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PTSD and domestic violence: Understanding lasting impact

June is recognized as PTSD awareness month, a time dedicated to increasing understanding and support for those affected by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, impacting individuals’ thoughts, emotions, and daily lives. This month serves as a vital reminder to break the silence and stigma surrounding trauma and mental health, promote early intervention, and encourage conversations. By raising awareness, we can foster empathy, improve access to care, and support healing and resilience in ...

The relapse problem

Anyone who works in a helping profession will deal with success that often is followed by the person being helped sliding back into his or her old ways. The setback then needs to be addressed and dealt with. Their self-defeating behaviors have to stop if success is to be maintained When a person initially stops the problem behavior for a brief period of time we say that the person is in remission. Remission is an initial period during which there is no recurrence of the problem behavior. Relapse, however, is any return or recurrence of the problem behavior. A slip is different. A ...

Dairy Month delights

Legend has it that an urban congressman decided to visit a dairy farm. “How often do you milk your cows?” asked the congressman. “Twice a day,” replied the dairyman. “So, ten times a week,” said the congressman. “No, twice a day.” “That’s what I said. There are five days in a week, so that’s ten times a week.” “No, twice a day,” insisted the dairyman. The discussion continued in this vein for some minutes. Shaking his head, the dairyman finally turned to his wife and quipped, “Good news, Helen. It sounds like the ...

Mourning and grief

There was a time when you came into existence, and there is a time when you will exist no more. Like the saying goes, no one gets out of this life alive. Unfortunately, that includes the people we like and love. Encounters with death are inescapable. The longer we live, the fewer people with whom we have been close. Some people would call that the cycle of life. When a person with whom we have been close dies, we enter a state of grief, mourning, and bereavement. To really understand what grief is about, you have to remember how intimately interwoven your life is with the people ...

Sparks will fly with NUFS’ screening of ‘The Natural’

NEW ULM – The New Ulm Film Society continues to round the bases of its Baseball film series with a screening of “The Natural.” The screening begins at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, at the New Ulm Public Library. “The Natural” was released in 1984 and is based on a novel by Bernard Malamud. Both the film and the book tell the story of baseball talent Roy Hobbs and a decade expanding career. At a young age, Hobbs showed natural talent but an unexpected injury sidelined his career. Later in life, he returns to baseball, still showing a natural talent however the dark side of ...

Coping with problems and life

Life has its ups and downs, good and bad, right and wrong. How would you know good days if it wasn’t for the bad ones? How would you learn what not to do if you didn’t make mistakes? Since that is the way life seems to be, how do we handle the bad times? Those bad times cause stress. Stress is triggered when something occurs that demands that you do something about it. The things that trigger stress are called stressors. To survive, we have to learn to cope with those stressors, deal with them effectively, and overcome them. There are any number of stressors with which ...