Advocates Live in State of Denial

Advocates Live in State of Denial
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 20, 2014

Sometimes thoughts fly right out my head, down my arms and into my fingers on the keyboard. It happened a little while ago with an exchange on Facebook with a friend commenting she thought I lived in another state. I replied with "No, just two states for me other than the state of denial."

At first I thought it was just funny. Then I got a little sad. The more I thought about it, the more empowered I felt.

Advocates, for any cause, do in fact live in a state of denial. After all, who else would subject themselves to long hours, no money and being emotionally drained on a daily basis? Why do we do it? We are just like everyone else with our own lives to manage and problems to deal with. So why put ourselves in a position where we get overwhelmed?

Right now I am still coming off of dealing with compassion fatigue. If you read Wounded Times you would have noticed that the posts have not been very hopeful. I haven't posted on the Civvies Report for a long time now simply because I just haven't felt like it. That blog is to focus on veterans making a difference. It is hard to do that when I don't feel as if I am making enough of a difference.

It isn't as if this is the first time I have been slammed with compassion fatigue. I lost count on how many times I got totally burnt out in the last 30 years. This is about the tenth time I have had to deal with the fatigue. Happy to report that it is getting better and I've been doing a lot of talking to friends to help me work it out of me.

So why do advocates do it? Because someone has to. When we see things that should not be the way they are, we do not agree they have to be the way they are. We deny the fact of "what is" because we own the hope of changing it for the sake of others. We deny what others say. We deny defeat when others have given up. We deny apathy. We deny judgment because most of the time we know the root of the causes we fight for. We deny ignorance and do all within our power to educate.

We fight for others most of the time because we know what it is like to be them left alone with no one standing up for us as much as we remember how it felt when someone finally did something for us.

I deny hacks passing themselves off a experts when I have read what real experts have done on PTSD because history has proven them right and hacks have been obliterated by the same history with facts hacks have not even begun to learn from. There are over 21,000 posts on this site alone but my quest stated 32 years ago when my Dad, a Korean War veteran met my husband and said "He seems like a really nice guy but he's got shell shock."

Back then there was nothing for Vietnam veterans and families but advocates said they would find a way to help them. Then Vietnam veterans felt empowered to help others. (All of this was done without the help of the internet.) Then families were compelled to help other families. Everything being done, as imperfect as it is, came into existence simply because advocates refused to accept the way it was.

As far as most people were concerned, there was no hope until advocates denied that rumor and made healing happen. No matter what cause people fight for, they do it because no on proved to them it cannot be done. They just went out and did it.