Dr. Robert Baize

Dr. Robert Baize Consultant for matters related to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is an issue facing an increa

10/24/2023

It has been a while since my last post. Things happen and that is a part of life we must accept. At times our PTSD might feel out of control. I know my dreams have been more weird lately and I fight more in my sleep. Things happen. My memory has been going off and on forgetting too much of one thing and not enough of the other. One thing is that I remember some of the 'recipes' of things from the past only I find that I keep forgetting one or two of the ingredients This might be more a blessing than a curse. We need to learn to accept when things go odd. We need to learn to accept ourselves. I remember asking my first wife saying to her that I wanted nothing more than to be married to my best friend and to be accepted for my self the good, bad and ugly. I remember her looking me in the face telling me she could not do that. Maybe she felt she had to condone the bad and ugly but that was not what I was asking. I just wanted to be accepted as me. That is something I also have to remember is that I must accept myself as there are changes. Some days I really hurt physically. When I walk I walk like a duck that was ran over by that if you do not accept something, you reject it. You cannot love. To realize that your spouse did not love you hurt. But that was her thing. All I can do is say that I am sorry for anything that caused her not to love me. Now I know that if I reject myself, even though things are difficult, I must accept myself because I must love myself. I am a Christian. I believe the teachings are to love God with all you have and to love your neighbor as yourself. This demands that I love myself. If how I love myself is to be the standard by how I measure loving my neighbor, I must love myself. This is not being egotist. It is simply realizing that I, with all my faults, am okay. Accept yourself. You must be your own best friend. Everywhere you go, there you are. At times I feel like I am falling apart and my body is betraying me. Even if that is true, I am still acceptable.

07/28/2023

I do not do death nor funerals too well any more. There has just been too many. I stopped going to the Legion because every week it seemed like someone new was missing. Some of the most impacting was much as; when my dad died I felt blessed in a way because that man was so close to God that He allowed him to write his own death. He was working on his roof with a hammer in his hand and just suddenly had a major blow out in his head. He was dead before his hammer his the roof; my mom was not so fortunate in that she suffered with Alzheimer's for years and was in a 45 day coma before she finally passed. I think I was hit hardest by mom's death; Chief Dave was a good man who was the leader of the Cherokee tribe in Kentucky where I am a member. He died of brain cancer. I think his death was most impacting in that I have never been back to a tribal event since he died and I am sure part of that is fueled by denial. The most recent was my step son who was Navy. He took his life. Why, no one knows. No one is ever able to figure those kinds of deaths out. I have been busy the past couple of months just trying to keep my wife semi-sane as she deals with this mess. You hear all the time as to how the civilian is supposed to have it all together and those of us living with PTSD have all the bugs. I have never seen anyone as hateful, mean and just plain nuts as the religious 'normal' people of his in-laws. Empathy is supposed to be one of the most core of all elements within the human element. My wife, the mother, might as well as been the neighborhood Avon lady as much compassion as these people showed her. The level of absence of any and all empathy for the mother of the deceased truly shocked me and I do not get shocked any more. I hate to admit it but watching these evil people put my wife through that kind of emotional hell has awoken something inside of my that I had hoped was long gone. There is supposed to be a memorial coming up which my wife, understandably, wants to attend. But I do not even want to smell these people because I do not want to throat punch the mother in law. She told to me 'zip it'. There was a combination of shock as well as 'I am in their home' so nothing was said. But I am not a second grade child being taught by some rabid nun. She also told my wife she was being rude when she was trying to gently tease the widow. In my family you tease the ones you love and ignore the rest. I will not be so pleasant next time I see her. My wife was ignored during this 'visit' during a time we were being polite to even be there. My wife just had her world end and these evil, despicable , cruel people treated her less than if she was delivering pizza. To top it all off, the mother in law is supposed to have just got her mental health licenses to be a counselor. I have known counselors working for the Department of Veteran Affairs who were more compassionate.
So many times I have had my people tell me that the has to be something wrong with them because 'society says so'. Society is psychotic and nuttier than bat crap so that is not a good source. You know who the sane ones are out there??? My vets and my brothers and sisters, vet and civilian, who live with PTSD on a daily basis. They are some of the kindest and most understanding people because they LIVE WITH PAIN AND THEY SURVIVE. My people would never be part of this stupidness of entitlement where because someone is expected to get their lazy butts to work at a certain time start whining. I am proud of my veterans and civilians who every day put one foot in front of the other in spite of the war that is waging between their ears.

06/29/2023

I have not written lately for many reasons. One reason is because they have changed the page and it takes me a while to figure out how to post something. For many who live with PTSD it is also no uncommon to just to feel like you are going with the flow. We really do not have high days or low days....just days. That's okay. That's reality. I keep coming back to reality. One big reason is because our enemy is not necessary what has actually happened but what our minds have made it out to be and have created our monsters. That is why I keep referring to reality and anchoring people into what is real. We create our own demons more than face the ones that actually exist. Keep anchoring the boat of your mind with the anchor of reality. That will be enough to handle. But with reality comes the reality of your abilities and resources. For some reason my step-son committed su***de last March. I do not know the demons that infiltrated his brain but I do know that the reality of people who cared was not considered. We keep saying: I should not feel this way or think like that for whatever reason. My reality is that I am really pi**ed at him and his action. Now I have to try and keep piecing his mother back together. I know his action was in desperations.....etc etc...but that does not remove the effect. I tell people feeling are nothing more than a reality....a real statement as to how a person feels. They are neither good nor bad, just real. Like a coffee table is just a coffee table it is neither good nor bad, righteous or unrighteous, it just exists. If I use it to place things on for a party or whether I throw it out the window is up to me to use it constructively or unconstructively. This is the same with feelings and emotions. There is no bad emotions or good emotions...there are simply emotions. It is what you do with them that counts. PLease if any of you are thinking su***de, please think of the reality of that event. You may be gone, but you leave a mess for the rest of us.

01/15/2023

I have learned that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. We like to get all flustered when things are not happening in OUR timeline. Maybe it is not happening because you are not ready for it to happen. People worry and get all in a huff when what they need to do is to simply chill out. I am surprised how many times it is radical news to tell people that they are a human being and not a human doing. You do not have to earn your right to exist. You simply have to accept it. I tell my vets that they are a national treasure. If you are reading this you have endured that which would remove lesser people. Likewise, vet or not, if you live with PTSD you have overcome thing which others would have checked out over, yet you survived. Give yourself credit. You are an overcomer. People shy away from their pain and see it as something to be put in a dark closet somewhere. Over the past 30 some years I have found that people relate to my craziness, the bugs in my head and my pain a whole lot quicker than anything i have to say. Allow yourself to accept yourself. Also, don't get all worked up when things seem to go wrong. This is the second time doing this post. The first time I was typing along and suddenly...POOF...it was gone. Soooo much fun! One major lesson I learned from my dad was when he was on Iwo Jima Tokyo Rose was saying how they were going to blow up the island. Well he went to bed. His buddies asked him 'aren't you concerned??' His reply was: If they blow up the island I might as well go to sleep; If they don't blow up the island I might as well go to sleep. From that I learned not to worry about things over which I have no control. We need to learn to be more like water. Water flows around things in its way. There is nothing more gentle than water yet nothing can stand in its way. Those things in the way eventually just disappear under the constant and gentle force of water. Be Water.

01/15/2023

I have learned that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. We get so flustered about things, especially when things are not going along OUR timeline. Maybe that is because we are not ready for the teacher yet. Maybe the lesson we need to learn is to simply chill out. It is earth shaken news for me to tell my people that they are a human being and not a human doing. You do not have to earn your right to exist. You simply have to accept it! I view my vets as a national treasure. Likewise, people who live with PTSD have endured things that lesser people would have checked out under. But, if you are reading this you have endured. Thank you for staying in the fight. Over the past 30 some years I have found that

12/14/2022

Time changes people. When you first realize this fact it might come as a shock. I used to be, what I felt was, a street smart young pastor who grew up around a Salvation Army rehab center where my dad was the director. I learned a great deal from those men about life. I went on to be a young pastor with vision of grandure to save the world. Then life hit. That seemed to all dissolve. I went on and returned to my rehab roots as a substance abuse counselor. Making a long story less long, I never planned to be a counselor for combat veterans. This was chosen for me. Over the past 30 odd years it has been my absolute joy to work with combat veterans from WWII to present. Oh, I have bugs, big bugs, in the attic of my mind but I have named them and care for them becasue I have earned them all. I have worked as a mental health first responder to fatalities and have been a correction's officer for a max prison. I resigned never have disgraced the badge but because I felt I could not do my duties because my body is too broken up from auto accidents. I could not get down to inspect things under tables for shanks and did not want to put a brother or sister officer in danger because of not having done my work properly. Every day when I get dressed I look more like I am preparing for war and arm up. Major change from that starry eyed young preacher. But, I would not ever want to go back. I have my own PTSD. It is not always from combat. Also, people who are close to combat veterans have been in that arena through the eyes and soul of others. I say all this just because during this season of happy crap it is easy to feel like you do not fit in . And that is good and we don't fit in because all the happy crap is not real. WE LIVE IN REALITY. We can try and be as friendly as we choose. We will never fit into a world that does not live in reality. Our worlds are real. There are people out there who want to kill anything that lives. We are the people the neive world will turn to when the crap hits the fan. Never regret your changes. Just remember, you control the changes. Don't let the changes control you.

08/13/2022

We are experts in hiding. He hide our fears. He hide our feelings. He hide our past. He hide our emotions. But I believe the thing he hide the most is our tenderness. Everyone of my vets, especially my Nam vets, worked hard to have an appearance that would drive sane people away in a heart beat, but if you got to know them you realized the most tenderest spirit ever in a human being. That is the wonder of PTSD. To get to that place you have to through you own brand of hell. But have you noticed how when you are cooking that the heat tenderizes the meat? Maybe that is why we have to go through hell. Someone somewhere knows that we have a tender soul that otherwise would remain course and grisly. But the heat from our own hell softens our soul. We put on a façade of the big bad bear to keep more potential hurt at bay, but for those who dare to venture in it is met with a warm spirit like never before seen. Those of us who live with PTSD are not the odd ball. We are the precious seasoning of life sent to maybe help someone else who is going through the things that others could not even imagine.

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