What's too painful to remember

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 28, 2021

When you hear the song The Way We Were, what do you think about? Was it your relationship with someone else that ended? For me, it was the relationship I had with myself. Those days are now too painful to remember.

What is too painful for you to remember? Is it the life you had before "it" happened? Is it the way you used to think when you the life you were used to, was still the way it usually was? How about you know there is another time ahead for you? A time can come when you are happier and think of the days you were miserable as "too painful to remember" instead. That is what can happen when you heal.

I know I have to share things that happened in my past so that you are able to know what I dealt with, what I struggled with and how I healed. The events and residual left behind, were hard. It makes me sad to even think about those days. It is a lot better for me to talk about happier times, like now.

I don't live there anymore. All the events, the heartaches and misery are in the past. I don't dwell on them but this work has me remembering a lot of those times when I need to. Once I get out what I have to, I usually play a computer game or watch TV, and then I am done with that memory.

You have to make sense out of what happened and understand you had no power over "it" happening but you have power over it as a survivor now. Then you have to make peace with it. It takes a lot of work, but you can get there. You have to forgive yourself for whatever you got wrong up to this point because we are all just humans, untrained to deal with anything that isn't part of our usual life. We have to learn what has been haunting us, hurting us, is no longer in control. It doesn't deserve to be in our lives now. The only power PTSD has is what we allow it to have.

Once you understand PTSD, then you gain even more power over it. It ends up being drained out of you. While there are some parts of it left behind, there are tools to cope with what you cannot totally rid yourself of, but for the most part, each and everyday is what you will make out of it.

I've already healed and so can you. I left most of those days behind me because I'm too busy looking ahead to the next moment. That comes with practice and patience. It also comes with an understanding of myself. I know I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, as much as I know I wanted to learn all I could to discover what, if any, power I had. The more I learned, the more power I had over my own life and that, that is because I don't want to go back to the way I was instead of move to to what I can become.

Remember, it is your life...get in and drive it!
#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

The Way We Were

Barbra Streisand

Memories

Light the corners of my mind

Misty watercolor memories

Of the way we were

Scattered pictures

Of the smiles we left behind

Smiles we gave to one another

For the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then?

Or has time re-written every line?

If we had the chance to do it all again

Tell me, would we?

Could we?

Memories

May be beautiful and yet

What's too painful to remember

We simply to choose to forget

So it's the laughter

We will remember

Whenever we remember

The way we were

The way we were

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Bergman Alan / Bergman Marilyn / Hamlisch Marvin

The Way We Were lyrics © Arlovol Music, Colgems-emi Music Inc. 

"It might seem crazy what I am 'bout to say" about PTSD

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 27, 2021

When you have PTSD, it can make you miserable. It makes it worse when you think that is the only way you can be. The thing is, getting help can make you a lot happier. Then you can change the way your family is feeling about themselves. Yes, you do have that kind of power. If you think you've been making them miserable, then it should be easy to understand that you can make them happier too.

When you are miserable, the last place you want to be is around happy people. Sitting there with your bad mood, surrounded by people enjoying their lives, sucks! If you want to stay in that mood, then you better duck out early. Sooner or later, their good mood will become too contagious to resist.

This morning I woke up at 5:00 in a bad mood. As I struggled to go back to sleep, failing at that made me angry. I gave up and got up, put on a pot of coffee and waited. A song came on the radio that made me want to scream. I could feel my blood pressure going up until it started to come down and my feet started to move. The next thing I knew, I was moving to the beat and felt happy about being up that early.

The song I heard this morning was Pharrell Williams, Happy!

How about you decide that the truth is, happiness is possible for you and then do something to get there? Getting help to heal helps you understand it. It begins to get you to think of ways to change the way you think about being a survivor. It also gives you hope of much better days.

Then, you can be one of the happy people miserable people catch it from!

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD 

Happy

Pharrell Williams

It might seem crazy what I am 'bout to say

Sunshine she's here, you can take a break

I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space

With the air, like I don't care, baby by the way

Huh (Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Here come bad news talking this and that (Yeah)

Well give me all you got, don't hold back (Yeah)

Well I should probably warn you I'll be just fine (Yeah)

No offence to you don't waste your time

Here's why

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Uh, bring me down

Can't nothing, bring me down

My level's too high to bring me down

Can't nothing, bring me down, I said

Bring me down, can't nothing

Bring me down

My level's too high to bring me down

Can't nothing, bring me down, I said

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Uh, bring me down (Happy, happy, happy, happy)

Can't nothing (Happy, happy, happy, happy)

Bring me down, my level's too high

To bring me down (Happy, happy, happy, happy)

Can't nothing (Happy, happy, happy, happy)

Bring me down, I said

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you (ayy, ayy, ayy)

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you (hey)

(Because I'm happy)

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Come on

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Williams Pharrell L

Happy lyrics © Emi April Music Inc., Emi Blackwood Music Inc., More Water From Nazareth 

What I feel has come and gone before

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 26, 2021

It is a wonderful feeling when the person who loves you, understands you. There is no need to explain something to them, because you've already done that and they remember what you said. Knowing you don't have to hide your emotions from them and they will still love you.

Funny, but it seems I always wind up here with you

Nice to know somebody loves me

Funny, but it seems that it's the only thing to do

Run and find the one who loves me (the one who loves me)

What I feel has come and gone before

No need to talk it out (talk it out)

We know what it's all about

This is why the featured video today is The Carpenters Rainy Days And Mondays.

Is there a certain time of the year when you are not yourself? Are there certain weeks when you are having a harder time than usual? Are there times when nightmares and flashbacks are worse without any of your known triggers? Think about when it hit you before. Then think about what happened to you before during that time of your life. Most of the time, it is an anniversary date your mind remembers.

There are many times during the year when I am not my usual self. I don't want to talk. I am usually not hungry during those days and I want to stay in bed. I am not consciously aware of the connection between a date from my past and haunting feeling of dread. The thing that caused all of it is hard wired in my brain and it remembers the day "it" happened, even if I chose to forget it. No one can explain something you don't understand until you understand the thing itself.

Most people have a hard time finding the words to explain things to worried people who love us. Maybe you can explain it to them once, so they understand, and then have a code word for when it comes back. Tell them it is a Monday, since most people get that Monday's suck. Tell them it is a "blue day" for you since most people also understand that too. After all, they have days when they feel blue too.

You need your space. They need to know that it has nothing to do with them or anything they did. As much as you may like to avoid having conversations about what is going on with you, there are people in your life who need to know for their own sake.

Most relationships fell apart because there was too much that was not said. It left people wondering and then searching for reasons followed by blaming what made sense to them. Communication prevents all that from happening.

When in doubt, no matter what happens in your life, always wonder how you would feel if someone was acting a certain way, and what you would want them to do to ease your mind. It works and then you'll be able to experience not making them wonder what's wrong because you already know your relationship is strong...and they already know.

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

Rainy Days And Mondays

The Carpenters

Talkin' to myself and feelin' old

Sometimes I'd like to quit

Nothin' ever seems to fit

Hangin' around

Nothin' to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

What I've got they used to call the blues

Nothin' is really wrong

Feelin' like I don't belong

Walkin' around

Some kind of lonely clown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

Funny, but it seems I always wind up here with you

Nice to know somebody loves me

Funny, but it seems that it's the only thing to do

Run and find the one who loves me (the one who loves me)

What I feel has come and gone before

No need to talk it out (talk it out)

We know what it's all about

Hangin' around (hangin' around)

Nothin' to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

Funny, but it seems that it's the only thing to do (only thing to do)

Run and find the one who loves me (ooh)

What I feel has come and gone before

No need to talk it out (to talk it out)

We know what it's all about

Hangin' around (hangin' around)

Nothin' to do but frown 

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

Hangin' around (hangin' around)

Nothin' to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get

Me down

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Paul H. Williams / Roger S. Nichols

Rainy Days and Mondays lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group 

Carpenters - Rainy Days And Mondays (Official Video) 

but normal never really existed

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 25, 2021

Why would anyone want to go back to normal? Normal accomplished nothing. Imagine if the first humans settled for "normal" they wouldn't have hunted, gotten into caves or started fires. Someone had to think that things had to change.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, around 62 miles west of what would eventually become Marrakesh, a group of people lived in a cave overlooking a lush Moroccan landscape. They rested there, building fires to keep themselves warm. They hunted there, sharpening stone tools to bring down animals. And they died there, leaving their bones behind in the dirt. At the time, there would have been nothing particularly notable about these cave-dwellers. They were yet more Homo sapiens, members of a nascent ape species that had spread across Africa. But in their death, they have become singularly important.

“The new finds indicate that Homo sapiens is much older and had already spread across all of Africa by 300,000 years ago. They really show that the African story of our species was more complex than what we used to think.”

The Atlantic

Everything we do and have in our time, exists because people were not satisfied with normal. The food we eat, stated with someone wondering what it would taste like. Had no one invented fire, then eating raw meat could have killed them off. The clothes we wear started with ancient people killing animals, eating the meat, using their bones for tools and their hides for shelter, just as they used their fur for clothing. All the became normal for a while. Then someone else thought of something else to improve what was acceptable. Changing became normal.

Mankind wouldn't have gone from using fire and living in caves, to smart homes with everything electrical operating everything to make our lives easier, had it not been for the desire to change. We wouldn't have gone from walking everywhere, to riding horses, to buggies, to automobiles, trains and planes, if they accepted what was normal.

You may have convinced yourself that normal was working for you before you survived whatever caused PTSD. When you really think about it, you realize that you kept changing things. Changed from being a dependent infant, to adult and in control over your own life. You changed from student to worker and the chances are, you had many jobs because you needed a change...or were forced to. You went from one relationship and friendship to others. It is for sure you are still not wearing the same clothes you were when you were an infant. How many times have you changed the style? How many times have you changed your hairs style? Change is normal.

When you have PTSD, it is also change. Your life changed from what was acceptable for you, to victim, to survivor within seconds. Normal may be something you convinced yourself is something you want to go back to, but normal never really existed. It was habits you felt comfortable with doing. Are you comfortable with your habits now?

The really great thing about humans is they share how to do things. They have an idea that starts with need and then they make it happen. They pass it on and then someone else has a better idea. That pass on that so that others discover their discovery. Life gets easier for everyone until that becomes normal for a while and then, change comes again.

Even you can change again by learning from those who were not satisfied with what everyone else thought was impossible to change. People have been suffering traumatic events since the beginning of time and they paid the price after they survived it. It took someone talk about it and someone else to wonder why, before someone else discovered how to make life better. Now we know that wanting to go back to "normal" is a waste of time. It is far better to want to have a better than normal life.

Mankind's earliest literature tells us that a significant proportion of military casualties are psychological, and that witnessing death can leave chronic psychological symptoms. As we are reminded in Deuteronomy 20:1-9, military leaders have long been aware that many soldiers must be removed from the frontline because of nervous breakdown, which is often contagious: When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou... the officers shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. (King Jame's Version ) PubMed Center

That is when the journey from before trauma to after it was documented. Research has been going on for far too long to ignore how dissatisfied people were with accepting it as normal to them. If it is not acceptable to you, then discover as much as you can, then think about how to change it again. How can you change your life, so you can pass it on to others? If you already did, then how did you do it? Everything that started throughout the history of man, has been shared and change, "change is gonna come" again.

Today the featured video is Sam Cooke, Change Is Gonna Come.

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

#BreakTheSilence and #TakeBackYourLife from #PTSD

A Change Is Gonna Come

Sam Cooke

I was born by the river, in a little tent

Oh, and just like the river

I've been running ever since

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come

Oh, yes it will

It's been too hard living

But I'm afraid to die

'Cause I don't know what's up there

Beyond the sky

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come

Oh, yes it will

I go to the movie

And I go downtown

Somebody keep telling me

Don't hang around

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know, a change gonna come

Oh, yes it will

Then I go to my brother

And I say, brother, help me please

But he winds up, knockin' me

Back down on my knees

Oh, there been times that I thought

I couldn't last for long

But now I think I'm able, to carry on

It's been a long

A long time coming

But I know a change gonna come

Oh, yes it will

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Sam Cooke 

truth changes how you use your power

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 24, 2021

Truth can give you power. That is what the message of PTSD Patrol has been all about. All of us have a lot more power to change things than we think. It is time to turn "Truth To Power" and that is why the featured video today is from One Republic. The thing is, truth changes how you use your power.

Yesterday I received the second COVID-19 vaccine. Today I feel like I have a really bad cold, achy and tired, but sure is a lot better than having COVID. I know I won't have to worry so much about my husband, since he's full vaccinated too. I won't have to worry about passing it on to someone else. I am also thrilled with knowing I can finally get a hair cut in a couple of weeks. Little by little I'll be able to do a lot of things I didn't want to do over the last year.

The thing is, as a Christian and a Chaplain, I tend to want to do more for others than I want to do for myself. It makes me happy to do what I can, when I can, with whatever I have to give. That is why I am so confused how many people refuse to think about others, including the people in their own families.

When they say that they don't want to give up their freedom, they are not looking at the truth that no one has an absolute right to do what they want. There are rules and laws applied to everyone. You have to wear clothes, but you can decide what you want to wear as long as things are covered up. You have to wear shirts and shoes in many businesses for public health reasons. (OK, some of it is because most people don't want to see a lot of people without a shirt on no matter where they are.) The thing is, the rules are laws were put into place for the greater good.

How did this become a battle over freedom? You have the right to decide if you do not want to wear a mask, but you do not have the right to make everyone else cave into you. A store has the right to tell you that if you want to shop there, you have to wear one. You have the freedom to comply or shop somewhere else. Governments have the right to tell you that if you want to go out in public, you have to wear one. You have the right to not go out in public.

You are not forced to get the vaccine but while you want to go back to doing the things you want to do, what you are doing now, is preventing that from happening for everyone else.

There are some people who believe the earth is flat. No matter how many facts you can give them, they need to see it for themselves. Elon Musk needs to give them a ride on one of his SpaceX ships so they can see how round and beautiful this world is. Then they would know that we are all connected.

If you really believe that COVID isn't as bad as you think, then the only way for you to know the truth is to use your power and find out for yourself. Go to a hospital and talk to a nurse who has held the hands of far too many while they take their final breaths because their families couldn't be there. Go to India and see the bodies being burned every day because they cannot control it there. Go online and find family members who once thought that it was some kind of overblown rumor, until they lost someone they loved.

I doubt you are evil. Please take an honest look at the people you love and ask yourself how you would feel if you were the cause of them getting COVID, suffering and either facing a lifetime of health problems, or passing away. Once that happens, then it will be too late to use your power and prevent all that.

Until all of us understand we should use our freedom to choose the power for the sake of others, we will all be weakened standing by ourselves. This pandemic is also spreading PTSD across the world, which is yet another price being paid.

Trauma and the COVID Pandemic

COVID-19 has quickly become a global health emergency resulting in not only physical health concerns but also psychological concerns as people are exposed to unexpected deaths or threats of death. For example, healthcare workers who have close contact with COVID patients are not only exposed to the virus on a regular basis, but they may also be witnessing increased illnesses, deaths, and supply shortages. In addition, patients admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 experience social isolation, physical discomfort, and fear for survival. These exposures increase the risk of developing PTSD. In addition, the risk may further be enhanced during the subsequent weeks when these individuals may lack immediate social support due to the need to self-quarantine. (University of Michigan)

Truth to Power

OneRepublic

I could tell you I was fragile

I could tell you I was weak

I could write you out a letter

To tell you anything you need

I've seen minutes turn to hours

Hours turn to years

And I've seen truth turn to power

If you could see me the way I see you

If you could feel me the way I feel you

You'd be a believer

You'd be a believer

Minutes turn to hours

Hours turn to years

And I've seen truth turn to power

I could tell you I was ageless

But I know you see the light

I could tell you I'm immune to everything

But that's a lie

Dust don't turn to flowers

Skies don't disappear

But I've seen truth to power

Oh, if you could see me the way I see you

If you could feel me the way I feel you

You'd be a believer (believer)

You'd be a believer (believer)

You'd be a believer (believer)

You'd be a believer (believer)

Hard to keep goin' on (hard to keep goin' on)

I said it's hard to keep goin' on (hard to keep goin' on)

It's hard to keep goin' on (hard to keep goin' on)

If you could see me the way I see you

If you could feel me the way I feel you

You'd be a believer

You'd be a believer

You'd be a believer

Be a believer

Be a believer (believer)

You'd be (be a believer)

Minutes turn to hours

Hours turn to years

And I've seen truth turn to power

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Ryan B Tedder / T Bone Burnett

Truth to Power lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing