Healing to me be myself again

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 5, 2021

Keeping with the theme of the last few days, it is a good time to talk about being thankful. Today's featured video is Sly And The Family Stone, Thank You.

If you only focus on what was done to you that caused PTSD, that is all you'll see and it will contribute to feeling miserable. It is better to focus on what was done for you and then you end up healing, being happier and the people around you will be happier too.

I am thankful for God and for all the people who came to help me after each time something horrible happened. Right now, I am also thankful for the therapist I had many years ago for being myself again.

I knew I needed help because I was walking around feeling angry most of the time and frustrated. That isn't me. While I do have a temper, I am a typical Greek on that one. It takes a lot to get me angry, I explode and then I want to hug. It was always over and done with.

That is how I knew this was not "me" so I asked my primary care physician to recommend someone I could see. I called a few of them but when I asked if they knew about PTSD, the first few did not. Then I ended up with a woman who was an expert at the time. She was a family therapist. I told her that I was not interested in saving my marriage. I was more interested in not killing my husband. She laughed and I knew she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Little by little I started to feel the angry leave and I felt more like myself again. We talked about my husband and the work I did, all the people I was helping, but I didn't focus on me. I wish I had and then maybe she would have seen I had PTSD too. It was because of my ex-husband but I didn't have time to focus on that or what he put me though.

Anyway, in between appointments, she wanted me to write about what I needed to say. At first it was a page, then a couple, then more, until one appointment I handed her 35 pages. She took it and said, "Well obviously I'm not reading this right now."

During the next appointment, she handed it back to me and told me I needed to turn it into a book. I did and that was For The Love Of Jack. She really helped me be myself again.

If you focus on you, and get the help you need to heal, then you'll be thankful too for being yourself again. The people in your life will be happier too!

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

Thank You

Sly And The Family Stone

Lookin' at the devil, grinnin' at his gun

Fingers start shakin', I begin to run

Bullets start chasin', I begin to stop

We begin to wrestle I was on the top

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Stiff all in the collar, fluffy in the face

Chit chat chatter tryin', stuffy in the place

Thank you for the party but I could never stay

Many things on my mind, words in the way

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Dance to the music

All night long

Everyday people

Sing a simple song

Mama's so happy

Mama start to cry

Papa still singin'

You can make it if you try

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again (oh yeah)

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Flamin' eyes of people fear, burnin' into you

Many men are missin' much, hatin' what they do

Youth and truth are makin' love

Dig it for a starter

Dyin' young is hard to take

Sellin' out is harder

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Thank you for lettin' me be myself again

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

I want to thank you for lettin' me be myself again

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Sylvester Stewart

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) lyrics © Mijac Music 

"She's leaving home, after living alone, for so many years"

PTSD Patrol

Kathie Costos

March 24, 2021

Does your adult child believe they are living alone, even though they live with you? Sometimes the loneliest place to be, is with people you love. This is to the parents of survivors, especially young veterans. They will not say much about where they were or what they did, but they say even less about what came back with them. Their souls have a huge scar.

You may notice the changes in their actions and attitudes. You may notice they are not the same. What you don't notice is they are not just "getting over it" on their own. It is up to you to be able to understand what the changes mean and if they need help instead of time to heal from it.

If not, then they may end up feeling as if they are living alone with a house full of people around them. Sharing a dwelling is not the same as sharing lives.

There are so many causes of trauma but the key doctors look for are the two words most often spoken afterwards. "Suddenly changed" give doctors a clue as to what the person can be suffering with. PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, can be misdiagnosed as many other mental health issues, but this one is only caused by surviving traumatic events.

While news reports cause people to be emotionally invested in the stories, survivors of those same events can be hit especially hard by them. I get really emotional when I read about domestic abuse and stalking. I also get emotional reading about veterans committing suicide. It is as if the events that hit my life has happened all over again.

When the police officer's knee was on George Floyd's neck, most people got angry but for some young black men, it stuck in their minds. It caused traumatic reactions the next time they encounter police offices. When police officers read reports of other officers being shot, the next time they encounter someone with a weapon, it can cause a traumatic response that lingers.

No matter what caused PTSD in them, whenever it happens to someone else, it hits them hard and they will remember when it happened to them more stronger than during most days. If they are in therapy, they need to talk to their therapist. If they are not, then try to get them to at least open up to you.

Most of the time, people will not talk about any of this out of fear of being judged. The thing is, they fear what they do not understand. If they understood PTSD is only something survivors experience, then they would know there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Don't let them think they are living alone and cannot talk to you about what is harming them.

Today the featured video is "She's Leaving Home" by the Beatles.

Melanie Coe, the teenage runaway who inspired the Beatles' "She's Leaving Home," looks back on her surreal moment as a 'Sgt. Pepper' muse. (Read article from Rolling Stone below)

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

She's leaving home

The Beatles;

Wednesday morning at five o'clock

As the day begins

Silently closing her bedroom door

Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

She goes down the stairs to the kitchen

Clutching her handkerchief

Quietly turning the backdoor key

Stepping outside, she is free

She, ... (we gave her most of our lives)

Is leaving (sacrified most of our lives)

Home (we gave her everything money could buy)

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown

Picks up the letter that's lying there

Standing alone at the top of the stairs

She breaks down and cries to her husband

Daddy, our baby's gone.

Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?

How could she do this to me?

She (we never thought of ourselves)

Is leaving (never a thought for ourselves)

Home (we struggled hard all our lives to get by)

She's leaving home, after living alone, for so many years

Friday morning, at nine o'clock

She is far away

Waiting to keep the appointment she made

Greeting a man from the Motortrade

She (what did we do that was wrong)

Is Having (we didn't know it was wrong)

Fun (fun is the one thing that money can't buy)

Something inside, that was always denied,

For so many years,

She's leaving home

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Lennon John Winston / Mccartney Paul James 

Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ at 50: Meet the Runaway Who Inspired ‘She’s Leaving Home’
Melanie Coe looks back on her teenage days as an unlikely Lennon/McCartney muse
The Rolling Stone
By JORDAN RUNTAGH
MAY 23, 2017

The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which Rolling Stone named as the best album of all time, turns 50 on June 1st. In honor of the anniversary, and coinciding with a new deluxe reissue of Sgt. Pepper, we present a series of in-depth pieces – one for each of the album’s tracks, excluding the brief “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” reprise on Side Two – that explore the background of this revolutionary and beloved record. Today’s installment focuses on Melanie Coe, the real-life teen runaway who inspired “She’s Leaving Home.”

“A-Level Girl Dumps Car And Vanishes,” screamed a headline in the February 27th, 1967, issue of London’s Daily Mail. A pretty blonde 17-year-old named Melanie Coe stared out from the adjacent photograph, taken not long before she went missing from her family’s home in Stamford Hill, England. The report portrayed her as a “the schoolgirl who seemed to have everything,” including her own Austin 1100 car and a “wardrobe full of clothes,” both of which were left behind. “I cannot imagine why she should run away,” her father told reporters. “She has everything here … even her fur coat.”

Unable to express herself at home, Coe made a desperate lunge at freedom. One afternoon, while both her parents were out, she left a note and slipped out the door. Decades later, Coe remains stunned by the prescience of the Beatles’ lyrics. “The most interesting thing in the song is what the father said, ‘We gave her everything, everything money could buy.’ And in the newspaper article, my father actually says almost those words. He doesn’t understand why I would have left home when they bought me or gave me everything. Which is true; they had bought me a car and they always bought me expensive clothes and things like that. But as we know, that doesn’t mean that you get on well with your parents, or even love them, just because they buy you material things.”
read the rest here

be between their pain and glory

The following is from my business site

Moral Mortal

Kathie Costos
February 25, 2021

Do you want to be the best thing that ever happened to them? Isn't that why you got into the mental health field? You remember what they looked like the first time they came to see you. Their life was a mess and they were depressed, feeling lost and confused. They took their last bit of hope and reached out to you for help. You also know the rush you get when you see someone walk out your door for the last time, with a smile on their face. It is the one field where not having returning customers is success!

With so much competition out there, you need all the help you can get to help more people. I know that feeling. For 38 years, I dedicated my life to helping veterans and families find their way toward healing...by sending them to therapists when they were ready for more help than I could give.

Back in 1993 when I started working online, I was easy to find. Not much competition back then. The other good thing is, everyone was in the work for the right reasons. Most of us had personal connections to PTSD. We understood it, lived with it, and learned how to take back our lives from it. We passed on that knowledge we obtained the hard way to make it easier for others.

When the veteran suicide report from the Department of Veterans Affairs came out in 2012, there was a flood of people rushing to push the headline of "22 a day" when they didn't bother to read the whole report. Thousands of charities popped up and it became a billion dollar industry. The pioneers in the field, doing the work for the right reasons, we pushed out of the way. Most of the people I knew back when we started, gave up. I almost did too but I had some support from professionals convincing me that  clearing the way toward hope was essential.

With over 600 videos, three books, thousands of articles, almost 4 decades of research, and lives saved, I want you to feel like you are the best thing that ever happened to your patients. That is why I am offering a service geared to your success story. 

I can set up a blog for you, provide posts written specifically for your work and help you reach more lives you can turn around.

Those are the results for Wounded Times

Those are the results for PTSD Patrol

Call me and let's talk about how you can help more people, like me, since I went to therapy a couple of times. My therapist was one of the best things that ever happened to me. She encouraged me to write my first book!

407-754-7526 Florida number but now live in New Hampshire!

You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me 

I've had my share of life's ups and downs

But fate's been kind, the downs have been few

I guess you could say that I've been lucky

And I guess you could say, it's all because of you

If anyone should ever write my life story

For whatever reason there might be

You'd be there between each line of pain and glory

'Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me

You're the best thing that ever happened to me

Oh, there have been times when the times were so hard

But somehow, some way I'd made it through

And for every moment I've spent hurting

There's been moments spent loving you

If anyone should ever write my life story

For whatever reason there might be

You'd be there between each line of pain and glory

'Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me

You're the best thing that ever happened to me

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: James D. Weatherly

You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group 

Hope drug works

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
Feburary 10, 2021

If you have PTSD and are in treatment, then you may be given some drug...or drugs. If you are not, then your drug of choice is whatever you decide to self medicate with. Then there is another type of drug that works better to offer a happier road ahead.

If you are on medication, it may not be working as good as it should or you are having a hard time with side effects that come with it. Someone you know may be doing great on it, but you're not. That's OK. You are not your buddy. You doctor needs to know how you are feeling so they can change what you are on. That is why there are many different drugs for the same condition...no matter what it is.

If you are not in therapy, then you may be self-medicating. Using street drugs or alcohol to get numb, high or pass out because you cannot sleep. All that does it cost you a lot of money, cause trouble with every part of your life and may even shorten your life. It is not making you happier or healthier. Most of the time it may even be making you more miserable, especially if your drug of choice is alcohol. That is one of the biggest reasons you are told to stop drinking if you are on medication for PTSD.

The other type of drug is natural. I call it the Hope Drug and it works. When you have hope that you can be happier, it lifts you up. You have a reason to get up in the morning. That is what we're doing everyday on PTSD Patrol.

Knowing that it will be OK to actually feel things again is a head rush. It won't be just feeling miserable and you'll look forward to actually feeling good things again...because you know you can.

That is why today the featured video is Huey Lewis I Want A New Drug. That is why I am prescribing hope for you today...and everyday!

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

I Want A New Drug

Huey Lewis

I want a new drug, one that won't make me sick

One that won't make me crash my car

Or make me feel three-feet thick

I want a new drug, one that won't hurt my head

One that won't make my mouth too dry

Or make my eyes too red

One that won't make me nervous

Wonderin' what to do

One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you

When I'm alone with you

I want a new drug, one that won't spill

One that don't cost too much

Or come in a pill

I want a new drug, one that won't go away

One that won't keep me up all night

One that won't make me sleep all day

One that won't make me nervous

Wonderin' what to do

One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you

I'm alone with you, baby

I'm alone with you, baby

I want a new drug, one that does what it should

One that won't make me feel too bad

One that won't make me feel too good

I want a new drug, one with no doubt

One that won't make me talk to much

Or make my face breakout

One that won't make me nervous

Wonderin' what to do

One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you

I'm alone with you

I'm alone with you, yeah, yeah

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Christopher John Hayes / Huey Lewis

I Want a New Drug lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc 

speed limit to healing

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 31, 2021

When someone is trying to heal from PTSD, they are the driver. It is up to them to set the speed they travel on this road. If you are trying to help them, you are the passenger and the navigator. Offering advice and trying to get them to keep going, is part of it but so is slowing them down when they go too fast.

A long time ago, I was helping a National Guardsman heal to prevent him from trying suicide for the 3rd time. It took 5 phone calls before he agreed to see a professional. I hadn't heard from him for a while but was talking to his Mom a few months later. I asked how he was doing and she said, "Well you cured him and he moved to Colorado." I told her that he was not cured and needed to get back home and back into theraphy. This didn't make sense to her at first, because the nightmares were just about gone and he was happier. I explained that could very well be true, but that didn't mean he was done.

The person needing healing is in control of the speed, but it is vital to the navigators to get them to ease up on the gas. The best way to put this is, on a highway, most of the drivers are doing it within limits set, or close to it. Sooner or later, some yahoo thinks limits are for everyone else but them, so they go zooming past everyone, weaving in and out of traffic, making the road dangerous for everyone else. Usually you'll see a police car with flashing lights going after them. Why? Because it is dangerous with a predictable bad outcome.

If you see a therapist, understand the client sets the speed they heal with. For some, they need to go very slow and carefully. For others, they talk so fast, it is hard to slow them down enough so they actually hear themselves talk.

This is why the feature video is Neil Diamond, He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

If you are trying to help someone, understand that you need to try to slow them down, get them to rest and refuel when they are running out of gas. Be there to guide them so they don't have to feel like they are alone on this road. 

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where

Who knows where

But I'm strong

Strong enough to carry him

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

So on we go

His welfare is of my concern

No burden is he, to bear

We'll get there

For I know

He would not encumber me

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

If I'm laden at all

I'm laden with sadness

That everyone's heart

Isn't filled with the gladness

Of love for one another

It's a long, long road

From which there is no return

While we're on our way to there

Why not share

And the load

Doesn't weigh me down at all

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Bob Russell / Bobby Scott

In case the above video gets blocked...this is the offical one.

Faith enough to fight

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
January 23, 2021

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35

If someone hates someone else, that is not how Jesus said they should be. It is OK to hate what people do, but we're suppose to forgive them, just as we want to be forgiven. This is very important when you are trying to heal, especially if PTSD was caused by what some did to us.

I know it is hard, but it was harder to carry that inside of me, consuming room inside my soul where love could have been...should have been. There was a time when anger was taking control of my life and I didn't like myself.

I am basically a happy person. I have a hot temper, but I normally blow up, then let it go. Most of the time I want to hug afterwards. Still, there was a time when I couldn't do that. I knew I needed help. 

My primary care doctor recommended a few therapists who specialized in trauma. I made a couple of calls, but they couldn't even answer basic questions. Keep in mind that I had been researching PTSD, living with it and knew enough to know they did not know enough. Then I made a call to a woman who did know more than basics...she was an expert.

Little by little, the anger was losing power and hope was restoring happiness.  She is the reason I wrote my first book, For The Love Of Jack, His War/MyBattle. It tells the story of our life covering 18 years because it was first published in 2002. I republished in and put in a few updates, but didn't feel the need to update more. I said all I needed to say in it.

We wouldn't still be together if we did not have a deep love. We wouldn't still be together if we did not know how to forgive. I wouldn't have had what I needed to get through any of these years had it not been for God in my heart first.

Don't get me wrong, none of it was easy, but faith made it easier. I did not fight any battle alone and you don't have to either!

Get Together

Youngbloods 

Love is but a song we sing

Fear's the way we die

You can make the mountains ring

Or make the angels cry

Though the bird is on the wing

And you may not know why

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go

He will surely pass

When the one that left us here

Returns for us at last

We are but a moment's sunlight

Fading in the grass

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing

You will understand, listen

You hold the key to love and fear

All in your trembling hand

Just one key unlocks them both

It's there at your command

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

I said come on, people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now

Right now

Right now

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jesse Colin Young

Get Together lyrics © Bernard's Other Music, Tenyor Music, Pigfoot Music, Irving Music Inc.