PTSD does not mean you are broken....

Wounded Times and PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
November 27, 2020

Today I noticed that Wounded Times is still getting about 1,000 hits a day after months of not posting on it. That tells me the need to find this work, is still there. While I have been focusing on everyone with PTSD since June, I keep getting reminders that our veterans are not getting what they need to heal. One more reminder came Tuesday when I received a phone call from someone working with veterans. 

As we were talking, the sadness took over because he was having a hard time facing the fact that his work was hard to find too. So much nonsense out there getting in the way of what works, and what can change lives, more and more people are giving up. We're not! We are not giving up because as heartbreaking as it is to know how much suffering there is out there, the feeling we get when lives are changed, is so worth whatever price we have to pay with our own emotions.

I know first hand that life can change for the better. My husband knows that. All the veterans I've worked with over all these years, know that. I just wish everyone knew that.

So today, the daily video on PTSD Patrol is featuring Jon Bon Jovi Unbroken. If you are a veteran, you are not broken and you are not the problem. If you are a person trying to heal PTSD, you are not broken either. No one is really broken, a little dented, OK, but not broken.

I was born to be of service

Basic training felt like home

I had honor, I found purpose

Sir, yes, sir, that's what I know

They sent us to a place

I'd never heard of weeks before

When you're 19, it ain't hard to sleep

In the desert on God's floor

Close your eyes, stop counting sheep

You ain't in prison anymore

We were taught to shoot our rifles

Men and women side by side

Thought we'd be met as liberators

In a thousand-year-old fight

I got this painful ringing in my ear

From an IED last night

But no lead-lined Humvee war machine

Could save my sergeant's life

Three more soldiers, six civilians

Need these words to come out right

God of mercy, God of light

Save your children from this life

Hear these words, this humble plea

For I have seen the suffering

And with this prayer I'm hoping

That we can be unbroken

It's eighteen months now I've been back now

With this medal on my chest

But there are things I can't remember

And there are things I won't forget

I lie awake at night

With dreams the devil shouldn't see

I wanna scream but I can't breathe

And, Christ, I'm sweating through these sheets

Where's my brothers? Where's my country?

Where's my how-things-used-to-be?

God of mercy, God of light

Save your children from this life

Hear these words, this humble plea

For I have seen the suffering

And with this prayer I'm hoping

That we can be unbroken

My service dog's done more for me

Than the medication would

There ain't no angel that's coming to save me

But even if they could

Today twenty-two will die from suicide

Just like yesterday, they're gone

I live my life for each tomorrow

So their memories will live on

Once we were boys and we were strangers

Now we're brothers and we're men

Someday you'll ask me "Was it worth it

To be of service in the end?"

Well, the blessing and the curse is

Yeah, I'll do it all again

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi

Unbroken lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group