Does the person in your life know you love them?

PTSD Patrol and Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 25, 2021

Does the person in your life know you love them? If you have PTSD and you are not talking to them about what is going on with you, then they will think you just don't love them anymore. Today the featured video is Bonnie Raitt, I Can't Make You Love Me because there have been too many conversations from women giving up on their marriages and relationships with veterans.

This can apply to husbands, because we also have to face the fact that there are female veterans too. It can apply to anyone with PTSD in a relationship because you are leaving them to believe you don't love them anymore. What other choice can they make if you won't tell them why you changed?

They can only base what they feel on how you treat them, how you act toward them and how you talk to them. It sucks!

You may be destroying a relationship that is strong enough to last the rest of your life because you won't talk to them or even try to get them to know what is in your heart.

"You can't make your heart feel something it won't," is what they think. I know because I almost gave up on my marriage. I remember driving and this song came on the radio. I'd cry hard enough I had to pull over until I could see better and wiped the tears from my face. I had no way of knowing if there was any love left or not, even though I knew what PTSD was.

What made it harder for me was dealing with what my ex-husband did when he tried to kill me, proving my life didn't matter to him, even though he said the words out of his mouth. My second husband and I have been married for over 36 years now and because he started to make the effort to trust me enough to talk about Vietnam, I was sure that while his actions had nothing to do with me even though it effected me deeply.

It is time to think about the person you share your life with or you won't be doing it much longer.

Morning will come and I'll do what's right

Just give me till then to give up this fight

And I will give up this fight

'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't

You can't make your heart feel something it won't

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

I Can’t Make You Love Me

Bonnie Raitt

Turn down the lights

Turn down the bed

Turn down these voices inside my head

Lay down with me

Tell me no lies

Just hold me close, don't patronize

Don't patronize me

'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't

You can't make your heart feel something it won't

Here in the dark, in these final hours

I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power

But you won't, no you won't

'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

I'll close my eyes, then I won't see

The love you don't feel when you're holding me

Morning will come and I'll do what's right

Just give me till then to give up this fight

And I will give up this fight

'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't

You can't make your heart feel something it won't

Here in the dark, in these final hours

I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power

But you won't, no you won't

'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Michael Reid / Allen Shamblin

I Can’t Make You Love Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Amplified Administration 

"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

"Free to face the life that's ahead of me"

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 23, 2021

"Free to face the life that's ahead of me!" Dennis De Young wrote those words in the song by Styx, Come Sail Away. What a powerful thing to say! We are all free to face the life that is ahead of you.

You have the power to heal from what tried to kill you and has been trying to take over your life everyday since it hit you. You had no power over what happened but you have all the power now to recover from it.

You can choose to be miserable, but like most people, you are more likely to want to be happier. That is in your control. The question is, what are you planning on doing about it?

There is a hell of a lot of things going on in this country right now. The pandemic, mass shootings, people acting like their have gone insane and the rest of the people are stunned by all of it. Add all of that into the other causes of PTSD and you understand why there will be far more cases of PTSD than the 8 million we already had. You will try to work through surviving if it happened recently but if 30 days goes by and your symptoms of shock have not worn down or are gone, then you may need professional help to recover.

Think of it this way. When something serious happens to us, we have no problem going to a doctor to mend our bones, or stitch our wounds, or give us antibiotics for infections. Needing a professional to help us recover from surviving is no different. The sooner you get evaluated and start to take control back, the better your healing will be. Remember, it is never too late to take action, because you can be happier no matter how long it was, treatment may take longer. You will see the difference.

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD 

Come Sail Away

Styx

I'm sailing away

Set an open course for the Virgin Sea

'Cause I've got to be free 

Free to face the life that's ahead of me

On board I'm the captain

So climb aboard

We'll search for tomorrow

On every shore and I'll try

Oh Lord I'll try 

To carry on

I look to the sea

Reflections in the waves spark my memory

Some happy some sad

I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had

We live happily forever

So the story goes

But somehow we missed out

On that pot of gold

But we'll try best that we can

To carry on

A gathering of angels

Appeared above my head

They sang to me this song of hope

And this is what they said

They said, come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me (lads)

Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me

Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me (baby)

Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me

I thought that they were angels 

But to my surprise

We climbed aboard their starship

We headed for the skies

Singing, come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me (lads)

Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me

Come sail away, come sail away

Come sail away with me...

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Dennis De Young

Come Sail Away lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group 

Want to meet a champion?

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 22, 2021

Today the featured video is Queen, We Are The Champions. Want to meet a champion? Then look in the mirror. If you survived whatever caused PTSD in you, then you are a champion. You defeated what tried to kill you and now it is time to defeat what is trying to destroy you now.

In any conflict, the enemy is not totally obliterated. With PTSD your enemy is confusion and doubt. You get confused about what it is doing to you and you doubt there is anything you can do to keep fighting for a better life.

You may be tired of feeling bad things, so you decide to get numb enough to stop feeling. You may try to get drunk enough to do that but then you regret it in the morning. If you think that only bad feelings are in your future, then you won't try to push them out of your life so you can feel good feelings again.

Living that way sucks! It is like taking that bandage on your soul and ripping it off over and over again.

It is so much better to learn how to defeat the enemy inside of you to be able to know what it feels like to be "you" again.

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

I haven't felt much like a champion the last few days. My ego has been taking a beating. I've done a lot of things that no one will ever know about, and I was feeling really depressed about that until last night. It finally dawned on me that God does a lot of things too no one will ever know about.

The thing is, God tries to get through to people but will not try to control anyone. That is why He gave all of us freewill. How many times has He tired to get people to listen to Him, but they didn't? With so many problems in the world, we always ask why God isn't taking care of it for us. Did we ever wonder why people are not listening to Him about what they can do to fix it?

God tries to get through to me and I know I'm listening if I have peace in my soul. I know I'm only doing what I want if my gut is churning. A lot of times, we do good things but people take advantage of it and we end up regretting it. Don't! You have no power over what they do with what you do for them. The only thing you can do is do it because you know it is the right thing to do and you are being true to yourself. That is another way to be a champion too.

We Are The Champions

Queen

I've paid my dues

Time after time

I've done my sentence

But committed no crime

And bad mistakes

I've made a few

I've had my share of sand

Kicked in my face

But I've come through

And we mean to go on and on and on and on

We are the champions, my friends

And we'll keep on fighting till the end

We are the champions

We are the champions

No time for losers

'Cause we are the champions of the World

I've taken my bows

And my curtain calls

You brought me fame and fortune

And everything that goes with it

I thank you all

But it's been no bed of roses

No pleasure cruise

I consider it a challenge before

The human race

And I ain't gonna lose

And we mean to go on and on and on and on

We are the champions, my friends

And we'll keep on fighting till the end

We are the champions

We are the champions

No time for losers

'Cause we are the champions of the World

We are the champions, my friends

And we'll keep on fighting till the end

We are the champions

We are the champions

No time for losers

'Cause we are the champions of the World

Source: Musixmatch

We Are the Champions lyrics © Queen Music Limited 

PTSD: the wounds that were carried back home to you

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 21, 2021

Today I am going to let one of the first videos I did on PTSD replace the daily video from me. Wounded Minds was a labor of love back in 2006. It had over 10,000 views but after a couple of years, I moved the videos from YouTube. (Big mistake) Anyway, my confidence was taking beating lately because of  all the reports about people suffering instead of healing. Whenever I get this way, I usually go through old emails to remind me of why I do this work.

One of the old emails I came across was from the ex-wife of a Vietnam veteran. She never stopped loving him but they didn't know what PTSD was before they ended a long marriage. Her kids were suffering, she was suffering and so was the veteran. She said she wished she knew what was in this video before they decided to get divorced. 

I told her it was not too late to still have a relationship with him, or at least try to reconnect. She promised to learn more and then, try to talk to him so he would get help to heal. This is why I do this work. And this is why I will never stop doing it.

Today the featured videos are about relationships ending, but love still existing. The Carpenters, Hurting Each Other and Rose Royce Wishing On A Star.

If you still care about someone you had to walk away from, because you did not know what you needed to know, I hope this comforts you. Keep in mind that you did the best you could with what you knew at the time, and now you know more than you did back then. It is up to you what you do with that knowledge. If nothing else, I hope it helps you heal your heart by knowing it really didn't have anything to do with you, but the wounds that were carried back home to you.

In 2006 I created this video on Wounded Minds. Long before PTSD was in the news, families like mine were doing the best we could to make our veterans lives better. Sometimes we failed but after three decades, I'm still married. I still have no idea how other families do it when they know hardly nothing about PTSD. I knew almost everything and there were times when it was almost impossible to find hope. The key is to learn as much as you can, love as an active partner in their healing and find what works to make your lives better! This is from my old website, NamGuardianAngel. Go to Combat PTSD Wounded Times to learn more.

Hurting Each Other

The Carpenters 

No one in the world

Ever had a love as sweet as my love

For nowhere in the world

Could there be a boy as true as you, love

All my love I give gladly to you

All your love you give gladly to me

Tell me why then, oh why should it be that

We go on hurting each other

We go on hurting each other

Making each other cry

Hurting each other

Without ever knowing why

Closer than the leaves

On a weeping willow, baby, we are

Closer dear are we

Than the simple letters A and B are

All my life I could love only you

All your life you could love only me

Tell me why, then?

Oh why should it be that

We go on hurting each other

We go on hurting each other

Making each other cry

Hurting each other

Without ever knowing why

Can't we stop hurting each other

Gotta stop hurting each other

Making each other cry

Breaking each other's heart

Tearing each other apart

Can't we stop hurting each other

Gotta stop hurting each other

Making each other cry

Breaking each other's heart

Tearing each other apart

Can't we stop hurting each other

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Udell Peter David / Geld Gary

Hurting Each Other lyrics © Bibo Music Publishing, Inc. 

I'm Wishing on a Star

Rose Royce 

I'm wishing on a star

To follow where you are

I'm wishing on a dream

To follow what it means

I'm wishing on a star

To follow where you are

I'm wishing on a dream

To follow what it means

And I'm wishing on the rainbows that I've seen

I'm wishing on the people who really dream

And I'm wishing on tomorrow, praying it'll come

And I'm wishing on all the loving we've ever done

No, I never thought I'd see

A time when you would be

So far away from home

So far away from me

Just think of all the moments that we'd spend

I just can't let you go, for me you were meant

And I didn't mean to hurt you, but I know

That in the game of love you reap what you sow

I feel it's time we should make up, baby

I feel it's time for us to get back together

And make the best of things, oh baby

When we're together, whether or never

I feel it's time we should make up, baby

I feel it's time for us to get back together

And make the best of things, oh baby

When we're together, whether or never, oh

I'm wishing on a star

To follow where you are

I'm wishing on a dream

To follow what it means

And I'm wishing on the rainbows that I've seen

I'm wishing on the people who've ever been

And I'm hoping on all the days to come and days to go

I'm hoping on days of loving you so

I'm wishing on a star

To follow where you are

I'm wishing on a star, oh, oh

And I'm wishing on all the rainbows that I see

I'm wishing on a star

To follow where you are

I'm wishing on a dream, baby

And I'm following all the rainbows that I see

Source: Musixmatch

Wishing on a Star lyrics © Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., May Twelfth Music