Somebody hold my hair- I’m going to throw up.
Is someone seriously considering the “verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office” to be equivalent to what someone like the OP is going through?
I got injured, not wounded. But, yeah, especially after the way the Republicans passed around Purple Heart Band Aids at the RNC in 2004…Way to support the troops, guys.
It should be noted that a real PH is awarded for injuries suffered at the hands of the enemy in war. It also entitles the holder to certain monetary awards throughout life.
Oh, they know. It is cheaper toclaim injured vets have personality disorders and discharge them without benefits, than it is to treat them for a lifetime:
margin, what ever you do, do not let them talk you into signing a discharge under Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13. You will lose all of your disability and medical benefits, and may end up owing the government thousands of dollars when they take away your enlistment bonus. You need a lawyer familiar with military benefits law.
Beyond the medical issues, I think this is the most germane point of this thread. Your fight is far from over; in fact, when you got back, that’s when it really started.
You know? And if they’d just stop fighting and fix me, they’d have a fighting soldier back in the rolls. This jerking me around is preventing me from being useful and that’s what I want. Aside from fighting the bureaucrats, who’d want to live like this? It’s like they aren’t even listening sometimes. I have to say, too, the wait to find out is just killing me. I had to apply for county assistance just to keep my lights on. They’re hoping people will give up.
If this stuff makes me mad, it’s nothing compared to the pop pyschology therapy they hand out. For one thing, it’s that passive crap that tells you that ‘you can’t change the world’ to which I say, “Watch me.” Veterans are idealistic, committed, energetic, and altruistic. The last thing we need or want is being helpless. A good dose of ambition and connection is EXACTLY what we NEED, because it gives us something to do and be a part of. Instead we’ve got these therapists telling us not to be so confident, idealistic and brave about confronting stuff.
I’ve called the governor of my state as well as the two senators, just in case it gets really bad. One thing I’ve found: when you bring the governor in, stuff gets done. I didn’t vote for ours, but I will give him this: his pro-vet stance is REAL. He genuinely supports vets.
It’s taking between two and four months to get an answer on an appeal claim, and I’m nearing the two month mark. I hope to God they find in my favor because then I could afford a new doctor----a civilian one.
Margin, do you mind if I forward your OP to some firends as “The words of an Iraq Vet who chooses to remain anonymous”? Your story is very moving, and describes the issues with the VA in a much more personal way than anything I’ve seen. I’d like to share it. I understand if you’d prefer not to.
Thank you so much for your service to this country. Thank you for sharing your story. I’m going to start donating to the DAV, and will encourage others to do likewise.
Go ahead. And that’s not even half of it. You often face this skeptical attitude going in, as if you’re trying to get away with something. Remember, I had to submit video of what I’d been through to get them to believe I was in a battle. Why should I have to do that?
margin, I am so sorry that you are having such troubles with the VA. Do know that it is not just you, nor is it just a recent development. The VA should be helping you, and it is wrong that they are giving you the runaround and utterly reprehensible that they are not doing what they should. It is also rather typical.
My husband was disabled by the Army on his first day in the service. At one point they diagnosed the issue as conversion disorder, or in other words, it was all in his head. Later, bone fragments were removed that were causing the pain that had prevented him from walking. The DAV is great and without them and some few good doctors in the system, we would be much worse off, but the combative, skeptical, attitude is very wide spread within the VA.
More recently, my husband’s knee pretty much fell apart. The surgeon who had patched it together had told him to expect it, and he actually had years more of use from it than the surgeon expected. That the knee would deteriorate and need to be replaced was documented in the same letter that set his disability level and changed his discharge to honorable. The VA told him since he was so young, he could not have a knee replacement and would have to be content with not walking at all; due to fibromyalgia, he can no longer even use crutches to get around. I was able to get him a knee replacement and the VA eventually paid for most of it, but if it was up to them, they would have let him rot in a chair the rest of his life with a clearly treatable condition which was service connected even by their own admission.
I have had agoraphobia, and have PTSD and understand how debilitating it is. My agoraphobia got better with support from my husband. I hope you are able to recover too. I do know that pushing too hard too soon seemed to make it much worse. Good luck.
They’ve apparently got their therapy backwards, too. You’ve got it right - building your confidence up and getting mad and ambitious and taking an active part in working on it is exactly what you need to recover.
I keep scaring my doctors. One of them tried to use a study on me and I asked her if it had been reviewed and who under wrote it? They did things like art therapy and crap and I spent most of my time rejecting this crap. I may be sick, but I’m not stupid.
We had a vet who was a hundred per cent disabled, who’d been a medic in Viet Nam, and who was desperate to work, to do something. His son was having difficulties, so despite his own troubles, he was helping out his kid and…until I spoke up and called him a hero, nobody acknowledged what he was doing. Another guy was a tremendously dignified black man from my old neighborhood, whose son had been arrested for driving while black. This gentleman was absolutely terrified of what would happen to his son, and to make matters worse he’d been hit by a stray bullet from a drive by shooting that wound up paralyzing him. They had him down as an addict. I was thinking, “You know, if you think addiction is the problem here, you’re a fool.” Treating symptoms did this man no damned good at all. He needed practical advice on helping his son and selling his house and handling his new inability to use one arm. Addiction was what they pegged him for, and damn, I just thought, “You know, if that’s how they identify problems…”
One time they decided to ‘treat’ my vehicle and exterior panic attacks by throwing me in a vehicle at the last minute and sending me out in public. No warning. And the sexism-----I sat there one day while one guy talked about he was having problems with his wife and his girlfriend, and all I could do was throw my hands up. “You think?” Another guy was very mild-mannered, very diffident, and he had a history of wife-beating. He’d been a cop, too. With the exception of the VN veterans, I was the only combat vet. My contemporaries were guys who were trying to cut a deal on their various court-ordered sentences. Argh, I’m going to stop right now otherwise I won’t stop. And I had to explain to them—the therapists----that if you’re dealing with a woman veteran, you’re probably dealing with some form of sexual assault, so what do we thikn about placing that woman in therapy with guys who’d abused women? (That was me trying to be tactful.)
I’ve more than a passing acquaintance with both the VA and the public mental health field.
These cliches are true: Catch 22. Red tape.
These cliches are also true: Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Early bird gets the worm.
“They” say they’ll call you next Thursday? You call tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that.
The good news is that, eventually, someone will talk to you. The bad news is that classic Catch 22 - If you think you’re fucked you can’t possibly be fucked because you know you’re fucked.
Please persevere. And those you talk to in other places? The ones not as strong as you? Take them along with you.
“Well, he didn’t SAY he was going to commit suicide…” is not a valid clinical response to a suicide, sorry.
Please take care of yourself.
“Well, he didn’t SAY he was going to commit suicide,” is exactly the defense the VA used recently when a twenty-two year old Marine committed suicide.
I was talking to one of the chiefs in my unit recently, about how my feeling is that vets need a whole new kind of therapy that takes away that higher power shit and gives them ambitions. He said I might very well have to create it.
I have to say, too, that the older vets were some of the coolest guys I’ve ever met.
I called the VA info line today to find out why my claim is taking so long. Turns out they’re processing my claim absent any information about the suicidal depression which consumed almost two months of the fall and which led to my hospitalization. Oh, yeah, and my therapist said I ‘wasn’t’ really in the hospital----meaning, huh? I was at the hospital every day, lived by its rules, and slept in a building on the damned site. Where the fuck was I?
Oh, yes, and three MONTHS after I filed my claim THEY’RE STILL DOING TESTS. They just requested my presence two weeks from now for some tests. How come I have to wait three MONTHS to get all my frickin’ tests done?! No wonder claims are taking so long!
Oh, yeah, and the exam they gave me? Pure bullshit. Forty five minutes of cursory questions by a guy who didn’t question me in depth at all. That’s how they decided your fate.
Not that I’m pissed or anything.
margin, your story is heartbreaking. Though saying “thank you” is insufficient, I offer my deepest gratitude for your sacrifice and devotion anyway. I know a very little of what you are going through, being the daughter of a Vietnam Vet who has never quite been a “normal” person, though he hides it fairly well. I’ve also spoken with many vets unable to get the VA to do for them the things that should be so simple. As a medical debt collector, I’ve been on the sidelines as frustrated vets try to get the VA to let them use their benefits or pay their bills as intended, only to be pushed through red tape, forms, meeting and other such crap. What you are going through is something that many other vets have experienced.
This is a terrible problem. Our veterans are deserving of the utmost care, respect and consideration. It seems that large scale action is our only chance to change the system, vets fighting individually are not able to make changes while dealing with their various injuries and problems, this needs the attention of people like the ones who have posted above. I thank you for bringing this to the attention of us all. Please take care of yourself and keep fighting for what you deserve - I know others of us here will be doing what we can as well, as more people like yourself bring attention to the plight of our veterans. Again, thank you for all that you have done. You’ve been sent to fight a very unpopular war, but I hope if we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we learned that the soldiers have (mostly) done nothing more and nothing less than what we have asked of them, and politics aside, we owe you all every service we can afford.
Please forgive me if any of this is incoherent, I’m very tired but had to post some sort of reply before I went to bed. I didn’t want to put it off until tomorrow.
The Viet Nam vets are the guys who did the hard work for us new vets. It’s them that people like me owe a debt of thanks to.
You’re not incoherent at all. I’ve just discovered that they have disappeared my near-suicidal depression—thereby increasing it----and replaced it with an EATING DISORDER.
To a willing person, no injury is done??
Are you trying to say that margin volunteered to undergo this type of treatment by virtue of enlisting to serve in the Army?
If so, that sounds rather unpleasant. Dishonest and unethical action is not an implied condition of military service.
As a condition of my job, I studied the Geneva Convention. And I served under a commander who urged us every day to think of the Iraqis as we thought of ourselves. I fought to keep people out of Abu Ghraib. I was unsuccessful. I was inadequate. That’s where the guilt comes from. But I did not believe my president would lie about three thousand American murder victims. I could not.
I have to admit to not understanding what is going on with the United States and their military presence in Iraq. I’m pretty well-informed as far as a foreigner goes, and it doesn’t make any kind of logical sense to me. As far as I can tell, there is some massive kind of hidden agenda going on here, because my rational mind can’t get from A to B to C in this whole mess.
No. My comment applied to the part of her post I quoted.
But it looks like it is in practice.
Margin says that "In a heartbeat, I’ll do what [the Army] ask[s]. Well, they want her to suck it up. They took her service. Now she’s crocked and they’ve dumped her in some sorry excuse for treatment.
So she can either accept that the military system has treated her with undue contempt or she can keep loving it and do what it asks: suck it up.
I have to agree with this. That does seem to be what is happening - once you have done your service with the U.S. military, don’t expect follow-up support - they are done with YOU. It isn’t what people have come to expect (and frankly, it isn’t what they SHOULD be doing), but it is what they ARE doing. It’s about the weaselliest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time.