Dream-a-Lot’s Theme (I Will Live for Love)

Donna Summer

There's got to be a way that I can dream

Simply close my eyes and see

The worlds I've never known

What places that my soul has been

Sometimes I need to run away and hide

And soar above the clouds and ride

I sail along so high

Till nothing's in my sky

Except the stars that fill my eyes

And I will live for love

Where ever it may lead

It's written from the start

I know it's face by heart

I will live for love

I'm searching for the one who holds the key

To all this crazy life I lead

Through galaxies in time

A solitary star that joins

Sometimes I need to close my eyes and breathe

Inhale what life's been given me

A passion to ignite

A flaming heart a' flight

I close my eyes

I breathe

I'm free

And I will live for love

Where ever it may lead

It's written from the start

I know it's face by heart

I will live for love

The poet must have known

A lover of his own

"Cause that is when he wrote

Everything I felt for love

And I will fight for love in life and life in love

And I will hold to things above

I'm strong enough to slay the dragon dead and there

I will live for love

I'm taller than the sky

This dream will never die

So only know that I

I will live for love

The poet must have known

A lover of his own

That is when he wrote everything I felt for love

I will ever fight

I will live for life

I will live for love

Genius Lyrics