Paranoia with PTSD runs deep

Paranoia:      baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.


We all fear something in our lives, but with PTSD the fears are usually excessive and often baseless.  Imagine going through your entire life never trusting a living soul, not even members of your own family.  This is the world those who suffer from PTSD live in.  I could have easily said: "Welcome to my world" whenever someone would ask me: "So, what's wrong with Ron?"  

As a young woman, Ron often was jealous and always suspicious of me.  If I was later coming home from the grocery store than he thought, often due to weather or long lines, he was jealous.  He was certain I had met up with some other guy and he often flew into a rage if I disputed his accusations.  When dating, mild jealousy seemed flattering to me.  But after marriage, it was anything but and it grew worse as time wore on.

Once we divorced and I remarried, left to his own devices, Ron didn't fair well on his own.  Being alone left him with too much time on his hands, too much time to think and to imagine all sorts of things that were not true.  He got married, for about one minute, to a woman who was apparently not good for him.  From what people told me, she had her mental issues too and was looking for someone she thought had money to support her and to possibly inherit if Ron should meet his demise.  The demise part is the operative word, in her case.  While married, Ron allegedly tried to shoot himself.  He missed and shot himself in the neck leaving an almost mortal wound.  He had texted the Yates County sheriff's department, telling them to come find his body.  Once he was wounded, it seems the new wife did not bother to call 911 on her own.  All the people I talked to have expressed the opinion that maybe, just maybe, Ron did not shoot himself, but had help.  When someone has PTSD, it is very easy to work on their mind and to place all kinds of notions in their head.  They are quite vulnerable to suggestions, good or bad.  Small town Penn Yan is full of opportunists of both genders, so it didn't take long for them to crawl out of the woodwork.  The oddest thing was the woman he married just so happened to have been married to another man who committed suicide by shooting himself.  Odd, isn't it? 

Ron ended up in the hospital in a live or die situation and his children took the reins and made sure that bad union was dissolved by way of an annulment.  She allegedly had tried to remove money from Ron's banking account, but unsuccessfully.  All this took place after he had received his big retroactive settlement of money for his service related disability.

Our oldest son and his wife moved in when Ron recovered and went home, so they could care for him.  That worked out pretty well, for a while.  But, the paranoia took hold once again, partly due to his PTSD and exacerbated by his now permanent, injury from the shooting.  He finally accused our son of all sorts of unfounded wrongs and told them to leave his house.  They did.  After that, Ron went through a series of VA visiting nurses, they lasted for a while and he would always fire them due to his trust issues.  He ended up distancing himself from all of his family of origin as well as his children, certain, in his head, they all were not to be trusted.

This is where the elder abuse started and where a private caregiver and her sister-in-law worked their way into Ron's life and home under the guise they could be trusted caregivers.  That fact could not be further from the truth.  So, for some reason, Ron hired the caregiver and stopped trusting the VA nurses who were trained in caring for him.  but remember, it is very easy to work on the mind of a person suffering from PTSD and apparently that is exactly what the private home care worker did.

Two years before Ron supposedly committed suicide and succeeded, this private worker started working there.  Well, once Ron was dead, his children found out that this private worker must have planned to steal his house and everything in it from the minute she walked in his door. We know this because the date on his new will was about the time she started working there.  she wasted no time in enlisting a crooked law firm in Penn Yan to have Ron make out a new will,  Ron was in bad physical shape, so she conveniently had those crooked lawyers come to his home to make out a new will.  It is no coincidence that the worker and her crooked sister-in-law made themselves sole benefactors of everything Ron owned.  Lock, stock and barrel.  She had, in two years, successfully convinced Ron his entire family was not to be trusted.  So divide and conquer was her M.O.  

Last summer, Ron supposedly was able to purchase, over the Internet, a black powder pistol and shoot himself in the head.  Seriously? His sisters and mother told us that Ron had the use of only one hand, walked with a cane and his other had suffered such spasms that he could not hold anything.  Now this guy, in this condition, supposedly was able to load a black powder pistol, with a ramrod, hold it to his head and shoot himself?  We all find that hard to believe.  But conveniently, the worker had a bout of amnesia, because she could not recall the children's names or phone numbers to call his family until three days after his death.  By the time the kids found out, she had also conveniently sent his body to be cremated, thus vanquishing all and any evidence of how he really was able to commit suicide.  Now of course, the State Police and Yates County Sheriff did not call for an autopsy, all botched any and all investigations and all of this sounds mighty fishy to all of his family.

Our oldest son had to hire a lawyer to obtain personal, family items.  He could not get any contents of the house because the worker and her sister-in-law had wiped out everything from the home.  This is a case of elder abuse, if not assisted suicide, which, my friends is as illegal as murdering a person.  Why was there no investigation?  Why was there no autopsy done?  Why was it three whole days Before his children were notified of his death?  Ron also had our son install surveillance cameras and video. ALL of which mysteriously disappeared.  Strange?  To say the least. 

Upon our own investigation, we have since discovered that this worker had also obtained another house and property from yet another unsuspecting elderly client.  Our son also found out from his lawyer, those crooked lawyers in Penn Yan who Claimed Ron was of 'sound mind and body' when crippled and suffering for YEARS from mental illness, had been named in another dispute of aiding someone else with stealing from another family.  

All of this is going into my latest book and my family have not concluded our own investigation into this suicide that smells like a rat in the wood pile.  Time will tell and hopefully we can pick up the ball the authorities seemed to have dropped.  

The conclusion of this blog is this:  If anyone you know suffers from PTSD, Never, Ever allow them to push you away.  Always stay in close touch because as they grow older, elder abuse is SO EASY for those private home health crooks to swoop in, place notions into the sufferer's head and Steal Everything they can get.  Stay focused and Stay alert. But believe me, my children are Not finished with this investigation.

PTSD does not exist

Having been told for years that PTSD did not exist, you tend to think maybe you have the problem.  But when you see your kids being terrorized, as well as yourself, in a marriage, from Hell, you know it's bull shit they are telling you.

Over the years, the systems that were in place, offered no help at all for what we went through.  A Vietnam Vet, slash, counselor, even drove to our house from the VA.  He had the gall to tell us that PTSD did not exist and that my ex never saw any fighting in the region he was fighting in.  I wondered what that guy had been smoking, but then, he got paid to parrot the bull shit lies. My ex's employer simply thought he was nuts and tried to humor him over the years.  But, finally after 26 years working there, the sons took over the business and first order of business was to fire Ron.  Can't say as I blamed them.  So we set out to help him get disability.  He had to go to hours and hours of counseling, like they hoped it would cure him or something.  There is no cure, to my knowledge.  I helped him when I was divorced and single, but finally I decided to have a life.

It was not my mission to babysit my ex and give up having any happiness myself.  I met and married, my present husband, who, surprisingly enough, is also a Vietnam Vet.  But we have been married for 16 years now and I've learned that all Vietnam Vets are not nuts.  PTSD vets are not nuts either, they suffer from a problem caused by being in a war zone.  

After I was married, Ron finally won his service related case.  But it took him years and lawyer fees to do so.  Unfortunately Ron became easy prey for not only strangers, but his own brothers and sisters, who came begging for loans and hand outs.  The saga of the two women who entered his life is the subject of the next blog.  Penn Yan certainly is full of opportunists who are very willing to take advantage of someone who is mentally susceptible to those who like to manipulate others.  In fact, it turned out, both women are experts at taking anyone with houses and money to the cleaners.  The first one was hoping to kill him, the second one pretty much did.  Penn Yan sheriffs are inept at any kind of investigations.  But, perhaps, the sheriffs department was tired of dealing with what they considered, crazy Ron.  But I think they are lazy and cover up stuff in order to not have to work hard at their jobs.  The sheriff and the VA both dropped the ball and allowed a veteran to die. 

Veterans who never come home

Veterans who never come home.  No, not those who are killed but those who die in spirit and personality.  Those who return in the flesh, but who never fully return to their former civilian lives.  Those who have left their minds in the war zones, and their spirits have become disheartened.  Seeing people killed on a regular basis is not something the human brain can fully wrap around.  Seeing people who suffer, or may be tortured, or may be children, old people and civilians who did nothing to deserve death or torture, takes its toll on any human mind and is forever burned into memory.  

At 20 years old, what do any of us know about life?  Certainly not I, a young woman living in a small town.  A woman raised by her grandparents, raised 'old school' raised in a sheltered environment.  My grandparents grew up during the Depression and when the 1960's rolled around, they had a difficult time with what looked to them, like the youth and the world had gone completely mad.  Young people were adopting new norms and casting off the old ones their parents and grandparents had known and embraced for so long.  Hard for the older generation to comprehend.  The adults were certain that America's youth were spoiled rotten and had lost their minds completely and thoroughly.

Tough times for young people too.  Many new rules were put in place to keep us in place because adults felt rules were the only weapon they had to make us toe the mark.  Places such as schools were having a hard time embracing the new thinking and piled more rules onto the already long list of rules.  Rules like: Guys who had hair touching their collars would be sent home until they got a more 'reasonable' haircut.  Girls could not wear skirts or dresses that did not touch the floor when on their knees (I kid you not) or they too would be sent home to lower the hemlines.

Girls were beginning to want more from the world they felt was 'sexist' and decided to attend collage in droves, taking courses they actually intended to use in the workplace once they had a high school diploma.  But small town schools did not keep up so well with the new ideas.  I remember going to see the guidance counselor who, of course, was a guy, just before graduation.  I remember him telling me: "Well, looking for a career is probably a waste of time.  You, like most young women, will probably just get married and have some kids anyway."  I was dumbfounded,  any ideas of further education shot down before I even got started.  Having been sheltered as the youngest in the family, I wasn't trained to open my mouth and argue with him.  I felt disheartened. That was a sign of the times.  

My grandparents, who adopted me, were growing older.  The biggest thing on their minds was to 'marry the youngest child off.'  It was all they talked about and they never fathomed a woman could be single and take care of herself.  So the first guy who was nice to me, after high school, was on their radar sights to marry me off to.  I had wanted to attend airline stewardess school, but my parents discouraged me with 'we could never afford that' talk.  They knew nothing about financial aid and the guidance certainly never talked about it since he did not encourage women getting any further education.  So, right after high school, my parents convinced me to get a job and a car, for the short time I would be single.

Come to find out, the guy they were pressing me to marry would become my worst nightmare.  He was abusive and a narcissistic psychopath.  He was suffering from PTSD but what does a woman at the ripe old age of 20 know about that?  For years and years my family went through a living hell, but after all, you cannot get anyone help for a condition that supposedly 'does not exist.'  As a young woman, I began to wonder if it was me who had the problem, since he would point out it must be me with every abusive statement from his lips.  

After marriage, we moved to the small area of Yates County, near Penn Yan, NY where his job was.  From the get go, the nightmare never let up.  We constantly walked on egg shells and for a long time, covered up the shame of physical and verbal abuse.

Small towns, such as Penn Yan, offered no help in those days because the Sheriff's department in small towns was a 'good ole boy'  from way back.  My husband worked on all their cars and, what was I accusing him of; how in hell could this nice man be abusive?  So whenever I did call for help, I got a constant barrage of 'well, what did you do to set him off?'  They refused to arrest him, but then, they did not live at my house.  He was always able to pull it together long enough at work to appear to be a nice guy. 

Penn Yan: BEWARE of those who prey on the elderly in their care

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This month's events in my own life, have driven home, to me anyway, some of the reasons why I wrote this book.  Perhaps the elderly are of no concern to many people in the world. But if you have an elderly loved one, or close relative, this should be a hot topic to each and every one of you.

 The event I am describing here took place in small town America.  Specifically Penn Yan, New York.  We all like to think we might be safe in a small town, and that might have been true in the past.  But when it comes to the elderly in modern day America, they are safe no where.  There exists a band of people in America who make a living preying on the elderly.  Small town Penn Yan is no exception.  Here is what happened and here is how authorities in small towns botch investigations because it is a 'Good Ole Boy' club all the way around.

Just a week ago, my children's father supposedly committed suicide.  I say supposedly because without a thorough police investigation, I'm skeptical and here is why.  First off this man has been mentally ill, on record, since about 1996.  He was receiving disability and counseling for his mental illness since that year up to his death in July of 2014.

In about 2008 he won a settlement from the U.S. Army for a service related claim of PTSD and from then on, received a monthly disability payment from the U.S. government. The retro settlement started a chain reaction of not only a vulture type woman who tried to take advantage of him but his own family of origin, brother and sisters, preying upon him because they all thought he 'had money' as the typical saying goes, which is pretty disgusting by itself.  Then, one day, after seeing a piece in the local newspaper about some of his woodworking crafts being featured in a magazine, the first female opportunist contacted him.  She contacted him under the guise of 'being interested in his crafts' while all the while she was practicing her craft of preying on an elderly person.  This one even went so far as to convince him to marry her.  Apparently once she discovered his family of origin had just about wiped out his large retro settlement, she was not happy.  The next thing I know, my youngest son got a call that his dad had attempted suicide.  All the years I'd been married to this guy (16 total) he had never actually pointed any gun at himself and pulled the trigger.  The spaciousness of this is the fact his, then wife's former husband had committed suicide a few years prior to this incident.  Coincidence? I have my doubts..  He ended up in the hospital and this marriage was annulled, ended before it lasted even six months.  Now, small town, small potatoes sheriffs dropped the ball then in any investigation.  I suppose, like too many other police departments, it's easier to just drop the ball than to actually do their jobs and investigate.  Too much paperwork I imagine.

When my ex husband returned home from the hospital from the suicide attempt, our next to the youngest son and his wife, moved in to take care of him.  The entire time they were caring for him, he never again attempted suicide.  But as time wore on, my ex husband started to drive away his family : from his brother and sisters to his mother, culminating in him telling our son and his wife to move out of his house.  He went through a series of nurses, firing them all until, one day, he somehow met this last vulture.  This last vulture was not really any nurse, as far as I can find out, but just some young woman (age 31) who takes care of the elderly in their homes for pay.  Upon his death we find out that under her care, barely 2 years, she had convinced him to make her in charge of his remains upon his death.  He supposedly succeeded in committing suicide under her watch and his body was suspiciously cremated just two days later, conveniently covering up all evidence and denying his family the option of an autopsy.  None of his children, including the one who lives in the Penn Yan area, were notified of his death until two days later, after the cremation had taken place.  This vulture claimed she didn't know of any other children and for some reason, the local sheriff saw fit to not contact his son who lives in that area.  Who is covering up what?  You decide.

She alone made sure, two years ago (exactly when she started to take care of him) she took him to the local funeral parlor to sign papers, in advance, for his cremation and NO Death Notice in the paper.  Interesting, isn't it?  But, oh it gets better still.

In those two short years, she not only convinced him to set up a prearranged cremation funeral arrangement, she convinced him to change his will.  Just guess who inherits all of his estate?  You guessed it, this vulture. Did she plan it all?  I'm suspecting so.  But in New York State, when making a will, you cannot hide your blood children.  They have to be named and they are supposed to be contacted and given a copy of said will.  Now, mind you, she claimed she had no idea where the children lived.  (Bull shit!).  Once I got wind of all this cover up attempt, I made damned sure my kids called that lawyer and let them know their names and addresses so none of them (lawyer included) had any excuse to try and screw them.  I have no doubt this is what's happening. So while this vulture thought she covered her bases, she has not.

The best part of all this is after his supposedly first suicide attempt, it left him paralyzed on one side, he walked with a cane thereafter and his hand on the other side was prone to spasms so bad he could not possibly hold any gun to kill himself. Now remember, just two days after his death, his body is conveniently cremated, burning all evidence.

 I have encouraged my children to pool their money and hire a private investigator.  The investigator not only needs to look into the suspicious nature of this convenient suicide, but to investigate the local sheriff's department and the botched investigation from their office, but to investigate the caregiver and the fact that this guy could not hold a gun.  Yes we do have her name and address.  

Final note:  My son and I need to find out what sort of gun was used because the son who was caring for him before the snake in the grass started her home care, ALL guns had been removed from the premises.  How did he obtain a gun? If the weapon of choice turns out to be a handgun, where did he get it?  This is a man who was denied any handgun permits due to prior domestic violence charges.  The stupid sheriff department told his sister he 'might of gotten it through the Internet'  Do we Not have an ATF department looking into sales of guns on the Internet, those guns having to cross state lines, or crossing into America from another country?  ALL of this need to be investigated by a PI and investigated quickly.  His kids are hopping mad and this vulture will, if nothing else, Will find out SHE has picked the wrong family to pull this with.