Are you feeding the #PTSD posion trying to kill you?

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 23, 2024

Are you telling yourself you're taking care of getting over what happened to you, or are you feeding the #PTSD posion trying to kill you?

I know I did that. It was after my first husband tried to kill me. My friends weren't willing to listen to me. Truthfully, I wasn't willing to talk most of the time. Their solution was to take me out every night to our favorite bar. They were trying to cheer me up. I was trying to get drunk enough to get some sleep. I figured if I passed out, the nightmares wouldn't wake me up as soon as I fell asleep. My poison was CC and Sprite. It should have been something to kill what came with PTSD instead of trying to get numb.

That was my solution back in 1981. People like me weren't talked about back then, and reporters didn't interview survivors of other traumas either. No one understood us but us. We didn't have the Internet or home computers. We had to deal with all of it on our own. What made it worse was that veterans had to deal with it on their own as well, which is ironic considering that researchers were studying what combat had done to them.

I used my own history as the basis for the protagonist of The Scribe Of Salem. Chris Papadopoulos is, in many ways, the male version of me. His pain and confusion regarding PTSD were what I went through. His struggles with God were the torment I went through many times. He self-medicated to kill the emotions he didn't want to feel since none of them were good ones.

I created friends for him because they were the friends I wished I had. Not that there was anything wrong with the real friends I had back then, but they didn't know what I was going through and were unable to help me. Chris was surrounded by survivors of other traumas. They remembered the pain but wanted to share the healing to restore hope within him.

It had to take place in Salem because it is an example of what can happen when faith turns against us. Faith was used as a weapon to control the people and cause them to fear everyone around them. They knew they could be the next ones to be accused of witchcraft. It didn't matter that people used the gifts in their spirits to help others. It didn't matter that most of those charged and murdered had no relationship to any type of witchcraft any more than the other 200 imprisoned were innocent. This hatred-inspired trauma caused another trauma of faith.

One of the biggest struggles I had was spiritually based, but I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I tried. My Priest had no understanding of what trauma did mentally or spiritually. It wasn't his fault he wasn't trained to understand it. After all, most therapists in the civilian world weren't trained either. Now, even the National Center For PTSD addresses the need for spiritual therapy. I helped people understand what PTSD was and then addressed their spiritual struggles. When they were ready, I made sure they sought mental health professionals.

The Scribe of Salem flips many popular beliefs around to change the conversation most of us wish we had heard. It flips what many hear in church to focus on what scripture tells us but they will not speak of. It flips what many think they know about Salem, including the fact that none of the accused were witches. After all, the judges supposedly thought witches possessed all sorts of powers. Did they really think the "witches" would just sit around waiting to be arrested? It flips from what too many think PTSD is into what it really is. It flips what people think about secret societies and conspiracies. 

I wrote it because I couldn't find anything like it. My poison of choice became something to kill the demon called PTSD. Isn't it about time someone flipped the conversation around and made it something that most of us need?