PTSD Battle Giving up is not an option

Giving up is not an option
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 3, 2018

Trying to explain why I do what still do after 36 years, gets frustrating. It is not about any kind of reward that you can see. Money? Hell no! If it was about money I would have quit a long time ago. It is for sure I wouldn't be getting up at 4:00 am to go to a job where I get paid to work.

It isn't about fame. It took 10 years to break 3 million hits, and that is with almost 29,000 posts. I have three books hardly no one reads. There are over 300 videos on my Youtube channel, that get so few hits, they do not even merit mentioning. 

So why do I do it? Why spend so much time doing this? Because the rewards cannot be replaced by anything.

When I see a veteran taking back his life from PTSD and then spreading the hope out to all who will listen, that is worth every second. 

When I see the truth suddenly taking over slogans of misery, that is vindication of my work.

That happened today. Quite a shocker on top of it. I was getting ready to slam another news report on the nausiating fictional number of "22" when I came across something that made me glad I had stopped to read it.

22 Warriors Foundation a resource for veterans and first responders
Las Vegas Sun
May 3, 2018

WADE VANDERVORT
22 Warriors Foundation Chairman Bill Emmel, left, his service dog Ranger and Vice Chairman Dave Austin in their office. 22 Warriors Foundation is a veteran-founded, -operated and -governed nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating veteran suicides.

When and why was it established? A 2011 survey reported that 22 veterans commit suicide daily—this is where the name 22 Warriors Foundation came from—however the number is wrong and extremely low. This survey only included 21 states—California was not one of them—and it did not include alcohol and drug overdose deaths, homeless and unidentified veterans who commit suicide, less-than-honorably discharged veterans and older generations. read more here

And that is when I smiled. They actually paid attention to what was in the report, as well as what was not in it.

The simple fact out of the veterans the VA does know about, 65% of the veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50, that is the group I tend to focus on the most. After all, they are the ones who started all of what I do. Giving up was and still is not an option.

I fell in love with a Vietnam veteran and the rest, they say, is history. We saw it all. We saw what it was like when no one wanted to hear what they had to say, yet they had to stop and pay attention to what PTSD was because giving up was not an option.

For most researchers I learned from, giving up was not an option. Most of them are long gone and you'll never know how much they invested in finding a way to help veterans heal. They did not want fame. They just wanted to make a difference and if they are no longer doing it, old age had more to do with stopping the work. Giving up was not an option for them.

Over and over again, after all these years, I have been blessed with more than you, or anyone else will ever know. It with words of encouragement when I needed to hear them the most. 

More so, it came when I was ready to give up so many times and then faced the fact that if I do, I would not be able to live with myself if I did. It is not just "something I do" because it has become a part of who I am.

Do not let what is hard to do, stop you from doing the right thing, for the right reason. Giving up should not be an option for you either!