This blog is about the book that I just published: Who's Minding Our Future? through PublishAmerica.com
I thought that they were going to advertise my work, and that they were going to help me edit my work, and oops, forgot to read the large print: like my husband Veteran always says, when you think everything is going ok with your VA Claim and something goes wrong it is usually your failure to read the LARGE PRINT.
This book was the project that I worked on for the first 20 years of my non-profit work helping others, and it is about the public school education system. I am now working on my next book about the Vietnam Experiment, and how the claims system failed our soldiers as did the media, and I am not sure if I will be using the same publisher. I probably should get an agent. Anyone have any recommendations? Regards. Yours in Service, Rhonda
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, July 13, 2008
PTSD, Educating the veteran and the family
Post Taumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health illness that involves nightmares, hyper-vigilance, and automatic pilot when involved in a flashback situation. For example, my husband is a veteran, and although I have PTSD through a very different trauma, for all purposes I am a civilian. I will never think like a veteran, and here is the proof, and how I came to understand that my husband was never going to think like me.
We were driving on 95, and a woman alone in a car blew out a tire in the middle lane. I could see that she was having difficulty getting over to the shoulder, and I asked my husband to stop, pleadingly! I looked over, and he had both hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, and with a look that I had never seen before. In his mind, he was in a battle, and the sound of her tire blowing out was like a bomb, and he went into automatic pilot, and drove us away from the perceived danger.
In my mind, the poor woman was alone, and I thought what if a pervert stopped to help her, and something awful happened to her, and here was our chance to do a great service for someone. I did not know or understand this at the time, but when I got home and spoke to Paul's PTSD sponsor, he explained it to me, and for the first time I realized that I needed education on PTSD. In Hyannis, Massachusetts veterans used the sponsor system to assist them in getting started in the Nam Vets, and PTSD support, and anything else that veterans need. I went out and bought the book Trust After Trauma after joining the VA group in Hyannis, MA led by Dr. Bob Fournier. He is the smartest doctor that I know, and he works in one of the only places that I know that has groups dedicated to spouses. It is a place for spouses to come to a group meeting that teaches women how to cope with their veteran's PTSD, and not to take some of the behavior from the veteran personally. He taught us about keeping the focus on ourselves, and some of the literature he gave us was similar to Al-A-Non. I was also involved in a group of spouses at Nam Vets, and we met when the guys had their PTSD meeting, also in Hyannis, MA. This was informal, and more like a bitch session, but we needed it, and we also discussed benefits, studied the yearly handbooks as the new ones came out, and helped each other with anything that was going on in each other's lives.
We moved to Florida, and our group of women keep in touch by email, and I joined the DAVA here since that is all that there is. I want to help the new generation of veterans in Iraq, and their spouses, as well as the Vietnam Veterans who are just realizing that they even have a problem. That is why I joined the DAVA in Flagler Beach, Florida, and it is #86 if anyone is ever in the area, we meet the 2nd Monday of the month at 10:30 a.m. I have tried to get a PTSD support group going, but with little interest. There is a VA in Daytona Beach that has PTSD meetings for the veteran only, and they will not even consider having a spousal meeting, which I spent the last 8 years learning how to facilitate, and I am now working on my doctoral program in Education Leadership to try and change this issue in all of the VA facilities. We spouses need to understand what happened to our veterans, and how to help them. The 6 week PTSD inpatient group, and the one hour a week PTSD support group is nothing compared to the 24/7 that we deal with, and we need to understand the difference in their thinking. I am currently assisting the VA Watchdog Group in helping all veterans and spouses with claim issues, and especially PTSD. There is hope for everyone, and I will do my best to help anyone. Rhonda Walsh rwalsh33@gmail.com
We were driving on 95, and a woman alone in a car blew out a tire in the middle lane. I could see that she was having difficulty getting over to the shoulder, and I asked my husband to stop, pleadingly! I looked over, and he had both hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, and with a look that I had never seen before. In his mind, he was in a battle, and the sound of her tire blowing out was like a bomb, and he went into automatic pilot, and drove us away from the perceived danger.
In my mind, the poor woman was alone, and I thought what if a pervert stopped to help her, and something awful happened to her, and here was our chance to do a great service for someone. I did not know or understand this at the time, but when I got home and spoke to Paul's PTSD sponsor, he explained it to me, and for the first time I realized that I needed education on PTSD. In Hyannis, Massachusetts veterans used the sponsor system to assist them in getting started in the Nam Vets, and PTSD support, and anything else that veterans need. I went out and bought the book Trust After Trauma after joining the VA group in Hyannis, MA led by Dr. Bob Fournier. He is the smartest doctor that I know, and he works in one of the only places that I know that has groups dedicated to spouses. It is a place for spouses to come to a group meeting that teaches women how to cope with their veteran's PTSD, and not to take some of the behavior from the veteran personally. He taught us about keeping the focus on ourselves, and some of the literature he gave us was similar to Al-A-Non. I was also involved in a group of spouses at Nam Vets, and we met when the guys had their PTSD meeting, also in Hyannis, MA. This was informal, and more like a bitch session, but we needed it, and we also discussed benefits, studied the yearly handbooks as the new ones came out, and helped each other with anything that was going on in each other's lives.
We moved to Florida, and our group of women keep in touch by email, and I joined the DAVA here since that is all that there is. I want to help the new generation of veterans in Iraq, and their spouses, as well as the Vietnam Veterans who are just realizing that they even have a problem. That is why I joined the DAVA in Flagler Beach, Florida, and it is #86 if anyone is ever in the area, we meet the 2nd Monday of the month at 10:30 a.m. I have tried to get a PTSD support group going, but with little interest. There is a VA in Daytona Beach that has PTSD meetings for the veteran only, and they will not even consider having a spousal meeting, which I spent the last 8 years learning how to facilitate, and I am now working on my doctoral program in Education Leadership to try and change this issue in all of the VA facilities. We spouses need to understand what happened to our veterans, and how to help them. The 6 week PTSD inpatient group, and the one hour a week PTSD support group is nothing compared to the 24/7 that we deal with, and we need to understand the difference in their thinking. I am currently assisting the VA Watchdog Group in helping all veterans and spouses with claim issues, and especially PTSD. There is hope for everyone, and I will do my best to help anyone. Rhonda Walsh rwalsh33@gmail.com
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