with their memories along for the ride

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
February 3, 2021

People we love die. Most of us have lost someone, and for some, many people. My husband and I have been to too many funerals. It is hard. Right now there are over 400,000 lives gone to COVID-19, leaving behind countless numbers of people grieving for them. Even more will die in the coming months, leaving more to grieve. No matter how they die, the way we keep their lives alive is to hold onto the memories of them.

This is why today the featured video is Disturbed, Hold On To Memories.

When the new year rolls around, I start to mark dates on the calendar. Birthdays and anniersaries I don't want to forget, but the number of times is less all the time. I want to remember when they were born and not the date they died. I want to remember what was important to them and the good memories we had.

I want to make the most of my life so that I take them with me in all the good I do and hope they are not ashamed of me when I do something wrong.

If you lost someone, honor the loss and grieve for however long you need to. Don't let someone else tell you it is time to stop. This person was in your life and you alone know how much a part of your life they were in.

When anniversary dates or holidays come around, it can be hard without them. Do something to honor them so it will feel as if they are there with you. Have a memory book you write in and put in things that were important to them. Do something they liked to do and call it their day.

"Make the most of the rest of your life" with their memories along for the ride.

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

Hold Onto Memories

Disturbed 

Listen, everyone

The time will come when all of us say goodbye

Feel that aching in your heart

Leaving you broken inside

But we're never really gone

As long as there's a memory in your mind

So now go do the best things in life

Take a bite of this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Make a ride of this world while you can

Take the ones you love

And hold them close because there is little time

And don't let it break your heart

I know it feels hopeless sometimes

But they're never really gone

As long as there's a memory in your mind

So now go do the best things in life

Take a bite of this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Make a ride of this world while you can

And hold on to memories

Hold on to every moment

To keep them alive

The world's greatest tragedy

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive

So now go do the best things in life

Bring the fight to this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Shine your light on this world while you can

And hold on to memories

Hold on to every moment

To keep them alive

The world's greatest tragedy

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive

And hold on to memories

Hold on to every moment

To keep them alive

The world's greatest tragedy

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive (cannot survive)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Churko Kevin Gregory / Donegan Dan J

Hold On to Memories lyrics © Mother Culture Publishing 

PTSD Patrol Now and Forever

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
September 4, 2020 

Today's featured video is Carole King Now and Forever. If you lost someone, it can feel like this for you now...

Now and forever

you are a part of me

And the memory cuts like a knife

But a day will come when you think about them with warm memories instead of grieving. 

At least 187,000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19 since March. That is a lot of people to lose and many more are fighting for their lives in hospitals around the country.

Losing someone is traumatic, so this is for those who have suffered losing someone they cared about...you did not lose them if you keep them with you, in your heart.

Everything changes when they are gone and you miss them. I still miss hearing my Mom say at the end of our daily phone calls, "top priority" to remind me to just pick my battles and not try to take on the world. I miss my Dad sneezing saying "whisky" usually followed by a loud burb of "yep" which made everyone laugh. I miss my brothers and teasing on another. I miss my aunts and uncles, cousins and family get togethers. I miss a lot of friends who are no longer alive....but they are all still with me.

I miss seeing people and hugging them...social distancing is a terrible thing for a hugger to go through...so I try to do it online to let them know I'm still here for them.

If you lost someone, this is for you!

Lyrics

Now and forever

you are a part of me

And the memory cuts like a knife

Didn't we find the ecstasy

Didn't we share the daylight

When you walked into my life

Now and forever

I'll remember all the promises still unbroken

And think about all the words between us

That never needed to be spoken

We had a moment

Just one moment

That will last beyond a dream,

Beyond a lifetime

We are the lucky ones

Some people never get to do

All we got to do

Now and forever

I will always think of you

Didn't we come together

Didn't we live together

Didn't we cry together

Didn't we play together

Didn't we love together

And together we lit up the world

I miss the tears

I miss the laughter

I miss the day we met

and all that followed after

Sometimes I wish I

could always be with you

The way we used to do

Now and forever

I will always think of you

Now and forever

I will always be with you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Carole King / Carole Bayer Sager / Kenny Babyface Edmonds

Now and Forever lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group 

PTSD Patrol: Not Giving Up

PTSD Patrol

Kathie Costos

August 18, 2020

Last night I was watching the DNC convention and I was reminded of things I had forgotten about Joe Biden. He suffered a lot in his life, but instead of being limited by the pain he knew all too well, he decided to use that pain to help others heal too.

This isn't political but it is about as inspirational as it gets.

(ABC News 2012)

Vice President Joe Biden today delivered a deeply personal and, at times, emotional address to survivors of slain U.S. military service members, recounting his struggle with intense grief after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident almost 40 years ago.

"For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide," Biden told a Washington gathering organized by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a non-profit advocacy group, to commemorate Memorial Day.

"Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they'd been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they'd never get there again, that it was … never going to be that way ever again. That's how an awful lot of you feel."

Biden described how he first learned of the accident on Dec. 18, 1972, just weeks after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware. While he was in Washington, D.C., his wife, Neilia, one-year-old daughter, Naomi, and sons, Beau and Hunter, were Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Del. Their car was struck by a tractor-trailer. Only Beau and Hunter survived. 

"There will come a day, I promise you, and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye," he said. "It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I'm telling you it will come."  

Vice president opens up about past grief and thoughts of suicide.

What is the worst way to get PTSD?

The deepest dashboard

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 23, 2019

Why do responders suffer a deeper level of PTSD? Is it because they are exposed over and over again to traumatic events? Or is it because they have the "one time too many" hit them?

After decades of research, it became clear that for responders, it is more about the strength of their emotional core that makes causes the hardest hit.

It is the reason I became a Chaplain back in 2008. I trained to respond to responders knowing that the very thing inside of them causing them to take on those jobs, also caused them the greatest harm.

Oh, no, not all bad news, because that same emotional core holds the power to heal.

This video was done for National Guards and Reservist...the IFOC gave me an award for it because they were using it to help police officers and firefighters. It is called PTSD I Grieve for that reason.

It is nice to be proven right but it also grieves me to my own core. How is it that I was right all these years...but no one would listen?

A study on veterans and PTSD from Norway was released today and the evidence should be clear to anyone trying to change the road our veterans and reponders have been on for far too long.

“A lot of soldiers told stories of how witnessing someone else’s suffering, especially of children who became victims of the war, were tough to work through.” Andreas Espetvedt Nordstrand

For Veterans, Witnessing Suffering Can Mean Worse PTSD

PsychCentral
By Traci Pedersen
Associate News Editor
23 Jun 2019

A study of Norwegian veterans who served in Afghanistan finds that being exposed to the death and suffering of others tends to result in worse symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than being put in life-threatening situations.

The study, published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, is part of a comprehensive survey of how veterans are faring after the war in Afghanistan. Just over 7,000 Norwegian soldiers participated in the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2011, and 4,053 of them participated in this research.

Trauma is roughly divided into danger-based and non-danger-based stressors. Both types of stressors lead to an increase in PTSD, an anxiety disorder which can involve being hyper-alert, jumpy, sleeping poorly and reliving events after they’ve happened.
read more here


To change the outcome, we have to change the conversation. #BreakTheSilence and tell them TakeBackYourLife

Brake pads for vehicles when we get bad breaks

Break Pads

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 14, 2019

When you are grieving, sometimes you need to apply the brakes...so that you can #BreakTheSilence of what you are going through. 

Most of the time people do not know what to expect from themselves. You may judge yourself, or expect more from your core.

Instead of dismissing your own emotions, honor what you are feeling so you can being the healing.

If you are angry, then honor it. I yelled at my Dad at the cemetery a few days after his funeral. I chewed out my brother at the funeral home before everyone else got there. I was angry because I wanted them to still be here.

If you are sad, then honor that. They were a part of your life and they still can be in your memories of them. There comes a time when those memories will stop being painful reminders they are gone. The memories become fond ones of times when they were here.

Do not judge yourself or let anyone else judge you for not grieving enough or too much, or taking too long to "get over it" because they did it another way.

Brake pads on vehicles stop us from moving forward. Breaks in our lives can do the same if we let them.

Brake pads also release when needed so that we can move forward. So to breaks in our lives. They release us so that we can move on.

A Time For Every Gear You Use

Motion requires different gears

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
November 18, 2018

The wheels turn, turn, turn and we move forward. Sometimes the road is smooth. Other times, it is a bumpy road we must travel on to get where we want to go.

There are times when we are alone on the road, but the passengers in our minds keep us company.

Sometimes the sun is shining and we can enjoy the drive. Sometimes it is snowing. The roads are dangerous to be on.

Sometimes we are the only ones on the road. Other times we are stuck in traffic.

What all of us must deal with, is, there are no guarantees any trip will be an easy one to take. 

To everything, there is a gear, that makes your wheels turn, turn, turn 

And a time to every purpose, under your hood 

A time to be move forward, a time to park 

A time to stay, a time to travel 

A time to reverse, a time for neutral 

A time to joy ride, a time to stop 

To everything, there is a gear. that makes your wheels turn, turn, turn.

There is a time to grieve, remember what is lost and then a time to remember with fondness. A time to cry and release the pain you feel. That makes room for a time to feel joy again.

No matter where you want to go in life, you pack everything into what you carry the rest of your life. How you switch gears depends on what you are willing to unpack, let go of, and what you need to carry with you.

When someone says "get over it" they are trying to tell you to move past it, but you hear forget about it all instead.

Sammy Davis, received the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam. A few years ago, we were at an event at the Orlando Nam Knights. I've known Sammy and his wife Dixie for a very long time. I asked him if he wanted to add to a PSA he did for veterans dealing with PTSD. This is what he had to say about "getting over it" and it is a message everyone needs to hear.

The real lyrics

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)
The Byrds
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late
Songwriters: Peter Seeger
Turn! Turn! Turn! 

(To Everything There Is a Season) lyrics © T.R.O. Inc.