PTSD, the Elephant in the Room

PTSD, has always been part of my life. My maternal grandfather was a WW2 veteran. We always knew to put tissue in our pockets on Remembrance Day and we always knew hew would come home from his local Legion drunk. I loved him anyway and now I totally understand. I'm not sure to this day my family does.
Papa came home from the war broken, as he was wounded in the European theatre. He tried to be normal, got married, built a house, fathered six children, but life at home wasn't easy. He was injured again in a work related accident that finally put him on the disabled list and life was always a struggle finacially, mentally, and so on. Papa was never much of a talker, and dealing with children and all their woes and angst was not a cup of tea he should have ever consumed in the state he was in. Friends, family, neighbours all classed him as a drunk and never really stepped up to help. His children were messed up at times and he didn't handle this well or sometimes not at all. Gramma was everyone's hero and the boss. She did it all, as well as she was able, keeping six kids in line, managing on little or no money at times, cooking, cleaning, etc. She never drove a car or ever owned a cell phone.
Life was often not roses. The children would act out as children do and find trouble, as our youth often do. Writing cheques their bodies can't cash. Product of their up bringing or nature of the beast? Two of her children are divorsed, one became a teenage mother and widow, and is the spouse of an abusive husband. My aunts and uncles seem to find their way through, but things are showing in the next generation. My brother and I followed Papa's legacy and both suffer from physical and psychological problems as a result of our service. It has left us both broken. I have two cousins that have spent time in jail. I have two cousins, brothers in fact, that tried to commit suicide, one succeeded. Who's fault is it. Well we all make choices, but Veterans were pretty much left to their own devices and I think the government could have done a better job of helping Papa and his family.
How? You called it shell shock, so you knew what it was. We sent boys to fight mad Men and expected them to come home and be normal. Papa was nineteen, hard infantry, and the people of this country asked him to go from walking around each day with a rife and then come home a hold his baby son and be normal. How is that working out for us?
Today I learned the victims of PTSD that took their lives are not to receive the same benefits as Veterans who have not. The children who have lost their parent to PTSD will not be receiving scholarships to continue their education. So they are saying, mom or dad has to get shot or blown up in order for their child to have a future. Hello, they still lost a parent. Plus a lot of these funds have a lot of money in them, so it doesn't make any sense to me. Just makes me angry and sad that history can repeat itself over and over again. Are we that dense?

We knew to always have tissues in our pockets on Remembrance Day.

A Soldier’s Journey with Home Ownership

My spouse has served this country for thirty years.  I served eight years and was released with a medical disability. We have two children and one suffers with severe environmental allergies. These allergies trigger her asthma. We are “zero-for-four” in our home purchases since we married, as each one has cost us thousands in home repairs that should have been picked up in home inspections. When we retire in five years or sooner, we will still have a considerable mortgage / debt because of the home purchases we made. It’s quite the gold watch. 

I’ll start off by saying buying our first home caused us more anxiety than planning our wedding, and that was no small task.  My hubby was posted to Petawawa, ON and I was in Lahr, Germany, and we were married in my hometown in southern Ontario. The wedding was beautiful. The day we bought our first house had us both feeling sick; “What had we done?”

A soldier and his family has one week, to find a house when they move to a new location. They are required to sell their home in their old location before they can go on a trip to look for their next residence. So they are effectively homeless. We are at the mercy of the professionals we hire to help us make the best decision possible.  Our first home was 100 years old, detached, and the basement allowed a renovation to create additional living space. Our agent was completely dishonest with us and the home inspector the agent recommended was poorly qualified.  Every “expert” has their own specialty and inspection focuses on these areas, or not. Our first home inspector was a retired window guy and his home inspection was all about the windows. The home inspection report is both a blessing and a curse, as it tells you a lot about your house and turns a soldier’s family into “house –flippers” whether they want to be or not. When we have to sell, move to our new posting, those repairs have to be done or face losing money.

The government hired a contractor to aid the soldiers and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) with their moves around the country. As a spouse, it greatly stresses me in dealing with the organization. The policy seems to be, “don’t ask, don’t tell”. If we don’t know what we are able to do, they save money. With every house we have learned more each time.  When we had to sell our first house the Department of National Defense (DND) contractor gave us a nice bag with two books full of numbers and jargon that makes little or no sense.  Now they have this great website that you can sit in front of for hours trying to make sense of everything. So what does a young family do? They put themselves in the hands of “professionals” whose mandate is to save DND money. For instance, we had no idea I could walk away from any house we put an offer on, based on the home inspection. Our first house took forever to sell and we ended up on “Imposed Restriction” (IR) and came close to divorcing due to the stress created by the living situation. My spouse went to the new location without his wife and child, with the house still on the market and everything that goes with it.  Knowing what we know now we never would have bought our first house. We had no idea, till we got burned that we could hire a WETT inspector prior to purchase. Not having that information cost us thousands with one of our houses. A previous owner had literally shoved a stove pipe down the chimney instead of a proper stainless steel liner.  When and where we are transferred also hampers our housing efforts.  There are times when we had hundreds of homes to choose from or six and the choices weren’t great. But remember, were are homeless and we have one week to buy a house. Shopping for a home with each posting we go to has become a hateful experience.

Every professional is in the others’ pocket. The Mortgage broker gets paid our home upkeep allowance to reduce our mortgage interest rate, a “Mortgage interest buy-down”. This leaves us with still having to pay the costs to move in, such as furnace cleaning, repairs from the movers, curtains, etc. So how is a mortgage interest buy down a savings to us money? The house we presently own cost us close to $10000 within six month of purchase and the house was only ten years old. Real Estate agents pay each other percentages for recommendations and must be willing to accept the payment requirements required by the DND contractor. Their place on the list is not based on recommendations from home sellers or buyers. They can be dishonest and unprofessional as long as they accept the payment plan. The same is true for Lawyers, Home Inspectors, WETT Inspectors, etc. Because of the timing restraints we generally let our real estate recommend these professionals to us. Is there an exchange of funds between these “professionals”, we are unaware. They are definitely paid for their services to us, our experience with Lawyers on the DND contractor’s list have been uneventful so far. Our experience with Inspectors has not been wonderful; their place on the list and being ability to be recommended to a “transient family” should be based on their abilities / experience and recommendations from others, and not how they are paid. We have been burned by both Inspectors failing to catch problems with the house and by agents not being honest.

The home we presently own was “custom built with a four season sunroom”. Well we have put over $20000 in repairs into this house already, it is freezing cold in the winter, and the sun room is three seasons at best.  What do we do? The windows are bad.  We had the builder in to look and the manufacturer and they won’t / can’t help us. We have to provide an invoice to get the windows repaired by the manufacturer and the builder no longer has the invoice. We have replaced ten thermal-panes in this home already. Each spring means we will need to replace a couple more. My supplier has told me there is talk of a law suit against the thermal-pane manufacturer.  It is getting to the point where it would have been cheaper to completely replace some of the windows than continue to repair rotten thermal -panes. We may also have to replace the Air conditioning unit at a cost of $13000 as the coils are showing corrosion. We desperately need to add an air cleaner to warmer air return as this 15 year old house is starting to make my daughter and I sick. Veterans Affairs is looking at putting me on permanent disability, we are facing huge repair costs on a home we may not get to keep, and we are going to lose money on the sale of this house. The Army may have a transfer or two still in store for us before we retire.

Holidays...Veterans / Soldiers...and mental illness

The holidays are a wonderful time to reconnect, enjoy fellowship with family and friends, and hopefully find some peace and joy.
This Christmas had me dealing with my own problems, but trying to help others. A call from my Mom scared me. A young family had moved in to her community and she befriended the young mother of three small children. The young woman's husband is a soldier that has been recently released from the military with P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). This move brought the family closer to the soldier's family and the feeling was, they would help. But people with mental health issues can appear pretty normal, so his family didn't think his problems were as bad as they were made out to be. As a result, the veteran started drinking more alcohol and taking drugs and the soldier's family thought it would not be a big deal. Unfortunately, everything imploded on Christmas Eve.
Emergency services had to be call. The young mom was home alone with no money and three small children to deal with, while her spouse was admitted to a mental health facility. My mother didn't know how to help.  She told me Veterans Affairs had been notified. I advised my Mother to call the local Military Family Resource Center and see if they could help, never sure it was good advice. This circumstance is more common than we think and it has created another problem.
Many soldiers are hiding their mental health issues in order to keep their jobs. They do not want to find themselves in a situation their comrades have found themselves in. Please contact the Veterans Ombudsman to ensure these families have the support they need.  http://www.ombudsman-veterans.gc.ca/eng

Is Canada’s North a Third World Country?

Today my child came to me and said her best friend’s family could not afford to pay their phone bill, they lost their land line. My child’s friend is an Aboriginal teenager.  Our area is just recovering from a hurricane.  Many of us lost freezers full of food had major repairs to deal with, that just where not planned for.  Our local food banks put out a call for food to feed children that required no refrigeration.  So paying the telephone bill rates low on the needs scale.  It is a mind boggling concept.  I live in a G7 country, how is this possible.

When we look at what is occurring in the north the problems easily quadruple.  The Inuit people use to follow the food and migrate with the herds they hunted and all that has changed.  They have been moved into towns and houses, their way of life completely changed.  These communities may consist of three thousand people; eighty percent are under the age of 19, and 1 in 10 of them will commit suicide.  If they move away from “home” to other major cities all the structures put in place to protect their mental health are unavailable.  They often end up in major trouble such as drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, etc. in the outside world they face discrimination, exploitation, and they do not have the skills to manage life in our major centers.  The United Nations states Canad's North has a suicide rate that is one of the highest rates in the world.  The homes in the Inuit communities are in need of at least one major repair, many live in a dire state of poverty, and their water supply may be compromised / contaminated.  Modernization has done the Inuit people no favors.  The cost of keeping up to the outside world is out of reach to most.  Everything has to be flown and even staples put a dent in their budget.  Provincial and federal governments have gone to considerable effort of late to increase structures to tackle mental health issues, isolation, education and health, but it is a daunting problem, with no easy answers.

Organizations are working hard to educate, tackle health issues and improve the lives of women in these regions.  Just last week I had a talk with a new family in our church, they adopted two Inuit children while they were living and working in the north.  I asked if the mother had fostered the children, and she said no, they had them since they were babies.  The babies came from poor families that could not manage any more children.  Their natural parents already had nine children and could not manage more.  The idea that “Canadian” families do not have the knowledge about family planning and pregnancy prevention is mind blowing.  The pain of giving up children for adoption is unimaginable.  Women continue to suffer from abuse, deal with sexually transmitted diseases, and the devastating effects of sex trafficking.  Violent crimes against women are still under investigation, crimes of abuse and missing women.

We as Canadians took resources from these people.  How did we let this happen?  Inuit art is common in the market place, are we trading fairly? Or are we still exploiting and discriminating against these people. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/promotion/suicide/index-eng.php

Finding ways to Encourage Major Retail Outlets to offer the Ethical Choices

First of all, it is of great importance for us to teach the consumer about what shopping “locally” of for “fairly traded” means to the people involved.  I personally have done considerable research or the past year, after some really aggravating trips to the store.  

Case in point, I am completely frustrated by the “junk” that surrounds me in my home.  It’s cheap and seems to break when you want it most.  My electric tea kettle broke, yet again, and I was fed up.  I could not find anyone willing to fix the one I had and this one was barely a year old (so past its warranty).  I decided this time I want one made in Canada or at least made in North America and I was going to pay the price.  Into the store with “Canadian” in its name I went.  There were at least a dozen different kettles on the shelf.  Every kettle was manufactured in one country, and it was not Canada.  I was mad, so home I went without a kettle.  I took out my computer and started surfing.  It seems in our love for “junk” we have lots our ability to manufacture most small appliances in Canada.  So I surfed across the border, but you need to be careful because many are inclined not to list where the product is manufactured.  It was two weeks and still no electric kettle.  Needless to say my spouse had enough and went and bought me a kettle and sorry folks, it’s manufactured in the country we shall not name.

My next consumer frustration came when I decided to replace my Christmas tree lights with a “Greener alternative”.  I wanted LED Christmas lights mostly because I intensely dislike my December electric bill and I wanted nothing to do with the frustration of finding which bulbs were done on the strings I had.  So I went back to the store with “Canadian” in its name.  Why you ask?  It’s in the town where I live and means I’m shopping locally.  Once again the shelves are lined with lights of every size and shape, oodles to choose from.  They were all manufactured in the country I will not name, every last set.  Every other store I went to, same story.  Canadians don’t manufacture Christmas lights?  The land of snow and ice? How did this happen?

Needless to say it has started me down a path where I wanted to see and learn how to be a more socially responsible consumer and has me working a little harder to do the right thing.  I stay out of the mall, which is no small task with two teenage girls.  We buy gently used clothes whenever possible.  We plant our own vegetables.  The shopping gets done at stores and businesses that carry Canadian made products, fairly traded products, or local products.  I am more willing to do without.  I educate others about shopping ethically and I applaud the stores like; Costco, Sobeys and Tim Horton’s, that make the effort to offer me the products that help me be the ethical shopper.  I noticed just a few days ago, that bulk amounts of fairly traded sugar have found its way on to shelves in Costco. Chocolate is the hard part, as a confirmed
“chocoholic”, finding ethical chocolate to eat and bake with is still a challenge.  More and more I do without, which are good for the waistline but affordable choices, are making their way into the market place.  Cadbury sells bars that are clearly marked and Kirkland (Costco) sell a bulk bag of chocolate chips.  Internet research helps to teach us where to spend our money more ethically too.  I find it amusing that I find more and more North American product in our local dollar store.

Why do I go to this much trouble?  We have been exploiting the countries and their people for decades just to satisfy our need for more stuff without any thought to the harm we are causing.  Surfs and child laborers never went away, they just moved to someone else’s back yard, so consumers don’t have to see what they have done.  Business continues to ‘make money on the backs of the world’s poor and needy.  How much does it cost to put a small clinic and school on a plantation so workers and their families can stay healthy and children can learn to read and write?  Exploiting the world’s poor in just wrong, especially when the cost to help isn’t that great.

Agriculture Marketing Boards aren’t Helping the World’s Hungry

People are malnourished and starving and yet countries like Canada still have supply management based marketing boards,an organization that holds a monopoly on the marketing of an agricultural commodity, such as dairy, poultry, eggs, etc.  Producers, i.e. farmers, are required to sell their product to the marketing board or must follow the rules imposed by the board.  In the case of supply managed boards the farmer must purchases quotas.  Any surplus production must be disposed of.  So in order to follow rules of a failed system put in place several decades ago, Canadian farmers are pouring milk down the drain.

I recently read an article published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it was written by Janyce McGregor and she feels that we cannot get rid of our marketing boards.  But she’s wrong.  First off, it’s believed that supply management create stable and predictable prices.  Canadians pay higher prices and there is very little competition in the market place.  All other business entrepreneurs are told to sink or swim and a farm is a business, so why do tax payers continue to support them.  Many feel it is too expensive to purchase back the quotas.  Australia did it with a simple tax to consumers and once the cost was paid, the tax was removed.  Simple changes turn into a huge effort because of a complicated multilevel legislation that involves our federal and provincial governments.  Don’t consumers have a say?  Canadians are continually told to make better food choices, but most of these are controlled by marketing boards, who continue to set the price out of reach for even Canada’s poor.  It’s hard to buy milk and bread, when pop and chips are cheaper.

Marketing boards were put in place to accomplish the following objective:  create conditions where farm families would make income that were comparable to the “average Canadian” family, to boost the farm’s income, to assist in stabilizing income on the farm, and to allow more farmers to keep the “family farm”.  A marketing board is not going to increase a family’s income to the level we are seeing in Canada.  Most spouses go out and work off the farm in order to increase the family income.  Only those boards that have supply management powers can affect the farm’s ability to increase its income, but it would all be dependent on quotas and circumstance.  If you have owned the quotas for generations or took out a loan to increase your quotas, interest rates are going to have a profound effect on the farm’s  income.  Only supply managed marketing boards are going to have stability in their market place, they are after all a legalized cartel.  And let’s face it farming is hard work, just like any other business and operations shut down whether there is a marketing board in place or not.  Farmers are closing up shop globally, not just here in Canada.

It’s time to give the consumer a voice.  Most of us want fairly priced Canadian grown commodities.  We want to make more healthy choices when we are filling the grocery store cart. Farmers should be treated right globally, we have no business subsidizing Canadian Farmers in order to keep global prices lower.  Market place competition is good and it’s fair to all consumers.     Case in point, a local store in the province of New Brunswick, advertised milk on sale in its weekly flyer.  The milk was from another province.  The milk was not allowed to be sold as advertised.  Governments across the country spend thousands in advertising, telling people to eat better and get fit.  But a Dairy marketing board prevents young moms from purchasing milk at “on sale” price.  Just as they force farmers to toss their excess milk down the sink.

Daily we can turn on the television and see starving children, with their distended bellies and bowed legs.  Yet marketing boards force producers to those excess commodities out to the trash.  Eggs and milk are easily turned into powder to be shipped to third world countries.  There are children in Canada that go to school without any food in their stomachs and there is no need of it.

The boards came about to try and solve problems, to get the production to meet the demand for farm goods.  I’m not blind I can see the demand is greater than the supply, but only if you pay for it.