time for healing awareness that saves lives

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
June 24, 2021

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about what faith is in America is now. This shows in the drop of people attending buildings of worship and the rise in suicides.

Why is focusing on the spiritual needs of people with PTSD is important? PTSD hits the emotional part of our brains. That is where our souls live.

Considering how many groups popped up all over the country because of the report from the Department of Veterans Affairs about veterans committing suicide, the fact that more Americans commit suicide without much attention at all.

A lot of them had PTSD but did not find the hope and help they needed to heal. We know this by all the reports of military, veterans and first responders with PTSD committing suicide. What we are not reminded of as often, is how many civilians give up too.

Suicide is a Leading Cause of Death in the United States
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, in 2019:

Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death overall in the United States, claiming the lives of over 47,500 people.
Suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44.
There were nearly two and a half times as many suicides (47,511) in the United States as there were homicides (19,141).

That was the last report they have listed. Right now no one is sure how many with all the turmoil this country has gone through over the last couple of years, but one thing is clear, there is only one reason people commit suicide. They lost hope that life could get better. Losing the ability to believe in that, even just for a little while, takes away hope.

If they cannot find hope that the next day can be better, and no one gives it to them, it is a battle they lose. This is why suicide awareness does not work. It robs them of hope, putting a spotlight on all those who gave up on their own lives...and everyone else.

Less than half of Americans attend worship service now according to Gallop

People leave the building when they do not find what they need inside of it. Usually there are many reasons but the basic one is, they had a problem big enough they felt drained instead of filled as they walked out the door.

People also confuse the building with God Himself. They tend to believe that God wants nothing to do with them, or turned away from them, and they abandon that relationship entirely. Once that link to what they believe in has been severed, a piece of them is empty.

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why I always do the videos from my garage

From PTSD Patrol

(Today's video is a long one to explain it to people who discover this on the new site. You may learn something too.)

You can read the post here on PTSDPatrol blog.

the oldest pandemic this nation has ever seen

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 22, 2021

Last year I went to the New Hampshire veterans cemetery for the first time on Memorial Day. As I walked around, I thought about all the veterans in my family who passed away, as well as the two veterans I was walking with. My husband and his best friend are both Vietnam veterans.

When I came upon this memorial, I had to catch a couple of tears falling. The empty place where the service member is saluting, got to me.

It was around that time when I was debating about giving up working with veterans. No matter how hard I tried, or how much I knew, it seemed as if I was fighting everyone I knew in the veteran community. Most of them were latched onto the slogan of "22 a day" and wouldn't let go of the notion that suicide awareness was a good thing to do. How could they believe that letting suicidal veterans hear about others giving up would offer them anything but more despair?

It was too late to change their minds and I had been doing this work for too long to be able to deal with the deadly results of ignorance. My heart was being ripped out every time I read another report of another suicide.

No one wanted to hear what needed to be done, anymore than they wanted to hear about the decades of failures to address the oldest pandemic this nation has ever seen...suicides carried out by those who valued the lives of others so much so, they were willing to die to save them.

I got into all of this in 1982 and focused on Vietnam veterans with PTSD, but the truth is, they had only become the latest generation to join the others going back to when this nation began. What I didn't know back then was there would be more wars. 

It felt as if I was fighting this one all alone as soon as people started to read news reports in 2012. Soon after that, the awareness groups started popping up and eroding the ability for veterans to find people like me.

And now, maybe you'll understand why I gave up on what I had dedicated my life to almost 4 decades ago.

Active-duty suicide numbers level off after summer spike, but reserves soar published April 5, 2021 on Military Times.

While active-duty suicides jumped about 8 percent overall last year ― to 377 total, compared to a 7-percent jump the previous year, or 348 total ― the final months of last year saw a leveling-off of that worrisome summer spike, with 99 total suicides from October to December, compared to 100 during the same period in 2019.

The reserve component, on the other hand, held steady in the first nine months of the year, before exploding with deaths by suicide in the fall and winter ― a 128-percent spike, from 25 deaths in late 2019 to 57 in late 2020. Most of that spike was concentrated in the National Guard, which went from 14 suicides to 39 during the same period; 23 of those deaths were in the Army National Guard, specifically.

Yesterday Military.com published this....Since 9/11, Suicide Has Claimed Four Times More Military Lives Than Combat

In a paper released Monday as part of its Costs of War series, Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that 30,177 active-duty personnel and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their own lives over the last nearly 20 years.

That is far greater than the 7,057 service members who died in war operations since 9/11, the institute said in the report, "High Suicide Rates Among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-9/11 Wars."

But Congress kept writing more bills and people kept pretending that it was all so important to them that they never once opened their eyes to change the outcome to anything but worse.

If you want to get hope back, and change the conversation from doom and gloom, read PTSD Patrol website and blog. Go to Facebook PTSD Patrol 

Alaska-based soldier suicides appear to be nearly four times the general U.S. rate

USA TODAY
Tom Vanden Brook
Jun. 11, 2021

WASHINGTON – Six soldiers stationed in Alaska have died by apparent suicide in the first five months of the year, an alarming number of deaths after the Army poured more than $200 million into the state to combat the mental health crisis it identified in 2019, according to Army figures released to USA TODAY.

The 2021 suicide toll among the roughly 11,500 soldiers stationed there already has nearly matched last year when seven soldiers died by suicide while stationed with U.S. Army Alaska, whose principal posts are Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.

While suicide rates among troops overall are comparable to the civilian population, the rate within the relatively small population of Alaska-based soldiers appears to be nearly four times the general U.S. rate.
read more here

Why? Why after all these years are the numbers still going up? Because what they are doing is not working, yet they keep doing the same things that already failed. The question is...why?

February 7, 2021, Army Times reported this, "After Army Alaska’s alleged suicides, one battalion gets ‘sensing sessions’"

A command team from the Hawaii-based 25th Combat Aviation Brigade visited one of their battalions at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, in January to hold sensing sessions in which troops discussed their opinions on mental health, loss and grief.

The trip came after two soldiers from 1st Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, died by suicide in late December and January, and a third soldier attempted suicide in that same time period, according to two people and an email from a unit official obtained by Army Times that describes the three incidents.

Because they have not changed what they are doing anywhere! It shows.

Military Deaths by Suicide Jumped 25% at End of 2020
Military.com
By Stephen Losey
5 Apr 2021

The number of deaths by suicide among military service members increased alarmingly in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the Defense Department's latest quarterly report.

The military recorded 156 deaths by suicide among all services, including active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops, from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 last year. That is a 25% increase from the 125 such deaths that occurred in the last quarter of calendar year 2019.
read more here

Exactly when will the Joint Chiefs be forced to change what they are doing so that they can actually change the outcome?

Veteran heals PTSD in unique way...Forged By Fire

Winston-Salem knife maker creates works of art. Army veteran's hobby led to stint on "Forged in Fire."

Journal Now
Fran Daniel
June 12, 2021

“It’s very therapeutic for him, which is good,” Robin Lopez said. “But his creativity started coming out and it was allowing him to express that…I think it’s positive that we all have that creative outlet.”

After noticing that making knives soothed and brought him peace, Lopez began reaching out to other veterans who are dealing with PTSD and interested in making knives.

In the spring of 2014, U.S. Army veteran Fermin Lopez decided to make his own knife.

At the time, he was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Lopez, who now lives in Winston-Salem, said he did a tour in the Middle East as a helicopter medic when war broke out in Iraq in the early 2000s.

“I was having a lot of issues with memories from the war and things like that, and I needed an outlet,” Lopez said.

To make his first knife, Lopez used a bag of charcoal he bought from Walmart.

“Then I used my grill and a hair dryer, and I actually was able to forge a knife,” he said. “It was mild steel. It was not like the ones I make now. It was just something to play with.”

He decided to make more knives, saying it helped take his mind off things.

“I felt a lot more relieved,” Lopez said.

His skills as a bladesmith, which is the art of making knives, swords and other blades, have come a long way since then.
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