Are you a messenger of misery...or healer of hearts?

"As if mere life were worth their living for"

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2019

We are bombarded with the exasperating messages of "suicide awareness" on a daily basis while the messengers of misery are content to be paid for sharing what is failing everyone else.

If you want to know how many have been robbed of the message they needed to hear, like #TakeBackYouLife all you have to do is read this site on any given day and see reports of the lives gone to suicide. The thing you do not see, is how far those chosen deaths reached. Family, friends, peers and others seeking some resolution to their own pain, received the message, loud and clear, when they needed to know how to heal the broken hearts before it became too late to avoid regrets.

There was a time when people like me needed to raise awareness of what was going on out of desperation. Believing that someone with the power to change the outcome would do so once they became aware of it, I took on the heartbreaking task of doing that back in 2007. I put together a massive report wondering "Why isn't the press on suicide watch?" because I while putting together the video report, even I was shocked by what I discovered. 

Now it has become raising awareness that those groups are increasing the need to for this country to regain their senses and do the work require to achieve a much different outcome. That work needs to be done by their families!

There was a time when we were allowed to be ignorantly embracing fairy tales and escaping into moments of fantasy...before we grew up!

While we allow ourselves moments now, we are thoughtful enough to acknowledge we live in the harsh real world, and we stop dreaming of a perfect relationship. Our knight's armor is no longer shinny...it is rusty. His/her horse has a bent back and we no longer climb the stairs to the top of the tower...we look for the elevator.

There is a battle being fought on the Home Front that we are losing. 

We read about it all the time but few are investing the time to defeat the enemy claiming more lives after combat, that we lost during all of them. Their jobs caused PTSD. Until we battle the thing that is causing all our misery...it will win. Once we arm ourselves with knowledge, it stops defeating them!

They survived combat, but could not find the support or weapons to fight this battle for their own lives. Pretty disgraceful when you think of it that way.

Families have the tendency to assume they can stop worrying once their veteran returns home, when that is the time to do a hell of a lot more than worry about them. It is time to begin your own battle.

A woman I have known for years, finally approached me about a year ago. She had been receiving the messages of misery for over 30 years and reached the point where she knew there was a much better way of living. She found it and is living a more hopeful life with her veteran husband.

The hope of healing their hearts was delivered free of charge. How do you do a GoFundMe for something you do for the reasons for free? That is something no advertising or marketing company is willing to support. I know, because I have talked to several of them. They listen politely and then say "Let me talk to my team and I'll get back to you"...but they never do.

"Festus—I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for...

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best..." From ‘Festus’
By Philip James Bailey (1816–1902)

 Just loving them is not enough. Wanting a better life with them, does not make it better. Blaming them for what is happening to your family will not make any of you live a happier life together.

Stop sharing the messages of misery and start being the healer of their hearts! It requires a lot of work, time and patience but you can do it! If I could begin this work at the age of 23...learn from reading clinical books in the library with a dictionary, you can do it with the internet and instant access to the world from the cellphone in your hand!

Do you want them to blame you for not helping them when they needed you the most or believe you are the best thing that ever happened to them?

Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
Gladys Knight
I've had my share of life's ups and downs
But fate's been kind, the downs have been few
I guess you could say that I've been lucky
Well, I guess you could say that it's all because of you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Oh, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it, I made it through
Cause for every moment that I've spent hurting
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
I know, you're the best thing, oh, that ever happened to me
Songwriters: James D. Weatherly
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group