Just the other day, a handyman was here and told me he couldn't go into the military because he suffered Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome after having been shot twice in a sporting good's store robbery where he saw two who were killed on the spot. I hate to appear naive, but nothing remotely close to this has ever happened to me and I honestly didn't know that, 15 years later, people can suffer so badly from this kind of injury or from what they have witnessed.
So, I have a new perspective regarding what's happened....I am thinking of that when I see the many people who were either shot or saw their friends or strangers shot and even killed this early morning in Aurora, Colorado. I think of these people who felt the fear of having to run for your life and the lives of your loved ones. This will be a lasting thing in the minds of many Americans and I hope we all keep them in prayers.
After we're finished praying because this story's forgotten, there are many who will never forget, particularly those who lost loved ones, but please keep all of those there last night in mind. And the first responders, too. How they cope with what they see happen to humankind is way beyond me.
Z
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Foaming at the mouth here for various reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my Internet access went on the fritz very early this morning -- and my telephone did the same intermittently. Verizon FIOS.
I was once held at gunpoint in a movie theater. Back in the 1970s and Disney's The World's Greatest Athlete was the film we went to see. Thank God that the fellow(s) involved were after money and not taking lives. But I'll never forget the sight of one of the gunmen grabbing a kid in an aisle seat and using that child as both hostage and shield.
A terrifying experience! It was many years before I would again go to a movie theater.
I just cannot bear to think of how those injured and escapees feel today in Aurora. And their families who were not there!
They'll never get over what happened. Never.
A very scary situation and one that needs prayer and unity.
I can't even imagine the fear and the terror those people went through. What I don't understand is how are these people slipping through the cracks.
Supposedly he was in college with working toward a promising career in Neuroscience.
Yeah, when you're involved with something like that going down, it sticks with you.
We need to be praying for ourselves and our society. We are going off the rails.
My prayers are with those who were wounded, and the families who lost a loved one. I can't imagine the shock and despair which has fallen on so many innocent people. God be with them all.
This senseless crime is horrific and beyond comprehension.
I think it's past time to consider that morality has suffered mightily in recent years.
So called entertainment is now in many cases, movies full of torture and blood lust to the point of desensitizing especially our youth.
I have come to the point where I can't watch it. There's too much violence and mayhem portrayed, and let's face it, today it seems anything goes!
Are you listening Hollywood?
In the old days the bad guys got what was called then, "poetic justice". Today, we see on you tube, kids beating up other kids, for no other reason except that they can, and parents finding excuses for it.
Finally if anyone thinks our civilization is progressing think again. Our children's innocence is no longer protected, and too many parents buy them things instead of being there when they're needed, and think being their buddy instead of their mentors and disciplinarians, is old fashioned.
Well, maybe it is old fashioned, but past generations as children had to learn restraint and respect for authority, and their elders.
I have no idea why this young man committed this horrific massacre, and it's true that there is such a thing as a bad seed, at least IMO. I'm sure we'll know sooner or later what propelled him to do this terrible thing.
SF is right. We are going off the rails!
What has caused the extensive alienation in this culture?
Why do so many accept pop culture as reality?
Why are so many so empty, so many outliers.
I don't have an answer.
I suspect the weekend opening will still break records. The market must be served.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience AOW. PTSD is real. Sometimes it's immediate sometimes it takes a few months, like my niece after she and her husband escaped death when their house was completely destroyed around them during a tornado. And sometimes it takes decades, as my husband now has horrible nightmare about his days in Vietnam. I pray for the victims, their families and the family of the shooter. They also suffer with extreme guilt from the horrific actions their son committed.
Ducky..
Why do you make so many assumptions?
And how about people will go to the movie for entertainment? I don't think they're in line saying 'The market must be served'
Man, AOW, I had no idea! WHat an experience!
THanks for all your comments...keep up the prayers, folks!
When I heard the news I was in shock!! I cannot even begin to fathom the horror or the emotional trauma of what they saw and experienced.
It's horrible and the police went to this madman's home and he rigged it with explosives.
This guy was time bomb.
My heart and prayers go out to these families.
Horrible, it's so horrible.
Z said:" I hate to appear naive, but nothing remotely close to this has ever happened to me and I honestly didn't know that, 15 years later, people can suffer so badly from this kind of injury or from what they have witnessed."
PTSD is a lifetime affliction. It varies in degrees. The best one can hope for hangs on their ability to manage it with the various coping skills than can be taught. Some are able to do it better than others.
Leticia, isn't it? IMAGINE?
I cried tonight when they said the bodies were still in the theater until about 3 hours ago and cell phones were ringing and ringing...off phones that people lost in the scramble to get out and phones which could never be answered by their dead owners again. I bawled at the thought of what our first responders are having to go through.
Scotty, I don't know you well, but I think you must be a steller man. Call it women's intuition.
I hope YOU are not suffering with that. It must be a truly HORRIBLE thing.
The VA doc told Bob that they are seeing a lot of Vietnam guys they had never seen before. Those that have led normal lives and kept those ghosts deep down by keeping busy.
Now that they are hitting their retirement years, their minds are not as preoccupied with the distractions that drove the demons away.
Now those demons return. In Bob's case, it started a couple of years ago. Prior to that he might have one nightmare a year. I could shake him awake because the sound of his moans told me immediately that he was reliving some horrible moments.
I could shake him awake and the nightmare would not return.
When he semi-retired and there was other family drama at the same time, the nightmares came on with a vengence. Most nights I could barely shake him awake and even then he would immediately fall asleep and go right back into the dream.
Thankfully he does not have them every night now. But they are much more at the surface than they have been for the last 40 years.
I've teased him for years about not being able to ever sit down and relax and now we both realize that was a survival mechanism to keep the demons away.
Rita, that explains the larger number of vets; I've heard the vet hospitals are busier than usual.
I'm SO SO sorry for your husband and you.
I had a girlfriend who was married to a Vietnam Medivac guy and he had nightmares right from the start and often.
They divorced and I don't keep track with either now...
Is there no medication?
Things are better than a couple of years ago when there was unrelated family drama, but I think he makes sure to stay busy now that he's fully retired to keep from thinking about it too much.
Z,
I should write about the experience at my blog.
This is one reason why I hate liberals. they are blood sucking disgusting animals...they want to be treated with respect and know that even though they are scum most conservatives will treat them that way.
They of course having been raised without manners of even the concept of manners do not have to treat other human beings that way.
It is all part of the liberal zombie agenda.
They are the most vile of humanity. Totally without souls, putrid, evil twisted morons. There simply aren’t enough adjectives to describe slime like this. There is something seriously wrong with them. And as for the the Colorado theater tragedy, Liberals never let a good tragedy or crisis go to waste!
My heart goes out to all the victims of this horrible, senseless tragedy.
That being said, I can hardly wait to see how long it takes these Progressive bloggers, talk-show hosts like Piers Morgan, George Stephanopoulos, or some other POS liberal talking head on CNN or PMSNBC to try to blame this on the TEA party, , or some other Conservative group.
ABC News has suggested that James Holmes -- the suspect in today's shooting in Aurora, Colorado -- may have a connection to the Tea Party.
ABC's Brian Ross reported this morning that there is "a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site... talking about him joining the Tea Party last year.
All these are accusations without and evidence whatsoever.
They see Nothing Wrong with Obama With Politicizing A Tragedy.. But then again, they'd use anything to change the topic from "you didn’t do it Yourself" speech!
AOW, you should!
MY Cons. Thoughts...thanks for coming by with that excellent comment
Z said "I hope YOU are not suffering with that.
Yep, I'm one of the many. It's had many other names. "combat fatigue", "shell shock"....to name a couple more.
Rita said: The VA doc told Bob that they are seeing a lot of Vietnam guys they had never seen before. Those that have led normal lives and kept those ghosts deep down by keeping busy.
Classic scenario.
Rita said: "Now those demons return. In Bob's case, it started a couple of years ago."
FYI, Bob can be compensated for what he is suffering.
Z said: "Is there no medication?"
Sure there is. The big question there is how medicated does one want to get? Like any drug, prescription, alcohol, pot and other less than legal things out there, only serve to mask it's effects. But it still remains.
Every person that was in that theater is going to have to deal with PTSD to one degree or another. It's inevitable. Luckily for them, nowadays, thanks to the vets of past years, most notably Vietnam Vets, there are more things and options in place to help treat people nowadays.
As Rita said, people will think that they are OK, but it will manifest itself, sometimes decades later.
Scotty, thanks for that response but it isn't what I'd have liked to have heard, obviously.
I'll be praying for you and I thank you for suffering with this so that we would be free.
YOu're right about meds;...I get that.
God bless you, Scotty. You aren't a whiner, I hope I didn't make you sound like one with my reply; it's just that it hurts to hear you and so many others, like Rita's hubby, suffer with this.
Z said: " You aren't a whiner, I hope I didn't make you sound like one with my reply; it's just that it hurts to hear you and so many others, like Rita's hubby, suffer with this."
I certainly didn't take it that way, Z. Bottom line, it is what it is, I no longer hold those responsible for putting me in the positions that I was put in. Nor do most that I know, with this affliction, want sympathy.
I took NO offense in anything you said!
Thanks, Scotty; I do suspect you're QUITE a fine man.
God bless you, my friend.
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