CORA Mental Health Texas

04/14/2026

🚨🚨POST VIETNAM VETERANS (entered between 77-85) 🚨🚨

You Can Help Post-Vietnam Veterans Get Their VEAP Refund

Veterans Benefits Administration sent this bulletin at 01/29/2024 04:15 PM EST

VSO Partners,

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has determined approximately 96,000 Veterans may be eligible for a refund of their unused Veterans' Educational Assistance Program (VEAP) contributions totaling up to $2,700, but VA only has contact information for 25% of them. We need to reach the other 75% and need your help. While we search and cross-reference other VA databases for contact information, you can notify those of your members who might be eligible so they can reach out to us and request a refund of their VEAP contribution.

Below, we have provided talking points you can use to inform your members nationally or share with individual chapters to help them identify potentially affected members and explain the situation to them.

VA has informed us that approximately 96,000 Post-Vietnam Era Veterans or their dependents may be entitled to a refund of contributions they made to the Veterans' Educational Assistance Program (VEAP). If you don’t know, VEAP was a service member education and training savings program for Post-Vietnam Era Veterans.

Why are some service members owed refunds?

In general, Veterans have ten years from their date of discharge to use their education benefits. Some ineligible Veterans still have unused contributions and are entitled to a refund.

Who might be missing their refund?

Veterans potentially eligible for a refund would have:

• Entered Active Duty between 01/01/77 to 06/30/85

• Contributed to VEAP while on active duty and before 4/01/87

• Not used all their contributions

• Not have been dishonorably discharged

• Completed 24 months of continuous service or have been discharged early due to:

◦ Convenience of the government within three months of the end of their enlistment (an “early out” under Title 10, Section 1171)

◦ Hardship (under Title 10, Section 1173)

◦ Service-connected disability (this includes those rated for a compensable service-connected disability even if they were not discharged for that disability)

What should an eligible, or potentially eligible, Veteran do?

If you have unused VEAP funds, you should submit VA Form 22-5281 after completing sections 1-6, 14, 15, and 18. It will take 3-4 weeks to receive a response and/or refund via U.S Treasury check.

If you are unsure whether you are eligible for a refund or whether you participated in VEAP, you can call the Education Call Center at 1-888-GIBILL-1 (1-888-442 4551) domestically or 001-918-781-5678 overseas, Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. CT.

Thank you for your help in this.

Respectfully,
Education Service

04/07/2026

Phrases to keep in mind

If you’re in the thick of raising teenagers, you know they can be so frustrating.

They love to argue about everything. They think they know everything. They want to be treated like adults, but they have no life experience yet.

Sometimes, we get caught in such a bad cycle with our teens that fighting, snarky comments, and door slams ultimately become your standard house language. Teen disrespect becomes the norm, and you wonder if you will ever have a regular conversation with them again.

Continued below.

04/06/2026

For Autism Acceptance Month, we’re celebrating autistic kids and the many ways they move through the world.

Because belonging isn’t about changing who you are. It is about being known, respected, and welcomed exactly as you are.

We’re sharing a few books, shows, and resources from Good Inside and beyond to help families talk about autism with more understanding, more clarity, and more joy.

Books and tv shows to watch with your kid:

More than words
https://amzn.to/41do47L

All my stripes
https://amzn.to/4sRc8Vb

Benji, the bad day, and me
https://amzn.to/47IO7at

Pablo
https://www.youtube.com//videos

Official YouTube channel for Pablo! "Pablo" series features a 5-year-old-boy on the autism spectrum who creates incredible imaginary friends who come to life through his magic crayons. Pablo and his friends go on adventures and they even help him with situations that may make him anxious such as goi...

04/04/2026

I’m really proud to be sponsoring the Glow in the Dark Easter Egg Hunt this year every raising money for the 🚒Newcastle Volunteer Fire Department 💛

These kinds of community nights mean more than people realize. They get families outside laughing together, kids running around with glow sticks, and everyone just soaking up simple joy.

Sometimes the best thing for our mental health is where kids get to be kids and we all get to come together as a community.

I’ll always show up for moments like that.
If you’re local, come join us! Let’s light up the night and support our fire department 💛

01/21/2026

Let’s slow down on turning every human emotion into a diagnosis.

As a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I see this all the time.
Nervous before a presentation? “I have anxiety.”
Heartbroken after a breakup? “I’m depressed.”
Zoning out during a boring meeting? “I think I have ADHD.”

Here’s what often gets missed:

Anxiety, sadness, and distraction are normal human experiences.
They become clinical disorders only when they are:

✅Persistent: lasting weeks or months, not days
✅Pervasive: showing up across many situations, not just one stressor
✅Impairing: interfering with work, relationships, or daily life
✅Excessively distressing: beyond what the situation reasonably explains
✅Resistant to coping: not improving with healthy support or skills

The difference matters.

Social media is full of well-meaning but unqualified “mental health influencers” promoting self-diagnosis checklists and quick fixes. That creates a cycle where:

• Normal emotions get medicalized
• People skip learning coping skills
• Real mental illness gets minimized

When we label every hard feeling as a disorder, we quietly teach people they’re not capable of handling life’s ups and downs.

But when we normalize human struggle, we build resilience.

A lot of what brings people into my office isn’t mental illness.
It’s life being heavy.
It’s seasons of stress, grief, change, or exhaustion.

And sometimes the most therapeutic thing I can say is:
“What you’re feeling makes complete sense given what you’re going through.”

That’s not minimizing pain.
That’s honoring the human experience.







If this resonates, share it. And follow along for grounded, honest conversations about mental health…without turning normal life into a diagnosis.

01/15/2026

Social media convinced millions they have a disorder.

Most of them don't.

Here's what they're actually experiencing.

I'm a psychiatrist. And there's a line most people miss.

Social media has done something remarkable for mental health awareness.

Millions now recognize themselves in content about ADHD, autism, anxiety, and depression.

But it's also blurred something critical:

The difference between traits and disorders.

Here's what I tell patients:

1/ Almost every symptom exists on a continuum
↳ Everyone gets distracted sometimes
↳ Everyone feels anxious before big moments
↳ Everyone prefers solitude occasionally
↳ These are traits. They're human.

2/ A disorder isn't a checklist of behaviors
↳ It's defined by intensity, frequency, and impact
↳ The DSM requires "clinically significant distress or impairment"
↳ Translation: It has to cost you something real

3/ The question isn't "Do I do this?"
↳ It's "How much is this disrupting my life?"
↳ Can you maintain employment?
↳ Can you sustain relationships?
↳ Can you manage basic self-care?

4/ Traits become disorders at the threshold of function
↳ Quirky but manageable? Probably traits
↳ Preventing you from living your life? Time to get evaluated

Identifying with online content can be a powerful starting point.

But it's not a diagnosis.

Moving from "I relate to this" to "I have this" requires looking past what you experience.

And honestly assessing how much it's costing you.

-Dr. Eric Arzubi

12/31/2025

https://www.military.com/benefits/veterans-health-care/emdr-ptsd-treatment-many-veterans-dont-know-va-offers.html

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) sounds complicated, but the treatment itself is straightforward.

12/06/2025

12/03/2025

Craving and addiction is not desire.

It's pain.

Desire arises from the place in you that is full.

Craving arises from the place in you that is empty.

A moment of craving is a moment of feeling incomplete.

It's an externalized attempt to feel whole again.

There is no amount of fulfilling your cravings that will make you feel whole.

Temporarily, maybe. But you will always come back to the hole in your bucket.

Eventually, you need to fix your container.

12/03/2025

❤️‍🩹

12/02/2025

👏🏻

12/01/2025

People do well if they can.