PTSD Awareness Month:What do you see when they grieve?

What do you see when they grieve?
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
June 4, 2013

With June being PTSD awareness month, I've been thinking more about how far we've come in the 30 years I've been doing this.

Back when I started, few were talking about it because few were talking about Vietnam veterans. We didn't have the internet or self help books. Anything we learned had to be discovered in rows of library shelves or once in a while, if we listened carefully, from what the veterans said.

The truth is, back then families thought we had something to be ashamed of simply because we didn't know any better. No one was telling us anything. Our parents, most of the veterans of WWII and Korea were not talking about what came home with them from combat. Their best advice was get over it, get a job and settle down. If we looked closely, we could see it in their eyes, they didn't take their own advice because they were not really "over" their own wars.

In 2006 I started making videos on PTSD. Most of them were focused on Vietnam veterans because I knew more about them than the newer generation. Everything we learned on PTSD has been because of them. Most reports came from the military. Few came from the National Guards and Reservists. The fact is there should have been more attention on the citizen soldiers because when they return from war, they face more threats to their lives back in the states taking care of their communities in law enforcement, firefighting, emergency responders among other professions and to their families with the expectations they can just pick up where they left off a year before.

I made this video to explain to them what no one else was telling them.

"When National Guards go to Iraq or Afghanistan, they serve with the regular military but have to come home, back to police departments, fire departments and responding to natural traumatic events."

What we don't think about is that they are also bring the war back home inside of them, but doing what they always do. Being there when we need them.


Fast forward to today and we have a wonderful movie telling the story of a one of them and how he changed.

Terrible Love Turns into Healing Hearts with PTSD I consulted on this movie and once you see the trailer, you'll understand why I am so touched by what Christopher Thomas has accomplished. Top that off with the fact it all came from his need to make a difference for our forgotten citizen heroes. It explains what you see when they grieve.


Terrible Love Trailer from Helmsman Studios on Vimeo.