Stop driving your life away so you can stay!

Who are you driving away?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 17, 2019

Today is St. Patrick's Day. Tradition says that he drove snakes out of Ireland. That got me thinking about driving other things away, like the people in your life. 

So who are you driving away? Are you pushing people away so they do not see you as being vulnerable? Weaker than they thought you were? 

What is it that keeps you from seeing that you would feel terrible if someone needed you, but pushed you away instead.

St. Patrick

St. Patrick, (flourished 5th century, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17), patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians.

Healing takes a triple play like the trinity. Mind-body and spirit. Leave one out and you will not heal as well as you would by taking care of all the things that make you...you.

Before the end of the 7th century, Patrick had become a legendary figure, and the legends have continued to grow. One of these would have it that he drove the snakes of Ireland into the sea to their destruction. Patrick himself wrote that he raised people from the dead, and a 12th-century hagiography places this number at 33 men, some of whom are said to have been deceased for many years. He also reportedly prayed for the provision of food for hungry sailors traveling by land through a desolate area, and a herd of swine miraculously appeared. Another legend, probably the most popular, is that of the shamrock, which has him explain the concept of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God, to an unbeliever by showing him the three-leaved plant with one stalk. Traditionally, Irishmen have worn shamrocks, the national flower of Ireland, in their lapels on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

St. Patrick took care of poor sailors..what if they were too proud to accept his help? 

Well, that happens all the time...especially when you were the one who made it your job to save other people. Bet you didn't stop to see that it was the same career choice everyone you serve with made too. 

Would you help them if they needed you? Then what's stopping you from asking them for help to stay instead of pushing them away?

Don't give me the stigma crap. If you spent a fraction of the time you use to cover up the pain, on learning what is causing it, the stigma would be proven to be a grim fairy tale. It would not even exist.

You can take what you fear to talk about and defeat it by talking about it. The only thing you have to fear is what you think of yourself, so change it with gaining some knowledge. Begin with the fact that the only way to get PTSD is after surviving something that could have killed you. 

Learn what it is so you can enjoy your life again by knowing what it is not!

Stop driving your life away and find the better day!

Wounded Forgotten Warrior Project

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
and PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 9, 2019

(With two events this weekend I am cross posting this one on both sites.)

I wanted to show what it is like driving into work at 5:00 am with very little traffic on the road. Much like when I got into working on PTSD back in 1982, the road was paved by others out there long before I even heard the term.

Vietnam veterans are responsible for everything we know about what trauma does. It is not that others never experienced it, but they were the ones who did something about it.

During the filming of the video, the commercial for Wounded Warrior Project came on and I lost my mind. It came on right after I ran down the things that have been forgotten, including the fabulous work done on the Forgotten Warrior Project. It told their stories to stop them from suffering in silence.

They are the wounded forgotten warriors! Their project was to heal their generations and all others who came before them and for those they knew would come after them.

In the video you will hear about IFOC, Nam Knights and Point Man International Ministries. 

I trained with the IFOC. I am a Lady of the Knight with the Nam Knights. I am Florida state coordinator of Point Man. So yes, I believe in them and what we do!

Please look them up if you want to know about about fabulous efforts to do real peer support.

Firefighter took back his life from PTSD, what are you waiting for?

‘I got my life back’: Four years into his recovery from PTSD, Frazee firefighter Scott Geiselhart spreads message of hope

DL Online
By Marie Johnson
Mar 6, 2019

“It took a suicide attempt to find out I had PTSD,” he says. “It was very unfortunate… I lost control of myself, so my suicide attempt was an attempt to regain control. But that was the worst decision I ever made in my life. I was confused. I was looking at things different than I do now… When I was in that place, I thought I was doing everybody a favor. That’s the darkness. That’s scary. When you lose control, you feel like you’re all alone.”

Scott Geiselhart, a longtime volunteer firefighter with the Frazee Fire Department, has been symptom-free from his PTSD and depression for about four years. He is pictured here with his service dog, Sarge. (Marie Johnson / Tribune)

Editor’s note: This is the second in an 8-part series of weekly feature stories written in conjunction with the “Inside Out” community campaign to normalize mental illness. The second “Inside Out” video, related to this story, is available to watch online at www.beckercountyenergize.com.

Imagine arriving at the scene of a bad accident. You see two crushed cars laying on their sides in the road. It’s your job to extract the crash victims from the insides of those cars. They’re hurt, and scared. One is just a child — about the same age as one of your own.

You do your job, you do everything right, but still, one of the victims doesn’t make it.

You step in and out of awful scenarios like this, over and over again, year after year after year. You can’t talk about any of it with your loved ones; it’s not allowed. You don’t want to talk about it with your colleagues; it’s not “macho.” So you swallow your emotions and carry on with life as best you can.

That’s what Scott Geiselhart did, for almost 20 years. As a longtime volunteer firefighter with the Frazee Fire Department, he witnessed trauma after trauma, and kept his feelings about it all bottled up. One day, that bottle got too full, and things started to spill over.

He started having horrible nightmares and jarring flashbacks of the accident scenes. To suppress the dark thoughts, he turned to alcohol, and to stay awake after sleepless nights, he started using meth. He isolated himself from his loved ones, trying to hide his addictions.

He felt scared, confused, and ashamed of his behavior. People around town always knew him as a good guy with a big heart, but at home his temper would flare, and he became verbally abusive toward his family. That led to more feelings of shame and guilt, and more drug use. He was spiralling out of control.

All the common signs of PTSD and depression were there, but he didn’t see any of that.

After more than 15 years of his symptoms getting progressively worse and worse, the bottle Geiselhart had been so desperately trying to contain everything in, finally broke open. Alone in his office one night, he picked up his gun, pressed it to his head, and pulled the trigger.
read more here

PTSD Patrol Turbo charge your healing

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 2, 2019

It seems as if everyone is talking about younger veterans with PTSD...forgetting that the majority of veterans seeking help for PTSD are over the age of 50. Unfortunately, that age group are also the majority of the known suicides. What did you expect me to say when they are also the majority of veterans in our country?

OK, so, if you are driving an antique, you know it takes a lot more to keep it running than if you had a new car with all the techno crap you really don't need. 

When you figure out that there is something seriously wrong with your vehicle, you can keep it in the garage, but that does not solve the problem. You ask some buddies what they think could be wrong, but you won't get the right answer unless you are able to mimic the noise that is in the engine.

Often, you will search online, then discover what you think it may be. You may make an appointment with the mechanic (docs at the VA) and get a diagnosis.

A good mechanic will take care of the engine (your mind) and suggest that you take it to the body shop too. (the gym or anything else physically to take care of your body...including yoga)

A really great mechanic will suggest you turbo change the healing with taking care of the spiritual part of you. 

Turbine

Did You Know? The oldest and simplest form of turbine is the waterwheel, which is made to rotate by water falling across its blades and into buckets suspended from them. Hero of Alexandria invented the first steam-driven turbine in the 1st century A.D., but a commercially practical steam turbine wasn't developed until 1884; steam turbines are now the main elements of electric power stations. Jet engines are gas turbines. A turbojet engine uses a turbine to compress the incoming air that feeds the engine before being ejected to push the plane forward; a turboprop engine uses its exhaust to drive a turbine that spins a propeller. A wind turbine generates electricity by being turned by the wind; the largest now have vanes with a turning diameter of over 400 feet.

And then there came this

Definition of turbo-propeller engine : a jet engine having a turbine-driven propeller and designed to produce thrust principally by means of a propeller although additional thrust is usually obtained from the hot exhaust gases which issue in a jet.

I am in the over age 50 antique stage, so I know how different life is right now instead of what I thought it would be. All of us need to remember that these "golden" years can suck especially when we are supposed to be enjoying this time of our lives, but end up dealing with health problems most of the time.

Just a reminder here is that we go because we know that things in our lives get a lot better when we are able to enjoy them! Its your life and your choice. You can sit there suffering with your vehicle in the garage, letting fluids dry up and tires get flat, or you can spruce it up and zoom past everyone else.

PTSD Patrol: Are You A Passenger or Navigator?

PTSD Patrol: Participating in the journey

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
February 24, 2019

I have been unplugged for a few days to spend time with some very dear old friends of ours. Over the weekend we talked about old times and how our lives have changed since we were young.

My friend Ellen and I shared how much we have taken active places in the lives of our husbands and unwilling to settle for just being along for the ride. 

This morning I was wondering why so many younger family members are not taking an active part in the journey too. Then it occurred to me that maybe no one ever explained to them how much power they do have over everything.

Passenger Passive is just along for the ride and not paying attention to where they are going, or noticing how they got to where they were.

Passsenger: a person who is traveling in a vehicle but is not operating it or working as an employee in it.

Captain Cruel takes advantage of the vulnerability of the person they are with instead of helping them.

Navigator Knowing charts the way to get everyone to their destination as quickly and safely as possible.

Navigator :a person in a vehicle who decides on the direction in which the vehicle travels.

Point Man Partner acknowledges the needs of someone they care about and finds a way to make their journey a much happier trip.

So which one are you? If you are a family member, you are part of the journey and you can change the trip for everyone. 

Yes, without knowing it, you play a major role in all of this. You can make it worse for everyone or you can make it so much better.

While peer support is one of the best ways for recovering from PTSD, what Point Man International Ministries discovered is, family support works better than anything.

Point Man established Home Front groups because our role can, and should, change their lives for the better. The more we know, the more involved we are, the more healing can happen.

Are you tired of just being along for the ride?

This is from Paul Sluznis

Many of us had no idea where to go or who to talk to when we came home from our different conflicts. We had no clue we had PTSD or anxiety. Who thought they would still be clearing their own home 15 years after getting out of the military. I had no idea how to deal with any of these issues till my Bride found out about Point Man Ministries and I haven't looked back since.

I started out going to outpost meetings and after awhile found that everyone in the room, although some from different services, and conflicts had the same issues as I. In that room we shared our thoughts as well as our messed up feelings knowing that what was said in the room would never leave the room....

Many of us have lost long time friends while in the service and I have met many Veterans who never left our country and felt they didn't belong in the same room as a combat Veteran. We all served this great nation whether shot at or not you served and you have just as much of a right to be there as I do. No matter what your service, male or female, I urge you to seek us out and join us! Thank you for serving our great Nation and welcome home! Paul Sluznis (President of PMIM)

In 1982 our journey began for my husband and I. Along the way, there were a lot of bad times but once I knew what PTSD was doing to him, I understood it was happening to us!

When someone you care about is hurting, it can break your heart. When someone you love is hurting to the point they are pushing you away, thoughts smash into each other as you try to figure out what you did wrong to cause it. Not a great way to live. You'll never find the answer because it is not really about you. It is about whatever they survived and the shock that came afterwards.

Not understanding any of it causes them to fear tomorrow instead of hope for healing.

It is our job to get them to where they need to be and that begins with how much of an active part we are willing to play.

These videos are with Paul talking about what it was like for him before Point Man and after his wife found us. This is how you can become a "Point Man Partner" and make a difference.

And if you are a family member, this is how you become Navigator know which way to go!