Transcendental Meditation For PTSD?

Vietnam: 122 rocket attack at Camp Books during Tet 68 (click to enlarge)

Transcendental Meditation For PTSD?

  

(from the S-2 Report)  

   

   I read a story recently about a veteran with PTSD who practices transcendental meditation.

  The article said this vet was an incident investigator in Iraq and had PTSD depression very bad. He said transcendental meditation helped him to function with his PTSD so he could support his family.

  This has been tried before along with other types of meditation, playing war games, jogging, medications, other forms of exercise, hypnosis, and everything in between….and has pretty much failed in the long run because there is no cure for PTSD.

  You have to learn to live with it like this veteran is supposed to be trying to do. In his own way, he is trying to cope with it.

  The big flag I got when I read this article was that the guy had  his wife and two kids in the room with him. He sat in a chair and put a gun to his head in front of them.

  This direct action in front of loved ones that could also change their lives forever is something very out of the ordinary for combat PTSD sufferers,  It may be done out of anger and frustration, but...

  This is not a cry for help.

  

  It’s as if the veteran is trying to convince the family he has PTSD and is going to possibly kill himself in front of them and pass on his PTSD for the rest of their lives.

  But he’s probably is not going to do it, but wants a witness to the fact he might do it. Most vets with severe or even moderate PTSD don’t want to admit it, ever.

  They may be hyper-vigilant, carry a weapon, have severe startle reaction, or maybe show signs of severe depression. Those vets with PTSD normally don’t go out of their way to parade the symptoms in front of people. They isolate themselves. Family can sometimes take the brunt of this frustration, but it also usually involves alcohol or drugs.

  At VET Center years ago we had two people hang themselves in their own yards where their kids could find them after school. One jumped off a bridge (this guy wasn’t really trying to die but wanted attention. He did die when they moved him to an ambulance because of a broken spine. He kept saying that he didn’t think he would hurt himself that bad.)

  We had one vet cut off his own arm in front of his son, for what reason, no one really knows, except he was trying to get 100% PTSD. He was just crazy.

  And that’s what concerns me when a vet threatens suicide in front of his family. There is something else going on besides PTSD, and this situation, though calm right now, has a good chance of ending bad.

  Alcohol or drugs could possibly make this happen. I can’t say 100% of the time. But I can say when a veteran makes his family witness his suicide attempt or possible suicide attempt, there is a lot more going on than PTSD. The veteran had mental issues before being exposed to a war situation.

  PTSD will not make you beat or rape your wife and children or terrorize them. It will not make you beat your mother or father or any relative.

  This is something I truly believe. PTSD alone will not make a veteran do some of the things the shrinks believe can happen because a veteran has PTSD.

Infidelity

  Infidelity can also play a role in PTSD or family reactions.

  (I believe this reaction to infidelity would apply whether a veteran has PTSD or not. It’s human nature to be hurt when your partner  strays.)

  Approximately 50 to 60 percent of military couples seek marital therapy as a result of infidelity, according to a paper released by researchers at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Connecticut.

  Military relationships are marked by frequent and extended periods of separation, which prompted researchers at the National Center for PTSD in Connecticut to investigate the issue of infidelity among deployed service members.

  Researchers began by distributing surveys to recently deployed veterans who were in a relationship at the time of their deployment. The participants answered questions about their infidelity experiences and concerns, PTSD and depression symptoms and post-deployment stressors.

  Of the 573 veterans who participated, 22 percent reported that their partners were unfaithful during deployment. Of the participants who did not report infidelity, 37.8 percent indicated that they were concerned that their partners had been unfaithful.

  The results of the surveys also indicated that veterans whose partners were unfaithful during deployment were significantly more likely to experience depression and symptoms of PTSD. The research suggested that infidelity can function as a contributing stressor during deployment and ultimately leads to greater post-deployment stress.

  (I disagree that infidelity is a PTSD stressor, since any  normal person can be expected to react the same.)

Baby Boomers: from the S-2 Report

This is my idea of what hospital care will look like
for the few remaining baby boomers in the year 2060.

Baby Boomers

The number of people aged 65 and older is projected to reach 83.7 million by 2050, compared with 43.1 million in 2012. This sharp rise is due to aging baby boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964 and began turning 65 in 2011.

  

An aging population will have implications for health care services and providers, national and local policymakers. Businesses will also have to adapt to meet new demands as a rising number of elderly influences both the family structure and the American landscape.

  

Baby boomer-influenced growth in health-care related industries began a few years ago. According to the census bureau, there were about 819,000 health and social assistance-related facilities and businesses in 2011...a 20 percent jump from 2007.

  

As the population ages, the ratio of working-age Americans to retirees will change as well. There were 22 people aged 65 and older for every 100 working-age people in 2012. By 2030, that will rise to 35 people aged 65 and older for every 100 working-age people, which means there will be about 3 working-age people for every person aged 65 and older.

  

By 2050, there will be 36 people aged 65 and older for every 100 working-age people. But the Baby Boom generation will also begin to fade in influence, as well. The number of boomers will decline to 60 million by 2030 and to 2.4 million by 2060, when the youngest boomers will be 96 years old.

  

Baby boomers accounted for about 24 percent of the U.S. population in 2012. That will decrease to about 17 percent in 2030 and about 4 percent in 2050.

  

The trend is a global phenomenon, with people aged 65 and over accounting for a rising percentage of the populations of all developed nations over the next two decades. Seen from that perspective, the United States is expected to remain one of the younger developed countries during this time, with people aged 65 and older accounting for only about a fifth of its population.

  

(But since Americans don’t consider their old people national treasures like many cultures and countries, the trend is more of a push us aside attitude. Not everyone is like that to their older relatives, but there are enough to make it a trend.)

Creepy or Crazy Books By Dennis Latham

47 Years After Nam

USS Okinawa: BLT 1/3 August 1967 (click pic to enlarge)

47 Years

  

August 1 will be 47 years since I left active duty in the Marine Corps. I still think about Vietnam every single day. When I was in Vietnam I never thought it would be with me this far down the line.  I didn’t even know there would be  a “this far down the line.” I really did expect to die there.

   

There is a country road that goes past one particular field about a mile from my house. I pass many fields all the time, but this one puts me right back into Vietnam. 

   

The field looks like a rice paddy, especially when it rains. About a  hundred yards away across the field are several structures that look like hootchs in a jungle village tucked within a tree line.  Near the road is a long ditch like a fighting hole.

  

I can see Marines in fighting holes along the ditch, waiting for dark. And then I’m back there.  It doesn’t look exactly like Vietnam, but close enough to bring everything back again, and it’s not a positive thing. I had spent too many nights sitting in the dark waiting.

   

The next day my wife asked me if I was in a bad mood. I wasn’t in a bad mood but I was having trouble dealing with that damn war again. I just don’t understand why I can’t let it go. I’ve been through about every form of treatment the VA has to offer, and nothing seems to change.

   

I go back to the war every single day, and it’s horrible. The only time I really feel comfortable is when I’m with other combat vets or close relatives, or isolated at home with my wife. I love singing and performing, and when I do that, I  can escape for a few moments and be a performer. Then, no one can see the side of me that deals with PTSD each day.

   

Survival guilt is part of it, and feeling as if I didn’t do enough is another part. The fear of being ambushed if I fall asleep is still another part of it. Maybe my lack of empathy for the enemy is another part. While I was with 1/3, being responsible for the lives of enemy prisoners in the field is another part.

   

It was hard enough dragging my own body through Nam without having to keep some VC or NVA alive long enough to get them to the rear so they could be interrogated again. I participated in field interrogations, what today would be called torture. I felt nothing for them as humans, and I still don’t. Getting any information that would save Marines was our job, and some of the enemy were real hardcore. I would do it all again.

   

Even this far down the line, if I went back to Vietnam, I would want to start shooting.  I’ve never wanted to go back to that country.

   

I think some veterans believe they can find peace by returning to the war zone. I don’t believe it. Things always seem smaller and out of proportion when you visit some place that was a big part of your life at one time, and it’s never the same.

   

I’m still a Marine inside, with survival skills, wondering how all the time went by so fast.  Sometimes, a sight or sound will send me back. I hate it, but this is my life now. The person I was before Vietnam is gone forever.

Dealing With A Shaky Service Organization NSO

B Company 7th Motors 1968 Vietnam I Corps

Dealing With  A Shaky 

Service Organization NSO

    I hear complaints almost every time I talk to a vet about how the service organization officers in charge of their cases are never in or never call them back. I don’t know why this is happening. Maybe the service officers have too many claims. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing or know the CFR or VA law. Maybe they just don’t care and are just concerned with having a job. It could be all of the above in many cases. There are many dedicated NSO (National Service Officer) personnel from the service organizations and state and county vet reps who will try to help all they can.

Here are some tips when dealing with a shaky service organization NSO.

   1. Don’t let them tell you that you can’t open a claim.

  You can open a claim at any time if you feel you have a condition that may be eligible for service connection. They may talk about "frivolous" claims, meaning a claim that has no merit or is not based on logic and is sure to be turned down. I once met a guy who was service-connected because he twisted his knee while playing touch football outside his barracks in Hawaii. I met another who was 30% service-connected for compulsive gambling.

  So don’t let a service officer make you feel guilty or try to discourage you from filing the claim if you were injured in the service.

  2. Don’t let them tell you that you should happy with what the VA gave you and you shouldn’t put in for an increase if your condition gets worse.

  Any service officer who tells you that should be fired because they just don’t want to do their job. They are there to represent you and they should not be advocates for the VA or tell you that you should be grateful that the VA gave you anything.

  3. For PTSD, don’t let them tell you that the VA will take your percentage away or decrease it, if you reopen the claim for an increase.

  This is not true. Once you are service-connected for PTSD, your percentage is likely to only go up and not down. There is no cure for PTSD, and though, you may improve on a temporary basis, PTSD does not go away. This is a scare tactic to stop you from re-opening the claim for whatever reason the service officer may have for not wanting to help you. It’s not your fault they have a big caseload, or that they just don’t want to take the time to work on your claim. You shouldn’t be punished for it.

  4. If your service officer won’t take your phone calls or never calls you back, leave a message that you are going to call their national headquarters to file a complaint and to get the claim service you need.

  The service officer will usually call you back in a timely manner after you leave this message. They don’t want you contacting their main office to complain about them. This could lead to an investigation of their work habits. They don’t want that to happen. 

  5. The Bottom Line

  The service organizations are there to help you, the veteran. Their rent and office space is paid for by the government so they can help you. It should not be the other way around, with the service organization favoring the VA when it comes to veteran claims. When filing a claim, always ask to deal with a National Service Officer (NSO). They are supposed to be trained in the law and know what they are doing.

  You should never have to feel guilty for being injured in the service and then requesting the help or care you need.

Non-Profit/ Profit VA (Really Bad Idea)

The VA IS For Veterans Not For Some Corporation

The VA should not be privatized, non-profit or not, because it will become even more top heavy with salaried manager and managers to managers, etc. The VA is one of the biggest landowners in the United States, and for years there has been a move to make it a for profit corporation, and it would be that way under a non-profit.

  Just look at some of the big charities and see how much their top leaders make. And if it becomes a non-profit and government chartered, then it will have to serve anyone who walks in, including illegals. Then the VA land and hospitals will suddenly disappear as they are sold off.

  To me this is just a move to take over the VA and dismantle it. We fight the wars and now they don't really want to take care of us when they are finished with us. I agree that if the VA can't perform a certain procedure, it should be sent out for the service. This is nothing new. The VA has been doing it for years.

  The main focus of the VA should always be the veteran, and mainly the disabled veteran. No one, and I mean no one, should be allowed to take the VA away from the veterans. So from my viewpoint, and this is the same movement that was tried back in the 80's, this is an attempt to gain control of the VA by outside forces, for profit and socialized serve anyone who walks in hospitals medicine.

  Do you think the former CEO of P&G was put in charge by chance? He's a corporate man, put there to find ways to make the VA a for profit corporation.

  The non-profit organization Concerned Veterans for America has sponsored a study entitled "Fixing Veterans Health Care."

  The report advocates radical changes in the medical system for veterans, including a choice to receive subsidized private care and conversion of the Veterans Administration into a non-profit corporation rather than a government agency.

  More Veterans should be able to choose where to get their health care. Based on eligibility, veterans should have the option to take their earned health care funds and use them to access care at the VA or in the voluntary (civilian) health care system.

  Because private health care is somewhat costlier than VHA-based care, most veterans who choose this option will be expected to share in some of the costs of such care, through co-pays and deductibles.

  Don't anyone go along with any attempts to take the VA away from the veterans. Never. It’s all we have and now the private sector wants it.

PTSD: Advice On How To Survive

PTSD: Advice On How To

Survive

 I’ve lived with PTSD most of my adult life. It’s often hard for me to even discuss the problems PTSD has caused me over the years. I don’t even know anymore what kind of person I was before the war. It often seems like I had lived another person’s life when I was young.

  My childhood was nothing to brag about. I came from a poor Italian family and we lived in a tenement in the Bottoms and then in Over The Rhine in Cincinnati. I was well on my way to becoming a criminal who would spend most of his life in jail when Vietnam came along.

  The Marines changed my attitude, and war gave me a different outlook on life. After being spit on at LAX on my return from Vietnam and being shunned by the service organizations of my father’s generation for not being “in a real war”, I kind of kept to myself for years.

  I woke up every two hours. Before Vietnam I could sleep all day and night. After Vietnam, I never just woke up. I jumped up alert, and I still do. To me, this was normal behavior and I accepted it as just being me.

  I had to carry a gun. Once again, normal behavior, even though before the war, I never had a gun. After Vietnam, it became a necessity. If I pulled it, I was going to shoot, and that happened several times. But I had a good sense of self-preservation and used it to control a situation where I was being attacked rather than to kill anyone. I knew if I got locked up, I couldn’t remain sane.

  If you were my friend, it would take your almost trying to kill me to make me angry enough to try to hurt you. If you were a stranger and tried to attack me or insult me, chances are you were going to spend major time in the hospital. I considered all aggressive strangers objects and I didn’t care what I did to them.

  My mother used to comment that I seemed to have no emotional response to anything, and I was cold and uncaring. I never saw myself that way.

  I drank back then, whiskey, even though I didn’t like it. One night I just stopped drinking whiskey because when I drank I became dangerous. After I almost killed a guy one night who had struck me from behind with a bottle (another Nam vet pulled me off of him or I would have finished the job)

  I stopped drinking.

  I was fortunate enough to realize that I had to keep iron control over myself if I wanted to survive back home. (As I write this I saw that they just executed a 66 year old Nam vet with PTSD in Georgia for killing a deputy during a traffic stop. His lawyers argued that he had PTSD and should get life in prison.)

  I don’t know his situation or how much combat he went through, but I would have to say there were other outside factors involved besides PTSD. Possibly, some kind of drug, whether illegal or for PTSD. Courts are not likely to be convinced that PTSD made you kill a cop.

  So my first advice is, if you drink, stop. Or I should say, if you have a problem when you drink, stop all together. Some people can have one or two drinks and be fine, but if you have the genetics for alcohol addiction, try to control yourself. Alcohol will make you a monster.

  Don’t take PTSD or Illegal Drugs.

  Often anti-depressants or anti-psychotic drugs can have terrible side effects and make you worse than you were before. Plus, you become drug dependent. Many VA doctors will give you drugs to help control symptoms, but you may often pay the price. You already have discipline from being in the military and surviving. Use that discipline to control your symptoms. If you try to escape with drugs, reality is always worse on the return once the drugs wear off. Do your best to control PTSD without the pills.

Exercise several times a week.

  Exercise can make you feel good about yourself and protect your body. Walk, run, lift weights. The older you get the harder it is to stay in shape. Exercise will give you a high once you get used to doing it.

Worry about things you can change, not what you can’t change.

  PTSD made me want to save the world. I figured I couldn’t save myself, but the rest of the world could use someone like me to make things right. I would see things on the news that really made me angry, and I would go nuts with worry about things like terrorists overseas or wars or watching protests where people screamed they want to destroy us.

  One thing I learned from the 12 week PTSD program was to worry about stuff I can change in my own life, not about things I can’t do anything about. It’s good advice and helps keep me  from going ballistic.

Don’t worry about losing your percentage if you are service-connected for PTSD.

  PTSD can be controlled but it doesn’t go away. Vets contact me a lot worrying that the VA is going to cut their percentage. I’ve never heard of anyone either being cut in percentage or losing their PTSD percentage.

  PTSD cannot be cured. You can only learn to cope with it. Once you are service-connected for PTSD, it will be for life. The only way I’ve ever seen anyone go is up in percentage.

  The VA knows PTSD is permanent. They constantly try to find cures, but in the end all they develop is ways to cope.

Don’t blame everyone for your PTSD.

  PTSD in the military usually comes from war or other major trauma involved in war. Don’t take it out on your family and friends. It’s a reaction to combat, and once you accept that, you can learn to avoid blaming other people in your life.

  PTSD vets have extremely high divorce rates and often lack ability to feel close to loved ones. Your family and friends are not the enemy. They don’t understand what you went through, but you should practice iron control over your tendency to blame others. Accept you have a service related condition and live with it. Prayer can often help. You are not alone in the world. PTSD support groups or individual therapy can help, for awhile. But in the end, we must help ourselves cope.

  If you can employ some of the steps I’ve listed that I use, you won’t be cured...you will still have PTSD, but you will have some measure of calm in your life and maybe be able to control it better.

Copyright@2015 by Dennis Latham

Taken from the S-2 Report

Dennis Latham Books

A Combined Ratings Formula You Can Use

Combined Ratings Formula

When a veteran has more than one disability the VA combines them, based on the principle that a veteran can never receive more than 100% disability. I’ve met veterans with up to five distinct 100% disabilities, but there is no way to go past 100% for compensation without receiving an additional letter award for loss of use or missing limbs.

  The VA and service organizations use a rather complicated numerical formula involving fractions to combine percentages, but there is a simple way to do it that will be accurate 99% of the time, if not all the time. I call it the Disabled-Wellness Formula.

  I will use a veteran with three disabilities received in this order: 30% for back  injury, 10% for hearing  loss, and then 30% for PTSD.

  Added up they total  70%, but they will actually combine out to 60%. The veteran will lose 10% in the process.

  This is how it works:

  The original 30% back injury service connection makes the veteran 30% disabled but leaves the veteran  70% wellness (functional).

  When the veteran receives an additional 10% for hearing loss, you multiply 70 x 10 ( you multiply the new percentage by the amount of wellness and drop the zeroes on the end.)

  This leaves a total of 7. Any result below 5 means no increase. A result of 5 or above means going to the next higher percentage.

  In this case, a 7 means going up to a 10% disability. The veteran loses nothing and will now have a 30% back injury rating plus a 10% hearing loss rating for a total of 40%.

  The veteran has a 40% disabled and 60% wellness. But the veteran now receives a PTSD service connection rated at 30%. When you add them all together, it equals 70%, but due to the combined formula, it doesn’t turn out that way.

  You multiply the  new 30% by the wellness 60% and drop the zeroes for a total of 18.

  Since the 8 is above a 5, you go up to the next higher percentage. In this case, the 18 goes up to a 20. The veteran receives and additional 20% disability rating, even though he was granted 30%.

  The veteran now combines out at 60% even  though he is 70% disabled and only 30% well.

                       * * * *

  We can take it even further. Say the veteran gets another 50% for a brain tumor.

  Multiply the 60% by the 30% wellness and drop the zeroes. In this case, it’s a total of 18.

  Since it’s 5 or above, the 18 goes up to 20%.

  The veteran would get a combined rating of 80%, even though he is now 120% disabled.

  This combined 80% rating would leave the veteran a 20% wellness, meaning he would have to obtain another 50% disability to get another 10% on the combined percentage.

  To obtain enough percentage to actually reach 100% combined, the veteran would need two more 50% disabilities, leaving him actually 220% disabled to receive 100%.

  This probably wouldn’t be necessary by then because the veteran would probably be rated unemployable and get the 100% for unemployability.

  I imagine there are one or two instances where this formula could be wrong, but for most circumstances, it will work when a veterans want to figure their own combined rating.

Check out my new novel: Is Everybody Nuts?