Keep fueling up with a try-full lifestyle

If you are right, giving up is wrong

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 15, 2019

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” ―Dale Carnegie

When you know you are right about something, you fight to prove it. You do not give up on what is important to you. At least that is the way it is supposed to work, but sometimes, no matter how hard or how long you try, fighting can drain whatever hope you have left. But fighting is what keeps us moving forward.

When I moved to New Hampshire, I brought a truckload of misery with me. I did not notice I packed every rotten thing that happened there 1,600 miles away.

Last week I had to call my friend Dana Morgan, the past President of Point Man, because I could not bring myself to pick up the phone to contact some of the groups up here working on veterans issues.

All the doors slammed in my face in Florida, caused a panic within me just thinking of dialing the number I had written down. Too many times I asked for help for what I had dedicated more than half my life to, yet few wanted to help me. The thing that got to me the most were those who constantly expected me to help them do what they wanted to do.

I knew my motivation was pure. I knew my knowledge was vast and well researched. I knew it helped veterans and families, like mine, learn to thrive in spite of PTSD trying to take over their lives. Just as I packed a truck load of misery, all of that came with me.

Talking with Dana, he made me realize that the worst that could happen was to hear "not interested" from people I was contacting. He suggested I call the one I though would reject me the worst. I called and was put in touch with someone higher up. While some want to trifle with me, I'd rather have a "try-full life" when I wake up and try again.

Finding someone higher up can only happen if we do not settle for "no" or "not interested" for an answer. Work your way up the chain until you find the right kind of helper to get you to where you want to be.

If you have PTSD and know what it is, then you know the truth about part of your life. You know what is inside of you that has been there all along, as well as you know the changes that "what happened" caused. The thing is, you can change again and everything that was in you, all the stuff that made you "you" is all still there.

If anyone tells you that you are doomed to suffer, feel sorry for them because they are too miserable in their own lives to bother to learn anything factual.

Fight to regain what is right within you so that you can break through the pain and doubt that has you trapped. The worst thing that can happen, already did and you survived it!

Devastating to discover we were wrong

Getting wrong kind of help worse than none

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
December 3, 2019

If you are wondering why I could not post on this site for a while, it became impossible to be upbeat and share anything encouraging when we were being tortured for trusting the wrong people.

There are people we think we can count on to help us get to where we want to go. It can be devastating to discover we were wrong.

My husband and I decided to sell our house in Florida so that we could move closer to our daughter in New Hampshire. We turned to "friends" we had known for 15 years to sell it. Worst mistake of our lives!

I found a buyers agent to help us in New Hampshire. Catherine Allen was a stranger turned into a blessing. Our house was not getting much attention and she took a look at the listing. Catherine said the pictures were the biggest part of the problem and so was the price.

When I told our "friend" what Catherine said, that was the last time she took my phone call and would not respond to emails. I had no clue what the hell was wrong with her but what made it worse was what it did to us personally knowing that "friends" would treat us like that. 

Catherine proved she was watching out for us and knew the market in Florida even though she was in Maine.

I called Zillow to see what they would offer to just buy the house. Agents like our "friends" are a great reason why people would be willing to lose more money on the sale of their home and avoid a lot of extra stress no one needs piled on to their shoulders.

Zillow said that the agent would have to release it or we would have to pay the commission to them as well as the fee to Zillow. My husband called the husband of the agent since both of them were agents and thought of him as a true friend. Needless to say the response we got was that the would not release the listing. I was fed up!

I called the head of the agency and told him what they were doing and he said he would have them straighten it out. What followed was a series of angry emails from the husband. Since I worked for a title company, I turned to our agents and in turn to our legal department to find a lawyer we could trust.

Leo Brito of Nishad Khan got all the details on what happened. When he was reviewing it, more angry emails came in from the agent. The last one had two lies in just two sentences. He wrote that "we had an offer come in from "opendoor" are you interested in hearing the terms and conditions of that offer?" (He must have forgotten who I worked for, and knew how that business worked.) The next sentence was that his boss just talked to him, even though he had already sent the angry emails. I responded by telling him to stop contacting me and that he would be hearing from our lawyer.

I called Open Door and asked an agent if they ever cold called to make offers. After that agent stopped laughing, it gave me more ammo for our lawyer.

To top that off, Zillow contacted his wife to make an offer based on our conversation. As soon as he said who he was, she told him he had the wrong number, then hung up the phone.

Leo sent them notice that if they did not release us, it would head into litigation. They released the house so that we could get an agent who was actually interested in doing the work to sell the house and earn his commission.

We went with Wes Garrison of REMAX and he explained why the house was worth thousands less than it had been listed for. He sent our a professional photographer to take stunning pictures, including drone views of the area. We ended up with so many people coming to see it that we lost count. He was responsive to all of my questions and restored my faith in real estate agents. Basically he busted his ass to sell our house.

In less than 2 weeks, our house was under agreement! The best part of all is that the buyers were people we already knew. They loved the house almost as much as we did.

Hurricane Humberto was taking time going up the east coast, so we had to wait to fly up to New Hampshire to start looking for a house. Catherine had what we were looking for all lined up. We thought we found the right house in Maine and she got things moving fast since our house was being sold.

We flew back to Florida to start packing and she went to the home inspection, plus set us up with a mortgage broker. Brad Kelly of AnnieMac walked me through everything they needed and pushed to get it done in our timeframe. His whole team was fabulous, but the house we were planning on buying was not.

The inspection was bad enough that we had to walk away from it. We wanted to keep our word to the sellers, so we kept packing. On our 35th wedding anniversary, we sold the house. After the movers left, we headed to a hotel with our dog Murray.

Considering I was then unemployed and we did not know where we were going to end up living, basically homeless, this could have destroyed us if we let it. To top that all off, I left a job I love and people who were more like family than coworkers. 

I turned to my husband and said, "Yahoo! Our 35th anniversary...we're homeless and I'm unemployed! Second honeymoon road trip!"

Long story shorter, Catherine found us the house we ended up buying and the team at AnnieMac got it together so that in less than a month, we closed on this house in Rochester New Hampshire.

Murray settled in by claiming the family room as his.

Appropriately enough, less than a month after we moved in, we got this over the last couple of days. 

This is the view across the street. The snow plows cleared the road! Much like I hope to do for female veterans here in New Hampshire with clearing their way to healing after getting the wrong kind of help from people more interested in getting what they could instead of doing their jobs to help those who turned to them.

There is so much they cannot find because the road has been blocked by too many snow jobs making them believe there was no hope for them to get to where they want to go. They need to know that they can heal PTSD, and their lives can be so much better. So far, it seems that female veterans have been disregarded by most of the groups. When some people hear that a female veteran has PTSD, they automatically think it was sexual assault instead of caused by combat experiences...the same kind males go through. 

Point Man is ready to change that! I will be working with female veterans from all generations to let them know they matter equally They earned the gratitude, respect and help we are providing for free. With the veterans I have helped over all these years, I can attest to the fact that seeing their lives turn around is priceless!

Starting next Sunday, I'll begin the Sunday Morning Empowerment Zone again. I will also give updates on where the meetings will be as soon as I figure that one out.

If you are a female veteran in New Hampshire or Maine and need help, call me at 407-754-7526 or email woundedtimes@aol.com

I'll revisit this endeavor, but for now...that's all folks!

PTSD Patrol on hiatus

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
July 14, 2019

I thought about this for a long time and it is time to stop doing the weekly videos. 

Right now, our house is for sale and we are planning a huge move. Between work, operating Wounded Times and doing other work, there are just not enough hours in the day.

The message is the same on that site. While I wanted to just keep PTSD Patrol on a positive note, it seems as if no one else wants to hear it.

With everything going on that is mostly bad news, I thought that people would be hungry for ideas about what they could do to change the conversation. 

After over two years, that hasn't happened.

After we move, sometime after the fall, I'll revisit this endeavor, but for now...that's all folks! 

I took today off

No posts today. I took a day off.

Why on earth do we save stuff we do not need

Working to make a difference for them... or yourself?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 30, 2019

Why on earth do we save stuff we do not need to hang onto?

That is something that I have been dealing with for a last few months. We are getting ready to move as soon as our house sells.

It has been a lesson on deciding what is really important and what is just something you hang onto.

I have been going through the cabinets under our sinks, finding half opened bottles of stuff that didn't work. What got me was there were several of the same products...which meant I didn't learn the time before THAT DID NOT WORK. In other words, wasted time and money. What made me frustrated with myself was the fact instead of tossing it out right away, I wasted space saving it. What was I thinking?

Oh, thats right. I wasn't thinking...I was just doing.

Humans do that all the time especially with memories we do not need to hang onto. Nuisance residue clogging up the roadway between where we are and where we want to go.

Sit down with a piece of paper and write down what you remember about certain events that caused PTSD. What do you need to remember that is helpful? What should you forget that is hurtful?

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife

If it is helpful, save it. If it is hurtful, make peace with it and then get rid of it. Stop carrying it around with you. 

Much like the lesson I have been learning this time. If it isn't worth paying to move from here to wherever we go, then it isn't worth saving now. It is taking up room that new and improved thoughts could move into!

(you'll understand the title when you listen to this video)