PTSD Patrol guide to a better family road trip

PTSD Patrol Family Road Trip Guide

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 7, 2019

I decided to tell our story so that no one would feel as lost or alone as I did.

When I got into all of this, there were not many people talking about live with PTSD. Within our community of veterans, we were talking about it and most of our friends were learning it from me. I learned from the experts on this road a lot longer before I ever knew there was one.


The book was ready in 2000 but I was still searching for a publisher when the planes hit the Towers. 

16 years ago, on April Fools Day, my first book was published because I knew enough to know that suffering would spread out because of September 11, 2001. 

I was talking to a Psychiatrist I know and he said I needed to get my book out there, so I decided to self publish it.

I am not going into detail on this right now, but there is an announcement coming on this soon. For right now, if you want a copy of the book, DO NOT BUY IT ONLINE and there are reasons for that. 

If you want to read it, then email me woundedtimes@aol.com or leave a message here.

Just know that whatever you are going through, the only thing that has been causing a detour between your family beginning to heal is the missing effort on your part. 

Stop taking a back seat to your own life and get in the drivers seat!

#BreakTheSilence and tell someone you love it is time to #TakeBackYourLife

Good Lord! I want to retire! 

Road Ode Carpenters

I've been on this lonely road so long
Does anybody know where it goes?
I remember the last time the signs pointed home
A month ago

Rented cars and empty motel rooms
Lead you everywhere but home
Crowds of people shouting how they love the show
They don't know

The endless crowds of faces
Just keep on wearing a smile
The countless times and places
Lead me back, please take me back home

I wonder if these feelings ever change
How many times I'll lift this load
Come tomorrow I'll be gone again
Roads of sorrows coming to an end for me

The endless crowds of faces
Just keep on wearing a smile
The countless times and places
Lead me back, please take me back home

I wonder if these feelings ever change
How many times I'll lift this load
Come tomorrow I'll be gone again
Roads of sorrows coming to an end for me

Change your power source

Plugging into present

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 31, 2019

Tomorrow is April Fools Day, but so far, the joke may have been one you pulled on yourself.

If you have been telling yourself that you are currently worth less than you used to be, then, it has been a cruel joke.

Maybe you told yourself that you have fallen down on the job...or because of your job. Maybe you told yourself about a thousand times that you should just give up and end the misery. Well, you're partly right on that one but not in the way you think.

You should give up on all the negative thinking so that you can end the misery and start to live a happier life. 

How about you unplug from the negativity of yesterday and begin to "plug into the present" possibilities available to you today?

Plug Into The Present is a site about electric cars. They need to have charge stations on the road, especially on long trips, or they run out of power.

You need charge stations too. So far you have been using the wrong power source. Think about it this way. If it was your job to save lives, why would you give up on yours now?

You can take the back seat of your own life and give up...

or you can use your power to take back control of this moment on.

Think about that. Think about how up until now, you have not been thinking enough of the right things. You operated on the negative charge stations instead of the positive change stations.

The lives you saved would not be here to be fighting to take control of their own lives as survivors without you. Have you ever wondered what happened to them? Would you be shocked if they had PTSD? Well, over 7 million Americans have diagnosed PTSD and a lot more are wondering what the hell is going on with their lives.

Now, notice that it only takes one time for PTSD to take over. That's right. Just one event can cause a survivor to be bitten by it. How many times did you expose yourself to traumatic events because you put your own life on the line to save someone else?

Now does it make sense that it has nothing to do with being weak? If not then understand that it actually has more to do with the strongest part of you. It is the same part that compelled you to take action with courageously placing yourself in harms way.

Your courage and training did not mean you stopped being human.

Only Human

Billy Joel

Lyrics

You're having a hard time and lately you don't feel so good

You're getting a bad reputation in your neighborhood

It's alright

It's alright

Sometimes that's what it takes

You're only human

You're allowed to make your share of mistakes

You better believe there will be times in your life

When you'll be feeling like a stumbling fool

So take it from me you'll learn more from your accidents

Than anything that you could ever learn at school

Don't forget your second wind

Sooner or' later you'll get your second wind

It's not always easy to be living in this world of pain

You're gonna be crashing into stone walls again and again

It's alright

It's alright

Though you feel your heart break

You're only human

You're gonna have to deal with heartache

Just like a boxer in a title fight

You got to walk in that ring all alone

You're not the only one who's made mistakes

But they're the only thing that you can truly call your own

Don't forget your second wind

Wait in that corner until that breeze blows in

You've been keeping to yourself these days

'Cause you're thinking everything's gone wrong

Sometimes you just want to lay down and die

That emotion can be so strong

But hold on

Till that old second wind comes along

You probably don't want to hear advice from someone else

But I wouldn't be telling you if I hadn't been there myself

It's alright

It's alright

Sometimes that's all it takes

We're only human

We're supposed to make mistakes

But I survived all those long lonely days

When it seemed I did not have a friend

'Cause all I needed was a little faith

So I could catch my breath and face the world again

Don't forget your second wind

Sooner or later you'll feel that momentum kick in

Don't forget your second wind

Sooner or later you'll feel that momentum kick in

Songwriters: Billy Joel You're Only Human (Second Wind) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

So how about you #BreakTheSilence and "plug into the present" so that you can #TakeBackYourLife heal and then, help others find their way too?

Got Gunk?

PTSD Patrol Clean gunk out of your engine

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 24, 2019

What is gunk in your engine? Well, if it is the engine is in the vehicle you drive, then it is usually oil. If it is in the engine that is in the "you" vehicle you live in, then it is anything negative that is clogging your way toward healing.

If you keep letting your past dictate all the reasons to not get up in the morning, then you are clogging up the imagination you need to fuel healing.

5 Symptoms of Oil Deposits
How Stuff Works
BY AKWELI PARKER
...We know that a sloppy diet and too little exercise cause sticky deposits called cholesterol to block our arteries. But what's the culprit behind oil gumming up our engine -- isn't oil one of the good guys when it comes to car engine health?

Well, yes, it is. But when oil is subjected to a high enough temperature, it can solidify and become baked onto the surface of whatever is close by, like for instance, a narrow engine oil passageway or critical engine parts themselves. It can also lose its viscosity and become a tar-like goop that makes life hard for your vehicle's engine.

When enough of these deposits collect, the possibility of a vehicle engine underperforming or even dying, go up dramatically. Thick or solid oil can have the reverse effect that clean, normal oil has. Instead of cleaning, lubricating and cooling your engine, it can pollute, hinder and contribute to overheating.

This article lists five of the most common clues that your vehicle is harboring oil deposits. Notice them too late and you could be facing a steep repair bill. But catch them early enough, and you could save yourself an engine and many greenbacks, not to mention peace of mind.
read more here

When you tell yourself that there is no hope...that is gunk in your engine. When you tell yourself that you survived what set off PTSD in the first place, that is getting rid of the clog so you can move forward. 

There is so much you need to learn about the vehicle you live in, and once you get rid of the gunk, you'll begin to see a lot more power put back into your engine and less going into an engine that does not need to over heat!

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.