PTSD Amateurs Doing More Harm Than Good

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 14, 2015

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.
George Washington

June is PTSD Awareness Month. How many times have you heard about all this "awareness" followed by not much else? That term should be changed to "bewarness" considering how many instant experts are running around the country apparently more due to their ability to get attention far exceeding their ability to actually be able to do what they're claiming to be doing.

I have been on information overload for over 30 years, but the last couple of years, it has been consuming my time with a plethora of disinformation causing me lose hope for tomorrow. Most of the communications have come from amateurs wanting to raise awareness about themselves instead of being invested in doing the work required to make a meaningful difference for our veterans.

Anyone with the ability to actually read reports is fully aware that all this "awareness" has achieved worse outcomes. Most of this is due to the instant experts popping up all over the country.

"Hey, I wrote a book about healing PTSD" an author emails about yet another book self-published by someone who proclaims "expert" yet when asked, it turns out the author did no real research. He read all about it on internet posts.

Nothing against self-publishing since I had to do that back in 2003 when I saw what was coming after this nation was attacked and troops were in Afghanistan yet no publisher would take it on. For The Love of Jack, His War My Battle came from over 18 years of living with, researching it going back to the dark pre-internet days when research was done at the local library with clinical books and a dictionary to understand all the doctor-speak-technical terminology. It was republished in 2012 because I grew tired of everyone pretending PTSD was something new and only consuming Iraq and Afghansitan veterans.

Where the hell did these amateurs think these programs and research came from before that? They seem to completely dismiss the fact that war and PTSD went hand and hand since the dawn of man including sending folks into combat. They totally ignore every generation of warfighters from the Revolutionary War went through the same battle wounds but it was not until Vietnam veterans came home and refused to simply accept suffering in silence that caused everything to be done.

Granted, it isn't perfect but that is due more to politicians treating the long list of VA Secretaries like whipping boys instead of facing the simple fact oversight of the VA has been their responsibility going back to 1946.

Amateurs usually have big hearts with equally large egos believing more in themselves than the work done by others who prepaid the debt with "dearly bought experience."

The experience of watching someone die slowly then be reborn into living a better quality of life. Of holding a combat veteran's hand as he cries listening to his story without him feeling their hand go limp or their eyes bulge open as he recounts blowing someone away or witnessing the last moment of his buddy's life or picking up body parts so as much of his friend can return home to his family.

Most of them can't put down their cell phone long enough to stop texting while he's emotionally crashing. Yep, seen that one before too. Top that off with partially listening to a veteran in crisis then responding with "I'm praying for you" as they walk away leaving the veteran behind in worse shape than he was in before he got the courage and mustered up enough trust to try. Wonder if they ever thought of what they just did or what happened to the veteran after that one?

By the time I was talking to him, they were long gone probably moving onto their next victim so they felt good about "doing something" never once acknowledging that something did more harm than good.

Facebook social media experts may be great at getting followers but know nothing about leading veterans toward healing and no one holds them accountable. After all, why hold a keyboard commando accountable for anything when no one else is being held accountable?

The number "22" is yet one more example of amateurs reading a headline and think they are able to take on preventing suicides by "raising awareness" of what the headline had instead of what the rest of the original research report showed.

The fact is that study from the Department of Veterans Affairs came from 21 states and was simply an average of death certificates with military service and cause of death listed as suicide.

Currently available data include information on suicide mortality among the population of residents in 21 states. Veteran status in each of these areas is determined by a single question asking about history of U.S. military service. Information about history of military service is routinely obtained from family members and collected by funeral home staff and has not been validated using information from the DoD or VA. Further, Veteran status was not collected by each state during each year of the project period. Appendix B provides a listing of the availability of Veteran identifiers by state and year.

Further, this report contains information from the first 21 states to contribute data for this project and does not include some states, such as California and Texas, with larger Veteran populations. Information from these states has been received and will be included in future reports.

And then there was this totally missed by headline grippers latching onto what they think will gain them the most attention.

However, misclassification was considerably higher among validated Veterans with 11% of true Veterans classified as non-Veterans on the death certificate. Only 2% of true non-Veterans were misclassified as Veterans on the death certificate. The ability of death certificates to fully capture female Veterans was particularly low; only 67% of true female Veterans were identified. Younger or unmarried Veterans and those with lower levels of education were also more likely to be missed on the death certificate.

But then why bother to spend the time to actually read the whole 59 page research article when they can get all they want out of the internet digest version?

Why bother to read the individual reports coming out from state after state showing the rate of veterans committing suicide is in fact double the civilian population rate and in some states triple, or understanding the VA is reporting 1,000 veterans within the VA system are attempting suicide every month topped off by the fact that the VA does not have all the veterans in their system in the first place?

I actually heard more than one of these instant experts say they heard about those numbers but didn't believe them since the majority of things they read had the 22 a day.

What they are all missing is that these horrible outcomes are not even close to what has been happening after a battalion of keyboard commandos decided they were up to the challenge of "raising awareness" based on internet rumors.

When asked to publicize these new groups they cannot even answer basic questions they should have known before even considering doing this work. Wanting to help as much as they want to instead of as much as is needed from them has led to the deplorable outcomes for far too many veterans and families.

Vietnam veterans and families like mine paid dearly by our experiences yet when the reports of "Veterans over the age of 50 who had entered the VA healthcare system made up about 78 percent of the total number of veterans who committed suicide" were not followed by keyboard commandos, that simple fact was yet again dismissed as if we never lived.

Back when Vietnam veterans came home nothing was being done. Veterans charities had been established going back to the 40's. Then came Vietnam Veterans of America 30 years ago because they were not welcomed in those groups. All the research in PTSD was begun because of them yet they are the last to receive internet exposure from social media. Gulf War/Desert Storm veterans are totally forgotten about.

Some say they don't need it since they accomplished what they did long before anyone had a computer. Others say it is vital if anything will really change for the newer veterans experiencing all the bad outcomes their generation did and fewer of the readjustments into veteranhood. They still cringe a bit when a younger veteran says they just want to fit back in with civilians, as if civilians will ever be able to comprehend what makes a civilian become a veteran.

We need to do some proactive work on this and make sure that if we come across disinformation or yet another amatuer posing as expert we expose them the way so many are exposing Stolen Valor fakes. This includes me. If I get something wrong, let me know about it by leaving a comment. I am just human as active readers of Wounded Times know all too well especially when I have a typo. Remember just because they have a huge following that doesn't mean they are in it for the veterans or that just being able to raise huge amounts of money by treating this work like a "business" doesn't mean veterans are being treated right.

but make sure those you ask for help from are for real and doing it for you instead of using you!