"When you look back and start piecing things together, he had a lot of medical bills, he was having trouble with the bank and housing, his job and the relationships that he had."
Special needs summer camps are specialized programs designed for children and young adults with a range of disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, Down syndrome, and other developmental or physical challenges.
More than two trillion gallons of water-enough to fill three million Olympic-sized pools-fell across the state, marking the most severe storm conditions in nearly two decades.
We Americans who will protect our flag should have a voice in where it is flown. Despite his unimpeachable record of heroism and patriotism, he was disparaged and mocked by his government and the corporate press.
That's a $9,000 raise, essentially. Sell the car and use that cash to get a functional car. If you can sell it, get that $5,000 in your hand plus this $9,000 and buy you a $15,000 paid-for car, that's a nice car. And now you got no car payments.
There is a unique kind of pain in losing your mind, not just once, but over and over. Losing your perception of reality, of your emotions, of your closest relationships-both across months and multiple times a day. Knowing deep down that something is wrong but being unable to stop it.
During the troop surge in Iraq, I learned to constantly scan for threats, how to distinguish the sharp crack of a gunshot pointed in my direction from one outgoing toward an enemy, and the myriad ways that explosives can be hidden on a roadside. I learned that hypervigilance can be the difference between life and death. What I didn't learn was how to turn it off. Now, I take three psychiatric medications every day, and I go to therapy every week.
The research shows that for many who are diagnosed with PTSD, the condition arises not from what was done to us but what we did—or what we failed to prevent. This mechanism, known as moral injury, can be sympathetic ('I couldn't save them') but is often not sympathetic at all ('I killed them'). For people carrying this factor in PTSD, the task of integration, of sitting with and holding what we've done, is far more challenging.
The Marines are a 24-hour responsibility. Once you commit, your personal ambitions take a backseat. Eventually, I reached a point where I wanted to explore those ambitions - specifically, entrepreneurship - while I was still young enough to act on them. I made the decision to leave the service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - even though the civilian job market felt uncertain, and many encouraged me to stay. But retired service members who had built businesses offered a different message. They helped me realize that the military equips people with more transferable skills than they often think. The transition resources on base reinforced that point, so I felt ready to move on.
According to DRPS data, the service has submitted intent to object forms for roughly 10 per cent of all WSIB claims, the majority of which are mental health related, since 2023, but rarely escalates those objections to a formal appeal. All six officers CBC News spoke with had their cases objected to, and three of them are now in the formal appeal process.
For many veterans, returning home marks not resolution but the beginning of a quieter struggle. Despite decades of innovation in trauma-focused therapies and medication, a substantial number continue to live with psychological injuries that existing treatments only partly address. Their trauma is not merely a cluster of symptoms; it is a disruption of identity, moral coherence, and belonging. It reflects lived experience often shaped by early adversity, military culture, and the potentially socially isolating aftermath of service.
Has this happened to you? You run into someone, and they ask about something that you shared with them that was painful. They start talking about it, and there you go, hurting again? You weren't thinking about it, and the next thing you know, it hurts like it just happened. There are occasions - holidays and family gatherings - where the effects of a past painful experience will reemerge and trigger emotional pain all over again.
Walk through an airport bookstore, scroll the podcast charts, or listen to a leadership keynote, and you'll likely find lessons on boundaries and burnout. Celebrities talk about therapy with a casualness that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Coaches tell C-suite executives to " lead with vulnerability." And bestselling books like The Gifts of Imperfection, You Should Talk to Someone, and The Body Keeps the Score have given the world a common vocabulary for talking about anxiety, shame, and trauma.
