Wednesday, December 19, 2018

VA abandons suicide prevention program

Affairs officials failed to spend millions of dollars earmarked for veterans suicide prevention efforts in fiscal year 2018, leading to a measurable decline in outreach activity, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
“Leadership turnover and reorganization since 2017” led to a “decrease in suicide prevention media activities” over the past two years, the report found. The agency employed no permanVeterans ent national director for suicide prevention between July 2017 and April 2018, and agency employees told investigators that there were not always leadership officials available to make key decisions or run meetings related to suicide prevention outreach. These shortcomings forced staffers to shift “their focus away from the suicide prevention media outreach campaign” and toward other mental health efforts.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Reflections of a PTSD Freefall

Poem In The Dark
Mad Men credits falling man video animated gif

by Steven Masone

Through the tear stained windows

of my dark and cold night...Mad Men credits falling man video animated gif

Quiet shadows cast down from above.. no warmth... no light.

Inwardly I grieve, as the faraway music cries...closing her melodic door,

Sweet songs fading, the beauty of their refrain, ...no more.

My eyes lift and see the pale glimmer... vanish as a fleeting cloud...Mad Men credits falling man video animated gif

Torn between sense and sound, I give up my voice...I cry aloud!

More tears upon my tears, falling down and down they fell,

rivers... deep fountains, searching for the bitter... black fire to quell. Mad Men credits falling man video animated gif

Ashes of broken dreams fly upward ...in courage, with resurrected strength, ringing hope's bell.

I rise up from the dazed and blind torment... of my long,



lonely, and unbearable... Hell!