suffering out here and dying when we could all be healing together

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 28, 2023

In 2007, I put up a post asking why the press wasn't on suicide watch.

To say I was terrified as to what I saw coming is an understatement. Now the day after #PTSD Awareness Day, 2023 seems as if this nightmare will never end. Why? Because almost every news report and post online focused on veterans with PTSD. Not the current military members. Not any of the other survivors struggling with PTSD and led to believe that what is going on with them can't be PTSD because "only veterans have it." Right now I'm wondering why the press isn't on real PTSD Awareness that can make a difference for all of us.

Back then, I didn't know that I had PTSD because I never read anything about someone like me. I am just a civilian but survived over ten events that have been known to cause PTSD beginning at the age of 5. While my life is rare, surviving is also rare, especially with how many times I did.

I never fully understood why I was so connected to the veterans and families I helped for over 40 years now. I assumed it was because of my Vietnam veteran husband. I knew what nightmares, flashbacks, mood swings, and paranoia were because I had gone through them many times. I also knew what panic attacks were and how they set off everything else. I knew what it was like to have them all pass and what returning to my "normal" life was like.

I can't tell you how angry I am that I spent all those years helping others heal but had to figure out how to heal on my own, feeling as alone as I did because the media never reported on other people like me.

So now, after all these years, with the rate of PTSD among Americans going up, along with suicides, I am asking still wondering how reporters still haven't figured out that there is a hell of a lot more people suffering out here and dying when we could all be healing together. The causes may all be different but the way to heal is side by side with someone else helping us so we can do the same for others.