“It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one’s balance.” – Albert Einstein Imagine getting to a point in your life when you say, “Well…this is it. Life can’t get any better (or worse) than it is right now. Read more…
Summary: Carl is a health professional with unique understanding of mental health issues facing service members and veterans. His goal is to work at a higher level to expand the body of research, develop, and evaluate the effectiveness of population-level interventions addressing mental health issues, such as suicide and barriers Read more…
…and who you are is not who you’re going to be. When a veteran looks at themselves in a mirror, it’s a toss up about who they’re going to see: who they were, the military service member? Who they are, just them as they are right now? Or them in Read more…
Summary: Dr. Avery is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center (WRIISC) at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. His research interests include mechanisms of change in complementary and integrative medicine interventions, yoga in particular, in treatment of posttraumatic stress and chronic Read more…
One thing about being a veteran; when we were in the military, we could put up with just about anything. Extreme boredom. High stress. We would stand out in the rain, for no apparent reason, just because someone said thats what we had to do. Our natural environment was chaos. Read more…
Summary: This episode is a short overview of the book, Combat Vet Don’t Mean Crazy: Veteran Mental Health in Post-Military Life In This Particular Episode You Will Learn: What is Combat Vet Don’t Mean Crazy about? Raising Awareness about the Psychological Impact of Military Service Developing Personal Awareness of the Read more…
There they sit, the boots left behind. Never to be laced again, not by the one who wore them. They’re gone forever, but the reminders of them remain; the boots, to be sure, but the pictures, too. The memories. A small child in a fading photograph, grinning goofy smile. An Read more…
Summary: Kacie Kelly oversees and manages policy, operational, and programmatic efforts on veteran health and well-being, including the Warrior Wellness Alliance. She manages strategic efforts to promote the partnerships, collaboration, and alignment among organizations that are so crucial to fostering the health and well-being of post-9/11 Veterans. Prior to this Read more…
” I don’t belong here.” “This feels weird.” “I feel like a alien.” These are all things I’ve heard veterans say after leaving the military or returning from combat. Something changed, and they’re not sure what. It was them, sure, but it was also the community that they came back Read more…
One of the challenges with talking about veteran mental health in post military life is the first place that we all go to in our heads: that image of the crazy combat veteran sitting on the side of the road holding a sign. Or John Rambo or G.I. Jane. If Read more…