Finally, A V-22 That Doesn't Crash

Kat

It’s my birthday so I’m forcing people on my dash to look at my cat. I can’t afford to blaze it but please look at him. His name is Fionn!

A very kind soul has decided to blaze this post! And if you want to see more of Fionn, check out @fionn-the-cat

Bothersome beast, comforting friend

She is a little ray of sunshine

We got the razer and arknights Collab before GTA 6

Amiya isn't a donkey!!!

She's a mouse!

My blog probably won't have anything tbh

reblog this if your blog is a safe space on april fools and won’t have any jumpers, screamers, or anything scary or anxiety inducing

Checkpoint

Are you having fun? Do you want to keep scrolling or are you just on autopilot?

Have you eaten today?

Have you consumed water today?

Do you need to go to the bathroom?

Have you slept recently?

Do you have any chores in process that you've forgotten about or are putting off? (Laundry that needs taken out of the machine, a dishwasher full of dishes that need put away, etc.)

Have you taken all your meds?

If the answer is "All good," feel free to keep scrolling!

But if any of these reminded you of something you need to do, please take care of yourself. 💕

Paramedics and Mental Health: A Critical Discussion

I’ve been a paramedic in Mississippi since 2014. I’ve seen a lot in those years—accidents, heart attacks, overdoses. I’ve handled death, comforted families, and kept moving forward because that’s what we’re trained to do. You learn to compartmentalize the chaos. You build a shell.

But in 2019, when COVID-19 arrived, nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

At first, we didn’t know what we were dealing with. One case here, one there. Then the calls started coming in faster, and suddenly, the radio never stopped. The hospital bays filled. People were gasping for air. Families weren’t allowed in. And despite everything we knew, everything we tried, people kept dying.

And the worst part? There was nothing I could do to stop it.

That helplessness—it stays with you. It’s different than anything I had faced before. This wasn’t just about one bad call, or one bad shift. It was day after day of watching people slip away, often alone, and then stepping outside into a world that didn’t always seem to care or even believe it was happening.

This blog is about what happens to people like me—and maybe people like you—when the trauma doesn’t stop after the sirens go quiet. It’s about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but not just the kind we hear about from the battlefield. It’s about the invisible wounds healthcare workers carry. The chronic stress. The moral injury. The soul-deep exhaustion.

It’s about what trauma does to the brain, how it rewires your body, your mind, and even your sense of self. And it’s about how we can heal.

Because if no one talks about it, we just keep suffering in silence.

For years, I couldn’t figure out my niche—what message I was supposed to share, or who I was meant to reach. I looked at what people cared about, what problems needed solving. And then, I looked in the mirror.

“I looked in the mirror….”

The number one problem I kept running into wasn’t out there—it was inside me. My mental health. My own struggles. Some days are great. Some days are not. There are mornings when I wake up with a pit in my stomach and nights when my mind won’t stop racing. Some smells or faces trigger flashbacks—old scenes that replay like a bad dream I never asked for. I’ve had panic attacks in silence, moments when I felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cope, couldn’t keep going.

“ Of Course, I take meds, and I go to therapy, but….”

Yes, I take medication. Yes, I go to therapy. But I’ve still wrestled with anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of ending it all—not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t want to keep hurting.

But my faith in Jesus has anchored me. He has been my steady place when nothing else made sense. My love for my children and the deep knowledge that they need me has kept me grounded when the waves felt too strong. The waves are rough, and even more so, when you are drowning. Jesus is my anchor though, so He wouldn’t let me drown, and He won’t let you either, but you have to let Him fight for you, you can’t do it on your own. 

I’m writing this because I know I’m not the only one. I want people—especially healthcare workers who’ve walked through trauma they can’t even name—to know they’re not alone. I want to shine a light on what so many of us keep hidden. I want to break the silence around PTSD, anxiety, and the mental toll of being the strong one for everyone else. We try to fix everyone else, we go to work when we are tired, and we struggle through shifts helping others when we are just struggling to take the next patient, but if it’s one thing I know, you can’t help others if you don’t help yourself.

If you’ve ever felt the way I have, I want this blog to feel like a safe space. A reminder that your pain is real, your healing is possible, and your life still matters—more than you know.

What even is PTSD?

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, serious accident, terrorist act, war/combat, rape, or other violent personal assault. But it also includes chronic trauma—like what many healthcare workers experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), PTSD is diagnosed when a person has been exposed to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one or more of the following ways:

Experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to details of traumatic events (like first responders repeatedly seeing the aftermath of accidents or deaths)

Directly experiencing the traumatic event

Witnessing, in person, the event as it occurred to others

Learning that the event occurred to a close family member or friend.

Diagnosis? Symptoms? I know you have heard those words, but probably haven’t found a way to relate them to your own life?  

For a diagnosis, symptoms must last more than a month and cause significant problems in daily life. These symptoms fall into four categories:

Intrusive thoughts – unwanted memories, flashbacks, nightmares.

Avoidance – staying away from reminders (people, places, conversations).

Negative changes in thoughts and mood – feelings of shame, guilt, numbness, or detachment.

Changes in physical and emotional reactions – being easily startled, on edge, irritable, or having difficulty sleeping or concentrating.

But here’s what I’ve learned—PTSD isn’t always obvious, and it doesn’t show up just in flashbacks or nightmares.

There were times when I felt overwhelmed in a crowd—church services, grocery stores, even family gatherings. The sound of voices, footsteps, background noise… none of it had changed, but I had. Sounds that weren’t even that loud started to feel magnified, almost unbearable. I’d feel the tension in my body before I even understood what was happening in my mind. Sometimes, I had to leave a place without explanation, just to catch my breath.

I didn’t connect it to PTSD at first. I just thought I was anxious, moody, or maybe just “off.” But the more I learned, the more I realized: the anxiety, the depression, the random crying spells, the exhaustion from sleepless nights—all of it was my nervous system still fighting battles long after the trauma had passed.

On bad days, it’s like everything hits at once. I get physically sick from the emotional weight. I cry easily. I snap at my family even when I don’t mean to. And then I feel guilty for not being stronger. But now I understand: this is how trauma lingers. It doesn’t just live in the mind—it lives in the body.

But the truth is, PTSD doesn’t always look the same in everyone. And sometimes, people don’t even realize they have it—because the symptoms feel like “normal” responses to stress, grief, or burnout.                      

“It’s not about being weak. It’s about being wounded. And wounds can heal—but only when we name them”

Common Causes and Misconceptions

PTSD isn’t only caused by one horrific event. It can be caused by prolonged exposure to traumatic environments. That’s something I wish more people understood—especially in the medical field. Sometimes, PTSD can’t be pointed back to one particular event. It shows up when you go to the thrift store with yours kids, and you are standing in a long line, waiting to check out, to hear a crying child, or someone in a store is staring at you. What is worse, you think everyone is looking at you, your senses become heightened, and everything seems to be loud, the radio station in the store seems to have the most annoying music, and the door bell at the dollar store is getting on your nerves. You feel like you are taking too long to get your wallet out of your purse, and before you know it, you are so mad, and just ready to get home.  No one was probably actually staring at you, and some days you might not have even noticed the door bell in the store, but today you do, because you have stuffed all of the emotions from work inside. You have work multiple deaths at work in the past week, with no time to cope, just clean the ambulance, restock, do the paperwork and go to the next call. It all eventually has to come out at some point, with PTSD, you never know when it will show up.  I believe one of the worst instance, that I can think of, was going to one of my children’s birthday party’s. We went to a hibachi place, where they cook the food in front of you, on a fire. One of the cooks close by had cooked something and burnt it. The music, the crowd, the flames, and the smell. It was all too much. I had just worked a call that week, in which a young person wrecked, and burnt up in the car. The smell at the scene, the sirens, the lights and all the thought running through my head begin to surface at that very moment.  I struggled to work through it, but I had to. I had no other choice. 

It’s not just the call where everything goes wrong. Sometimes it’s the 100 calls that wear you down over time. It’s the shift where you’re out of ambulances, out of ventilators, out of time, and you still have to keep going.

Some common causes include:

Combat exposure

Sexual or physical assault

Childhood abuse

Serious accidents or injuries

Medical trauma—both as a patient and as a provider

Living or working through a pandemic

Misconception #1: “You have to have a breakdown to have PTSD.”

Truth: Many people with PTSD function well on the outside. They go to work, care for their families, and show up smiling—while battling constant anxiety, flashbacks, or emotional numbness inside.

Misconception #2: “It only affects weak people.”

Truth: PTSD is not a weakness. It’s a human brain doing its best to survive something that was too overwhelming to process in the moment.

Misconception #3: “Time heals all wounds.”

Truth: Time helps, but healing from PTSD requires more than time—it takes awareness, support, and often professional help.

Understanding PTSD is the first step in healing from it. If you see yourself in any part of this, you are not broken. You are responding in a very real way to very real pain. And you’re not alone.

PTSD isn’t something you just “get over.” It’s something you learn to live with, understand, and begin to heal from—one day at a time. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my trauma didn’t leave visible scars, but it still left wounds. Wounds that still ache sometimes. Wounds that still bleed when triggered.   As a heathcare professional, or not, you wouldn’t just put a band-aid on a laceration that needs stitches, you wouldn’t put pour salt in an open wound, PTSD is no different. We can’t just cover up our emotions, and not think they won’t eventually come out somewhere else.  All to often though, we remain strong for everyone else, when in truth, we are dying on the inside. We are falling apart, piece by piece, and no one knows it. 

But I believe healing is possible—not just physically or emotionally, but spiritually, too.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

— Isaiah 53:5

That’s the promise I hold on to. Not that I won’t struggle, but that I won’t struggle alone. Healing is a process—and I’m walking through it with faith, honesty, and hope that someone else reading this might find their way too.

-Thanks for reading.

Chastity Elgin NRP

Source: Paramedics and Mental Health: A Critical Discussion

Notes game

Tw: Self harm implied

Can't believe I'm doing this-

20 notes: I'll try to drink more water (In progress)

50 notes: I'll start drawing again (In progress)

100 notes: I'll start writing again (In progress)

200 notes: I'll make a list of things I like about myself

240 notes: I'll work on Gilded Veil again

300 notes: I'll remake my intro post

500 notes: I'll list all of my interests

900 notes: I'll stop hurting myself

950 notes: I'll open up to my therapist about my declining mental health

20k notes: I'll open up to my parents about my declining mental health (Likely not gonna reach this, if it does I'll be surprised)

30k notes: I'll rewrite the whole US constitution (Although it won't be the US constitution anymore)

Rules: Only 10 comments for each person, that's it