First-responder from Collingwood died by suicide earlier this week

Sometimes it's not enough: how one PTSD survivor tries to save others

Barrie Today
Erika Engel
November 23, 2018

“Support for families is what we found was lacking,” said Angie Stevens, Bryan’s wife. While Bryan was first dealing with symptoms of PTSD and occupational stress, Angie didn’t know where to turn. “You go into this silent position because you don’t want to tarnish their image,” said Angie. “So you try to help them on your own.”

Bryan Stevens is the founder of Frontline Forward. Erika Engel/CollingwoodToday

A former air ambulance advanced care paramedic may no longer be treating wounds mid-air, but he is still caring for the wounded and broken.

Bryan Stevens is the founder of Frontline Forward, an organization and facility designed to support and educate front-line workers affected by occupational stress and dealing with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

He experienced PTSD first-hand and made the decision to retire early as a result. Through a support system, professional counselling, physical therapy, meditation and more, Stevens has learned to cope with PTSD and work through the symptoms.

“Thank God I battled through it, but it’s still a challenge,” said Stevens. “You can have all the right people around you and things to support you and still sometimes that may not be enough”

A first-responder from Collingwood died by suicide earlier this week. Mike Scott was a firefighter at Central York Fire Services in the Newmarket and Aurora area. Before that, he was a firefighter on The Blue Mountains Fire Department. Scott’s family asked for donations to Frontline Forward in lieu of flowers.

Stevens said Scott was a good friend, and the two talked often about working as a first responder and dealing with PTSD. Scott’s funeral is today, and Stevens came to Collingwood with his wife, Angie, to attend the service.

“It’s a heavy burden to carry all this hurt,” said Stevens, quoting a song by country singer Kevin Davidson, a former first-responder. “We have to come to understand we don’t need to carry all that burden.”

Understanding was the first hurdle for Stevens, a 30-year veteran paramedic with 12 years in Peel Region (Mississauga) and 18 years as an advanced care paramedic for Ornge based in London.
read more here

Suicide awareness groups failed us!

To families left behind after suicide

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 23, 2018

Eighteen years ago, losing a member of the family to suicide caused a flood of questions to begin. To this day, I am still waiting for the answers to come.

It was not just a matter of not knowing how to get my husband's nephew to listen that caused guilt to boil up. It was the fact that I had been fully invested in PTSD work for many years. I could get strangers to listen and find hope. I could not fuel that hope in our nephew.

I understand the need to do something to prevent other suicides. It is almost as if the death would have no meaning if we do nothing. The problem is, doing something can be worse than nothing to others.

I had first hand knowledge of what trauma did because I survived many times as a civilian. I knew what TBI was, because I had it. So please, take what this "expert" has to share after 36 years of work.

That chart shows the size of the military members being reduced.

This chart also shows the size of military being reduced by suicide. It has been an average of 500 per year since 2012.

Those men and women should still be here, but they are not. They valued life so much, they were willing to die to save someone else. They did not value their own enough to ask for help. This is after over a decade of "resilience" training they received to "prevent" suicides with over 900 programs being offered and paid for by the Department of Defense.

DOD programs added to the stigma of PTSD and they were taught to be "resilient" before the effort was proven to provide what it was supposed to do. But that did not really matter considering there were Generals telling the service members it was their fault because they were not mentally strong enough to take it.

That sums up what has been going on within the military. It also shows what has been happening in the veterans' community.

This is a chart from the VA released in the latest suicide report.

Notice as the number of known suicides did not change much, the number of living veterans dropped by over 4 million, which increased the percentage of suicide deaths.

The vast majority of known suicides occurred many years after they left the military, with over half being committed by veterans over the age of 50.

We tend to want to do something to prevent other families from going through what we did. We do all kinds of things to "raise awareness" that it is happening, but few do any real research to know the number most people talk about, is not even close to the truth. Plus, the one that was part of our family, is the number each of us focus on.

We share our loss once we get the fact there is nothing for us to be ashamed of. We did the best we could with what we knew at the time. However, that does not qualify us to start campaigns or raise funds for what we want to do with that pain. We will only end up sharing misery while doing nothing to actually change the outcome. 

Before we can actually prevent suicides, we have to invest the time in learning how to do it. Otherwise our only experience is in what already failed.

Suicide awareness campaigns are failures. The numbers prove that.

It is our job to fight against people taking the easy way to make money off our pain. If there is a "suicide awareness" event in your area, contact the media and let them know you need accountability from them. Make reporters actually do their jobs.

You need to know where the money is going and what qualified them to be worthy of the funds. Have a list of questions you want answered and then ask the fundraisers. 

Research the facts and stop supporting what already failed too many other families like yours. Then remember, they failed your family before you lost someone you love.

Contact your elected official and make them to their jobs since Congress has had jurisdiction over the military and the VA all these years. 

Do not be sold on anyone telling you that privatizing the VA is a good thing, especially when veterans should never be treated like civilians. Civilian therapists do not understand military culture.

As important as it is for us to want to break the silence of PTSD and suicides, it is more important for us to actually learn how to prevent other families from having to suffer our fate.

Fort Carson Soldiers team up with Salvation Army for community

Thousands get a Thanksgiving meal in Colorado Springs thanks to Salvation Army, Fort Carson and volunteers

KOAA 5 News
Jessica Barreto
November 22, 2018

COLORADO SPRINGS – Thousands of people in Southern Colorado got a Thanksgiving dinner thanks to a tag-team effort between The Salvation Army and U.S. Army soldiers assigned to Fort Carson. The Salvation Army hosts the meal. The Fort Carson Soldiers do the cooking.

“Our cooks have been prepping food for about the last week,” said Brigadier General, William J. Thigpen. read more here

Also, Firefighters open their stations to Air Force trainees for Thanksgiving
SAN ANTONIO - Firefighters at just about every fire station across the city are celebrating their Thanksgiving with the men and women in Air Force.

This is the 14th year for "Operation: Homecooking." Military Trainees at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland, who were not able to be with their own families today, were invited to share delicious firehouse food with firefighters.

Caring for triple amputee "part of spousal duty" to VA?

Nashville VA reinstates triple amputee veteran's full-time caregiver services after Tennessean report

Nashville Tennessean
Yihyun Jeong
Nov. 21, 2018

A triple amputee veteran will have his full-time caregiver services reinstated after the Tennessean reported Wednesday that the Nashville VA initially decided to deny the level of his caregiver's benefits.

Staff Sergeant J.D. Williams lost his right arm and both legs while deployed with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan in 2010.

He was discharged and sent home, where his wife, Ashlee Williams, was assigned and paid by the VA to be his caregiver.

But after six years, she wrote on Facebook on Nov. 17, the VA decided to lower her husband to the lowest tier of the program, determining that he no longer needs a full-time caregiver.

She claimed that the VA assumed that the care she provided her husband, including helping her husband with applying prosthetics and lifting him into a wheelchair about 10 times a day, was part of her "spousal duty."

"...should have been included on the marriage certificate according to the VA," Ashlee Williams wrote in a post that was shared more than 25,000 times on Facebook by Wednesday morning.
read more here

Marine Corps reservists attacked in Piladelphia

Police: Marine reservists attacked, robbed in Philadelphia

By: The Associated Press
November 21, 2018

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia police say a group of men and women attacked several Marine Corps reservists near a conservative rally last weekend.

The "We the People Rally" near Independence Hall drew more counterprotesters than participants Saturday.

Police say a few blocks away from the rally, the reservists were approached by the group that called them "Nazis" and "white supremacists." Police say members of the group used mace on the reservists and punched and kicked them. They allegedly stole one person's phone before running away.

Police released video of some of the attackers from the earlier counter-protest.
read more here

In Generals the courage to heal and inspire

Generals refused to surrender to PTSD

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 22, 2018

Ten years ago, I wrote about being thankful for General Carter Ham because he talked openly about his own battle with PTSD, when other generals were shaming their soldiers for having it.

Today, sadly, I just posted about a Command Sgt. Major showing that efforts by leaders such as General Ham, have not educated the people under them.

General Ham was not alone that year. 

Major General David Blackledge showed courage admitting he needed help to heal.

Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma, and now he is defying the military's culture of silence on the subject of mental health problems and treatment.
"It's part of our profession ... nobody wants to admit that they've got a weakness in this area," Blackledge said of mental health problems among troops returning from America's two wars.
"I have dealt with it. I'm dealing with it now," said Blackledge, who came home with post-traumatic stress. "We need to be able to talk about it."
As the nation marks another Veterans Day, thousands of troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with anxiety, depression and other emotional problems.

This is what real leaders do! They show those they lead that PTSD is not from what they lack or any kind of weakness. It comes from where their courage to serve took them, and what they had to do for those they served with.

A year later, this report came out and yet another General had more to say.

Generals share their experience with PTSD 

CNN 

By Larry Shaughnessy and Barbara Starr 

March 6, 2009
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Memory of soldier who died before his eyes stays with one general...Another still questions himself over suicide bomb attack that killed 22...By sharing stories, they hope to ease stigma attached to stress...Military should have different view of post-traumatic stress disorder, they say 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Army generals aren't known for talking about their feelings.
Gen. Carter Ham says PTSD is stigmatized, although "intellectually we all know it's wrong." Brig. Gen. Gary S. Patton says he wants the military to change the way it views post-traumatic stress disorder.

Brig. Gen. Gary S. Patton says he wants the military to change the way it views post-traumatic stress disorder.

But two high-ranking officers are doing just that, hoping that by going public they can remove the stigma that many soldiers say keeps them from getting help for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Brig. General Gary S. Patton and Gen. Carter Ham have both sought counseling for the emotional trauma of their time in the Iraq war.

"One of our soldiers in that unit, Spec. Robert Unruh, took a gunshot wound to the torso, I was involved in medevacing him off the battlefield. And in a short period of time, he died before my eyes," Patton told CNN in an exclusive interview. "That's a memory [that] will stay with me the rest of my life."

Ham was the commander in Mosul when a suicide bomber blew up a mess tent. Twenty-two people died.

"The 21st of December, 2004, worst day of my life. Ever," Ham said. "To this day I still ask myself what should I have done differently, what could I have done as the commander responsible that would have perhaps saved the lives of those soldiers, sailors, civilians."

Both generals have been back from Iraq for years, but still deal with some of the symptoms of the stress they experienced.

"I felt like that what I was doing was not important because I had soldiers who were killed and a mission that had not yet been accomplished," Ham said. "It took a very amazingly supportive wife and in my case a great chaplain to kind of help me work my way through that."

Ham and his wife drove from Washington State to the District of Columbia right after he returned from combat.

"I probably said three words to her the whole way across the country. And it was 'Do you want to stop and get something to eat?' I mean, no discussion, no sharing of what happened," he explained.

Ham still can't talk to his wife about much of what he saw.

For Patton the stress hits him in the middle of the night.

"I've had sleep interruptions from loud noises. Of course there's no IEDs or rockets going off in my bedroom, but the brain has a funny way of remembering those things," Patton said. "Not only recreating the exact sound, but also the smell of the battlefield and the metallic taste you get in your mouth when you have that same incident on the battlefield."

Both acknowledge that in military circles, there is still a stigma attached to admitting mental health problems.
read more here

Can you imagine what it would be like today for all the veterans who needed to keep hearing from Generals like them, but only heard about how many veterans committed suicide?

Command Sgt. Maj. Gary Iverson needs history lesson on PTSD!

More BS from a leader?

This is a stunner! The "Veteran of the Year" knows nothing about the rest of the veterans he just insulted!

This report has every war from WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam in it and all of it deals with PTSD.

I have it hanging over my desk to remind me why I do this everyday!

The report was based on research for the Forgotten Warrior Project.

"It was not until WWI that specific clinical syndromes came to be associated with combat duty." 

Because a psychiatrist was embedded with the troops. Evacuations were happening because of mental health crisis events. By WWII, psychiatric evacuations went up 300%. The report also has the Korean War and Vietnam, all before the "digital" age that you will read in the article that made my head explode so early this morning.

A Command Sergeant Major, a person of great authority and responsibility, may have just answered how the results of war, after all these years, has produced a higher number of suicides connected to the military and many, many more left out because of discharges that were not honorable. 

How the hell can a Command Sgt. Major know so little about the history of PTSD that he comes out with such nonsense?

It is heartbreaking to lose someone to suicide and addictions but that does not give him the right to insult all the veterans needing help of leaders to heal.

Veteran of Year: Too many like son die of addiction, suicide on the Houston Chronicle has this!

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — Command Sgt. Maj. Gary Iverson was named the Hattiesburg area Veteran of the Year for 2018, but he took the stage to talk about what was on his mind: the high rate of deaths in veterans from suicide and opioid overdoses. 

"The issues that the troops have today when they come back (from deployment) — they don't have the life-coping skills of World War I, World War II and Korea to deal with them," he said. "As (older veterans) were growing up as children, they understood what it was to butcher a hog or a chicken and what it took to live."Younger veterans have grown up in the digital age, he said, and don't have the same life-coping skills. "In saying that, we have got to take care of veterans in different ways than we did before."

Does he know that as of 1999, before the "digital age" the number of known veteran suicides was 20 a day?

Does he know that all the reports from the VA put more than half of the known suicides ending veterans lives were over the age of 50? Does he know that the number of veterans living in the country at the time of the above report were 5 million more than we have today? Does he know that the latest report from the VA shows the results of inept leaders failing to learn what is required to change the outcome?

What they teaching those who lead has just explained how we have arrived at a time when surviving war is deadlier than war itself. Looks like he failed to even use the "digital age" tools to do basic research before coming out with that load of FUBAR!

 But that was not all he got wrong!

"The first thing, we need to have a conversation about is suicide. We're losing 22 veterans a day. These are some of the best and brightest the country has to offer."

Yep! Does not even know that number has been changed, and what the rest of that story is.

Some gain money while we lose veterans

Take a stand for giving, thanks

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 22, 2018


The word "stand" has many different meanings. As a transitive verb it can mean "to derive benefit or enjoyment from" as well as "remain firm in face of" something.

It also means "to be in a position to gain or lose because of an action taken or a commitment made."

Some gain money while we lose veterans.

One word with so many different meanings? Yes, and that is part of the problem. Most words can have different meanings. What we should be watching out for is, not just the words that accompany the one we focus on, but what the total message is.

Each of us take a stand, often without realizing it. The stands are based on what we believe and what we know to be true.

When we believe something is true, that does not mean it actually is the truth. It just means we think it is and the people who informed us, were telling the truth. The problem is, we never know if they just heard it was true or invested anything into knowing what the truth actually was.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, but while we think we know the trip was made to establish a place where people could worship the way they wanted to, there is much more to that "stand" they took.

It was not about giving everyone religious freedom, to decide on their own to believe what they wanted to. It was intended to provide the group the ability to have it their way...and everyone else had to follow their rules.

We see that all the time. People seem to take  stands, use words to make their thoughts more acceptable than they deserve to be.

This nation began with people being protected by members of the military...

Mayflower Compact

One now-famous colonist who signed the Mayflower Compact was Myles Standish. He was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims to accompany them to the New World to serve as military leader for the colony. Standish played an important role in enforcing the new laws and protecting colonists against unfriendly Native Americans.

The words "conspiracy" seems dreadful but it is not always a bad thing. Freedom was established by a conspiracy of brave colonists who wrote different rules and by those who were willing to take a stand to put those words into action. Those patriots were willing to die to secure the ideals the rest of us enjoy.

Now, you'd think after all these years, the people of this nation would be willing to take a stand for those who serve to preserve our freedoms, but we settle for what we think to be true, when we should know the difference.

If we truly stand for them, then we need to stop falling for everything we hear, just because other people said it was true.

Over and over again, people defend the "22" stunts for "raising awareness" that veterans are killing themselves. Over and over again, it has been proven that there is no benefit for the veterans needing help, but plenty of benefits for the perpetrators of the conspiracy to cover up their intent.

Having a "fun time" because they think a number of veterans are committing suicide, is repulsive. Some groups just use veterans, while others were just following their footsteps without the intent to deceive. What all of them have in common is they failed to understand they were doing more harm than good.

Just as the Pilgrims wanted religious freedom for themselves, we thought that meant everyone else could have it too, but that was not their intent. Doing something to prevent veterans from committing suicide, is only what some want you to believe. The truth however is you only fell for it because you would not take a stand for the sake of the veterans not being able to find hope! 

Start taking a stand for what you want to give...thanks!

FOX Investigation about 5 years behind facts!

Wow this headline sounds important!

FOX23 Investigates: Veteran PTSD

The Veterans Administration estimates 22 veterans commit suicide each day. In Oklahoma, it’s estimated that one person dies by suicide every 11 hours.

Too bad it wasn't!

Had to recheck the date because I figured they would not possibly be this incompetent on such an important subject! It came out 9 hours ago!!!!!!!!!!

And now we all know why the "22" a day "awareness" stunt pullers keep getting away with it!

PTSD drug making nightmares worse and suicide thought stronger?

Drug used for PTSD may worsen nightmares, not reduce suicidal thoughts

Medical Press
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
November 19, 2018

McCall reconfirmed in 2013 in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine the link between insomnia and nightmares and how losing hope of ever getting another good night's sleep itself is a risk factor for suicide.

Nightmares and insomnia often accompany posttraumatic stress disorder and increase suicide risk.

Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia. Credit: Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University

A small study looking at whether the drug prazosin, best known for treating high blood pressure but also used to treat PTSD-related sleep problems, can reduce suicidal thoughts has yielded surprising results.

They indicate it may actually worsen nightmares and insomnia and doesn't reduce suicidal thinking, investigators report in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

"I think we have to view this as not the final word on this, but it raises questions," says Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

McCall is currently seeking input from PTSD experts across the country but says a likely consensus could be that prazosin may help some, but may not be a good choice when suicide is an active concern.

Two larger studies in active and retired military personnel yielded mixed results as well, the first in active duty military showed it helped with nightmares and sleep quality and a follow-up study just published this year on military veterans with chronic PTSD indicated it was no better than placebo.

McCall's pilot study is the first in which all participants had suicidal thoughts or actions.

"It did not seem to do much for suicidal ideation and that was somewhat disappointing, but the thing what was mind-blowing was that is actually worsened nightmares," says McCall. "Maybe it's not for everybody." He notes that with PTSD, a patient's nightmares often focus on the trauma that produced their disorder.
read more here