Frustration continues with the VA after 20 years.

Frustration continues with the VA after 20 years.

I don’t know why it would be any different. I had high hopes that 20 years later the filing for disability claims would at least have some improvements, I was mistaken. I filed for the claims that have been previously denied because I did not know enough years ago to be able to rebuke their decisions. Today I received a letter that I found really telling. I believe the letter was to put me from the “awaiting a decision” pile into “awaiting more information from the veteran,” for the mere reason to have a lower number of “backlogged” claims for the end of the year. Why? Well when I had put in for the claims, I attached a 45 page annotated detailed list of when, where and why for all of my claims. The letter which I received was the want of more information. I have been helping others with disability claims due to Military Sexual Trauma, actively, for the past 5 years. I have gotten the veteran what they were entitled to. I know what is needed to file and win a claim, the process of the VA, the certain words that need to be put into the claim, what is needed from the doctors, all of it. So when I got this recent letter, after it has been in the claims process for about a year (it was a continuation of a file over two years ago), I just had to do some deep breathing techniques.

I wonder how many other veterans have received such letters just to allow the VA to have better numbers with their backlogs for the end of the year. This exact thing has happened a year ago, take me out of the “waiting for claims” to put me into the “waiting for the veteran” pile. The one paragraph in the letter that made me take even more breaths was “You have claimed exposure to an environmental hazard based on your service during the Gulf War. We can take no action since you did not claim a specific disability. Tell us the specific disability that resulted from your exposure so we can process your claim. Attached to this letter is a more detailed guide called “Submitting evidence for claims about GULF WAR UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESSES” to help you submit evidence in support of your claim.” This would not as be as frustrating if I had not already been given this paper (a year ago) and gone over it, again, line by line putting in all the information. I filed the exact same information from the exact same requested information from the beginning. I have had two Gulf War Registry Examinations, the first one the VA lost all the information on, except the one page that states when I had the exam done and who was the Nurse Practitioner who got the beginning vitals. Everything else in the exam is somehow lost from my records. I have had another one completed with the listed disabilities that I have because of the exposures, also submitted with previous claims. I have listed the exact symptoms and disabilities which are related to the exposures, they have been conveniently removed from this claim, thank you VA. I will be sending them in a copy of the original claims process and also the one where they sent me back the letter stating what I was claiming, which is yet another reason this is so annoying. To continually remind the VA what the claims are, even when the previous letters they sent had the disabilities listed, and now they don’t. It continually amazes me how the years change, but the inconsistencies, mind-numbing stupidness, and “lost” information from the VA does not.

For the past 20 plus years I have purposely utilized the VA for the symptoms which I know where caused from my service time. So the evidence that is still around, ok, if they haven’t purged it, is in my medical records, and the limited records that I have been given from the VA. Complete records I have continually requested and not been given, again Thank you VA.

As I get older, the disabilities are not getting better, but worse, and I have a sinking feeling that I will one day die from them. Before that time I want to make sure that all of the issues are documented and recognized by the VA, so that when I do expire from one of them (or a combination of them) my family will still be able to receive the benefits that I have fought these past 20 plus years for. It’s exhaustive to continually look through my records, continually tell the VA they have the exact information they are continually requesting, the information that I gave from the beginning.

For all of you who are in the claims process, maybe just received a letter asking for more information, information the VA has already been given, just so that their numbers look better at the end of the year. I feel for you, but do not give up. I have been fighting over 20 years, and I will continue to fight this until I receive what I am asking for. I do hope if I die while in the “claims process” my family will continue with my claim until they have the letters agreeing that the injuries were sustained in the military, were due to my service, and are service-connected.

On a lighter note, a Merry Christmas to you all, and a Happy New Year too.

What is unique about Military Sexual Trauma?

What is unique about Military Sexual Trauma?

There are unique aspects to Military Sexual Trauma which you do not have in the civilian world. I have watched the “Lauren” episodes on youtube.com/wigs. There are three of them and I would suggest you also see them. Besides the obvious errors, many veterans and active duty will pick up on, it is done very well. 

Chain of command and rank play an especially central part when it comes to reporting a sexual assault and sexual harassment. Although the two are handled by different agencies outside of the above listed, your chain of command and the ranks involved are such a huge factor toward justice being started or to be pushed under the rug. 

Many may see Lauren as a tale of fiction, but I am here to tell you, not only does what occurred in the episodes happen, it can be worse. At times it is not the choice of doing what is right and doing what you love that silences a person, sometimes it’s the threat of death on the victim, or the understanding if she says a word, the next time the squad goes out on manovers, she might not come back. That is a serious threat, spoken aloud and insinuated to many women who have been victimized.

I would have liked the episodes to end on a better note, not that it is not what happens, and I for one completely understand what does when you do what is right, but that’s what needs to be done. I understand many of the repercussions, I lived through many of them, but even though justice was not even looked upon in my cases, I did what was right, on a few occasions. I would like to say that I did what was right on all of them, but I succumbed to fear and threats. I most likely would not be writing this right now, had I did what was right every time, but my conscious also would not be harping on me for giving in.

I know many people are afraid of death, afraid of being discharged, being written up for things you did not do, being labeled with a disorder and discharged, not be able to continue in what you love, be considered a screw-up, have lies spread about you, and have to fight to have some of these things changed (just a little); but, in the instances that I did what was right, no matter the consequences, those are the incidents that I can look back on and feel firm in my decision. Those decisions cost me what I loved to do, cost me so much, but it is better to be able to state you did what was right than you did what was safe.

I know for a fact that justice will eventually prevail, maybe not in this life, but in the end justice will prevail and they will be held accountable for what they did. And I will also be held accountable for my decisions and I will be able to say that I did what was right. I did not have to ask for forgiveness, I did not have to go through the steps of repentance. It was never said that when you do what is right that all will be ok. Sometimes doing what is right is the beginning of your trails.

One aspect why Military Sexual Trauma has a higher rate of PTSD diagnoses is just what happened in the Lauren clips, the cover-up from people who are supposed to be looking out for your welfare. When a restricted report is made, the victim may NOT talk to anyone but the three listed personnel: health care/mental health counselors, Chaplin, victim advocate (VA). They cannot talk to any other persons, or those persons (if they are in the military) must come forward and report the incident. 

Although it seems as though restricted reporting is helping the person stay anonymous, the negatives are tremendous, and are an added risk for developing more severe mental health issues. It is not the fact that you can supposedly stay anonymous and still receive some help, it is that you are restricted to who you can talk to.

These are some of the uniquenesses which can occur with Military Sexual Trauma that in the civilian world it is not an issue. How would you feel if you had been assaulted and your immediate supervisor, and his boss are told what happened? That everyone you work with knows, not only you were assaulted but many of the details? That you come in with your statement, a video of the assault, all the evidence to prosecute and convict the perpetrators and you are told that you need to just suck it up, deal with it, you are now restricted to who you can talk to about this incident, you will never get justice, oh and by the way, one of the perpetrators is the person you have to work with every day, to show respect to, call him sir, salute if required, to be at his whims for your evaluations, to be subjected to his commands for what post (position, area) you will work at? How would that make you feel? He knows he raped you, he knows you know, so at ever chance when nobody else can hear he tells you how much you must have enjoyed it because nothing happened to him. He gives you sly smiles, brushes up against you, then calls you a slut and whore to his buddies. Everyone knows what happened and believes their stories of how you wanted it, you liked you, you slut.

Now try and be professional at all times, thinking only about the job, being told that you are not doing a good enough job, written up for things you did not do, but no keep those thoughts and all the rest out of your mind as you are walking point with everyone behind you, knowing at any moment you could be ambushed or run into the enemy and the bullets will be flying. Don’t think about which of the bullets will be flying toward you, the “friendly fire.” As you walk, you know full well that there will not be yellow tape put down and an investigation conducted if bullets happen to not go past you to the enemy, but to your back. And don’t think that at any moment, if the bullets start to fly, or a bomb goes off, that the people behind you, you know the guy that assaulted you and got away with it, his friends who believe that you wanted it and are just making problems because now everyone knows you’re a slut, will wait for you to get back to safety, make sure they put down suppression fire so you can get out. Don’t think that they are having you go first, knowing full well if anything happens you are the most likely to die. No, you cannot think about that, you have to think about all the other things you are there for, or you will mess up and you will come back in a bag instead of with your “comrades.” 

When thinking about veterans, or active duty that have been in for years, know that congress mandated the military into making the SARP (Sexual Assault Response Program), in 2005. The Lauren clips are what happens now, so think about what happened before. So before 2005, there was no agency that gave regulations on how to respond to an assault, it pretty much was up to the command, if that was the person who you went to. But even if you went to Law Enforcement (military) it usually when back to your commander. Your commander had the ability to say if he wanted this to go forward, or if you need to just be silent. It would amaze most civilians to know that your boss gets to decide if you were assaulted, or if it was just a “misunderstanding.” How many of you would put that into your boss’s hands?

As you have read, there are uniquenesses to Military Sexual Trauma, and it is imperative that these uniquenesses are known by the majority, not concealed by the military.

  

Positive releases of anger.

Over the years I have communicated with many who had been taught that anger was a sin or evil, that at every moment you needed to be in any other emotional state, other than anger. You could feel guilty, you could be sad, happy, content, the list goes on and on, but not angry. I was not brought up that way, so the concept of anger being bad never crossed my mind. I know there is righteous anger, but the way we release it, and it needs to be released, determines whether it is positive or negative.

It seems everyone knows the tale of the parent getting yelled at work for something they did not do and kept  in that anger until they got home and release it on the child who then releases it on the dog. The downward spiral of anger is very harmful, and it usually is not circular, it ends on the bottom, but the process can repeat over and over again. Or it can just be that one release of an angry burst toward someone who did not have anything to do with the cause.

I have been the target, many times, of displaced anger. Most times I would like to lash out and just pummel (verbally or written) them, especially when the anger was mix with an intent to inflict personal emotional injury. That has been a very difficult skill to continually exercise, but I am thankful that I have gotten much better.

So what can be a positive release of anger? I hate to even write the word but, exercise. Thankfully that is not the only positive way, or I would be seriously in trouble. You can scream, just out loud, not words, just the scream. I would caution you as to when to use this; you do not want to be in one of the next “People of Walmart” emails, or Youtube hits. There are hundreds of thousands of articles and websites which list a cornucopia (just really like to use that word at times) of ways. What is helpful for one does nothing for another. What works one time, might not the next.  Find many that work for you.

You can talk it out. This one has never worked for me. Although I see myself more on the rational side, I can talk myself into rational ways to negatively deal with anger. Some can use exercise, I swear, I am an oddity, (liked the word better than freak, plus it was the first to come up when I clicked for the synonym) when I exercise I just get even more angry and angry, that is if I begin exercising while I am angry. It seems the more negative energy that I release in that way builds more up. I can be totally exhausted and completely ticked off. I write and usually get distracted on a word in a sentence that I want to use but cannot think of it, so I look for it, then find another one, then wonder if that word would be good in another piece that I am writing, then think about the other piece, then… I get can get totally lost in writing, so much so that I must continually read what the topic is, or the past few paragraphs to remind myself what it was that I had begun to try and communicate in the first place. I also tend to get very calm doing very intricate work, like beading (I normally use size 15s in the seed beads and 1 – 1.8 in bicones and other beads), taking a toothpick and cleaning out the little spaces that can get dirt and grime into them (on the stove, the microwave, around the sink, even the push buttons on our cordless phone) take a paint brush to the edges of the trim (we are remodeling our house, as well as have added an addition).  I also like to think of new crafts, and ways to make the craft using items normally not used that way. Or I take out the propane torch and do a little “art.” But that’s me.

There are many ways to positively release anger, and having it is not bad, remember Jesus became quite angry in the temple area at the money exchangers, and he gave up his spirit sinless, so the emotion of anger is not a sin.

One final note, if you find that writing something out to release that anger helps, before sending it (if that is your thought), think about it, what will it actually accomplish, was that person even involved, or are you transferring the anger onto an innocent bystander who happened to wander into your sight at the time?

How the truth was changed without my realization.

How the truth was changed without my realization.

It happens to many, and I would not have even thought about it unless I had looked back at my journal entries to help with my healing. After I had been sexually assaulted, I had known it. I had written in my journal that night that I knew I had been sexually assaulted; my supervisor had tried to rape me. I was righteously infuriated by the response of not only my fellow comrades, but also the Captain, who was our compound commander, especially considering we were Security Police. I had gone straight to the desk, straight to tell what had happened; only to learn the perp, my supervisor, was already there and saying that it was a joke. During the assault his own Military Working Dog also knew what was going on and attacked him. So he tried to say that he was tickling me and that is when his MWD bit him, the “joke” that he said was that his dog did not want to lose an “easy piece of ass.” I could not believe the others were not only buying the lie but laughing at it, at me, at the sexual assault. I read on through the next months to see the change in the truth, the change that I was now buying into. So many had continually told me that I had just “misunderstood” the assault, it was just that he was tickling me.  Because of the continual harassment and further horrors I went through from his doing, eventually I began to question myself, did I really misunderstand? Did it really happen the way that I knew it had? Under extreme stress I started to say that I had been tickled, that even though the “joke” I knew was still sexual harassment, that is what it became. The truth had changed; they had been successful in changing what was a sexual assault to sexual harassment, even in my own statements that I made, I could see how torn I was. I wasn’t torn that night of the assault, I knew what happened when I wrote about it, yet even with the complete understanding that it was a sexual assault, where had I began to question my own truth?

            Did your truth change because of what others told you? Did you ever question what you had known was right, known what happened, what it was, to something else? It is the ploy of the perp as well as others to do this, to change the truth to protect themselves, to make something horrible not so. Most understand the perp’s reasons, but why the others? There are many reasons. In the military, one of them is that you do not turn on your own. Even though the victim has been the one who was turned on, it is easier to go along with the perp, to discount the abuse, discount it was sexual, discount that your unit is not cohesive, discount that dishonor runs rampant through the services. Since the majority of perps are higher in rank than the victim, many just see the stripes, the shiny pieces of metal on the shoulders and that is all they see, rank vs rank, and in the majority of the cases that means the victim loses before she or he even opens their mouths.

            One of the hard parts in this path of healing has been to look over what I have accepted because of the want of others to replace the truth with something else. I do not blame myself for their brainwashing. I am not of weak character for it to have occurred. Just as they wanted what happened to be something else, I had also, for different reasons though. I really wanted it to have never happened; I wanted it to be a “misunderstanding.” I wanted to accept their lies because it was easier, it was less horrible than the truth. Now I know that although I still would love the truth to not be what it is, that is not healthy for myself or others. What happened did, it was sexual assault, it was attempted rape, his MWD did attack him (even his own dog knew), I was betrayed. As hard as it was to accept what I knew as the truth, what I had written, it is so much better.

           

Evil choice

The words that were used.

There have been times that I have been stuck in the investigation and understanding of what has happened to me. My thoughts were that if I only could figure out the red flags that I missed, or the “why me” I could prevent being sexually assaulted again. But that is so not true. It is yet another way to try and control the chaos that we call life. It has nothing to do with the “why” from me, it had everything to do with the “why” in his mind, and that cannot be figured out. You cannot read another mind, you cannot truly know what they are thinking, what they are scheming, or what they are planning to do.

Sure looking back some see the “red flags” they assume they missed, or they pushed out of their minds with “oh that’s not what he meant,” but is it really necessary to try and figure it all out? For keeping yourself safe, listening to what your feelings were at the time can be helpful, but sometimes there were no red flags, you look back and cannot see what “you did” that would have caused it, what “you did” that would keep it from happening again. The horror of it all is that it wasn’t what “you did,” (or did not do) you cannot make yourself completely safe. Because evil exists in this world, there truly is no “safe” place. I challenge any therapist to tell me where this “safe place” is, and I will give them a scenario that makes it not safe. But just because the world is not safe does not mean that we try and hide ourselves away from everyone hoping the less contact with others, the less possibility to be hurt. That is not healthy. We are social and made to be with one another, to help one another, to love one another, and at times while we are doing this, bad things will happen. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It is not what has happened to you, but how you perceived what happened.

I thought back to when I had been first assaulted in the military. The perp told me that I wanted what was happening to happen, that I liked it, that it was me that caused this to happen. That’s a load of bull that we need to get rid of. It is these words that were used by the perps and by others to have us wondering what it was that we did. To try and shift the blame back on us. The perps do it to get out of what they did, to rationalize to themselves, to put blame somewhere else, and even to help turn your own mind against you. Others use these words to make their seemly safe world stay that way, to block that there is true evil in this world, that another can take pleasure in the humiliation and torture of another human. That is why so many people want to associate some type of mental illness with someone who commits these acts, they do not want to really know that there is nothing mentally ill about these people; they have just chosen evil. They did not just sit back and let things happen, they acted upon the evil, they made a choice to do it. And you cannot understand the reasons why they choose that evil, it just is.

So why do we choose to use words that would give some responsibility to what happened back on us? Because we are bombarded with them. Our bodies knew what was happening, our minds just tried to rationalize something that is not rational, give meaning to something that is meaningless, find the red flags so that it does not happen again. Evil will still happen. We need to know that, accept that, and move to live in a world with that knowledge. All those words are used to protect others, not ourselves. To protect the perp from the responsibility (and rightful consequences) of their choices, to protect the rest from taking their heads out of the sand and admitting there is evil, there is not true understanding of it, we cannot put some diagnosis on it, it is not a mental illness, it was a mental choice, an evil mental choice.  

Leaving the Bubble 21 February 2012

Left my Bubble for the annual Texas Veterans Commission Summit earlier this month, and am just being able to feel my normal.

I had a table there, to set up information about MST and my books. It went well, all except having to recoup from leaving my bubble. What is my bubble? Well it is the places that I have considered, not safe, there is no where on earth that truly is safe, but where I am familiar with, I have scanned the area, I know the exits, I know the layout. Also I can get home in a reasonable amount of time if I cannot deal with the noise, smells, sounds or people. Away in Austin, there is so much to be anxious about, and I was. This was the first time that I was "public" (in person) and talking about MST to people I was not familiar with; the first time after being dumped by the National Organization of Women because I did not fit into their agenda (1992). That was a hard lesson to learn. I truly thought they wanted to help me out, to bring light to what had happened to me, what was happening to other women in the military. They knew my story and right before I got in front of the media I was asked to leave out certain parts, parts which did not politically run in line with their agenda. I did not, I was there to tell what happened, not to be censored by an organization that was supposed to care about what was happening. NOW victimized me, they betrayed me and left me. I would not use the words "fetus" and "miscarriage," that is not what happened, I used "murder" and "baby" because that was what happened. They knew my political views, they knew the story, they just wanted media for their own agenda, and it was NOT to help women, it was to further their own political presence. So I closed up, publicly, and it took years to work through that revicitimzation that they knowingly caused.
Austin was different. I was not the same person standing behind the table that had sat in front of the live cameras. Even though I am much older (and hopefully wiser) I had a new since of anxiety, than I had back in 1992. Back then I did not know that I no longer was able to comprehend and absorb information as I had done prior to my concussion.  At the time I knew there were gaps in my memory, but I had kept meticulous journals, so even without being able to mentally recall events, I had evidence they happened. As I said, I did not know this new me, I did not realize that just trying to learn something new was now going to be a chore, as it was so easy before. I have taken classes over and over on the same subjects hoping with each additional class, each additional book that I read, something would stay.  My new anxiety was forgetting what I knew. Forgetting what I had written in my book about MST. That is the worst. For the past 20 years I have been educating myself as much as possible, but my ability to keep that information is limited. I once read a quote on line, thought "that's good, I need to quote this person" only to realize the quote was from what I had written. I wanted to quote myself. Not only an annoyance, but serious anxiety when you are talking about the subject without the comfort of a manual to follow. Then there are the days that my brain just wants to stop working, where I can think for hours on how to spell the word "if." I know what it is, at least I have the feeling that I know the word, used it millions of times, but when words are gone, simple words, it's hard to answer questions when you know at any moment the conversation could change to Latin, and I don't know Latin. Not that the other person has any idea that what is coming out of their mouth seems to be %**&&^E*, but they are still talking English.

My English teachers would have a field day with me. I can go from complex psychological jargon, sentences that are the entire paragraph to first grade and "see me write," and not realize that my mind has once again misplaces a whole book full of words.

I know, I digress. Back to the bubble. So I am out of my bubble, out of the area that I know, with anxiety levels off the charts, which lowers my already compromised immune system (thank you toxic chemicals from Saudi, as well as the others that were shot into me - Air Force). After I get back, it's about a week later that I can get out of bed and do a little around the house. Two weeks later and I am back to just about where I was before I left. Now as long as nothing else attacks my immune system, and I stay away from stress (I have teenagers, this is almost an impossibility) I will function at my normal again in three weeks.

Many do not understand the toll that stress (anxiety, hypervigilance, negative thoughts - PTSD) can have on a person's ability to keep their immune system working to keep away the simplest viruses that are an everyday attack.
Back to finishing up the 200 promotional necklaces that I am doing for the next VWise program.

I don't feel my age, I feel dead

I turned, but my knee did not and now I sit thinking that life would be nice without pain. I injured myself, well was injured in the service, and those injuries are compounded on the fact that my body is older than it was. I am in an exercise program and the 70 year olds are asking if I am ok. Having been seriously active all my life, then the military, multiple injuries and life is not the same. I am not saying things could not be worse, oh they could, but I watch my 17 year old daughter, the same age that I signed up for the military, and see how she just spurts around, leaping here and there. I was like that, I had that ability. Just as I was, she has a thin frame, but very strong, and I miss it. I am waiting for her to come to my side while we are on the mat and say, "mom, maybe you need to just take it easy."
I have to laugh since my instructors now tell me that if it hurts to slow down or stop, so different from the screaming in your face if your leg isn't blown off, it better be moving. The suck it up, suck up the pain, deal with the swollen joints, the multiple bruises, the cuts, the bites, the whole lot of it and all the time thinking that I was being "strong" and "tough." At the same time that this strong and tough thought was going through my head, the damage to my body, the damage that cannot be undone was being compounded upon.
I remember the pull off the 10 foot cliff in the jungles of Panama, the log that stopped my decent and split. The rocks which were plucked out of the side of my face and forehead, the pain of my neck and knee and shoulder. The pounding in my head for days. I was taken to the ER, no x-rays, just the go back to the barracks and if you are still hurting tomorrow, come in. I had been knocked unconscious, my head was throbbing, I had little holes in the side of my face and forehead from where the rocks were plucked out by a syringe. I did go back the next day, had all the complaints (only thing they decided to list on my medical charts was my knee because it was completely swollen). So I get one day to recuperate and  back to the long hours of walking around all night, catching dogs by the arm (with a rap of course) and training, and working and thinking that I was being strong. I was told to suck it up and I had. Even when the tears began to fall, I did not return to the ER, you only are allowed there once, I already had been the next day and that was looked down on. I mean, hey I should have just sucked it all up, instead of going to the ER just took out my knife and plucked the rocks out myself, yes a little sarcastic.
So now that the curve of my neck is backwards, I have arthritis, degenerative disc disease, bulging disk, pain, pain that i am not about to suck up. Pain that I had put a claim in for, and the VA did x-rays (a few months after I was out) sure enough in the x-rays the curve going the wrong way, but a denial stating there was no record of treatment for cervical injury. You know, neck pain, that could just be about anything, like maybe the fact that I was pulled off a 10 foot cliff, hit my head on a log, my face buried into the dirt enough for rocks to get imbedded in my face, then another accident and again no x-rays, sure that's not why when I went into the military my neck was fine and now its just always in pain, different levels of pain, but pain none the less.
That is one of the frustrations being a veteran. You are told to suck it up, that you cannot go to the ER, that you need to get back out on the flightline, or in the jungle, you suck it up to be a tough solider and when you are crippled and in pain, the VA says there is no treatment for the condition. So as medical personnel they did a terrible job, doing the same thing, telling us to suck it up, only putting one listed complaint in our medical records, and now we pay again.
Constant pain has a way of making you a little irritable, and I guess this is my venting for some of it.