Still Trying to Hold It All Together

Still Trying to Hold It All Together

This one is a hard one to write, and you will understand after you finish. As I put in my last post, I had to stop for a while, how long that was I did not know. I am not totally back, I do not know if I will be. I have had to stop all my help to MST survivors, leave my position as Service Officer of American Legion Post, stop in the final draft of another book about MST, go back to the VA and talk them out of hospitalizing me and just give me the medications that I asked for (had help talking the VA out of it only because my husband happens to have the education and experience to assess people for suicide), go up on one med and add another, return to therapy at the VA, not able to go to my husband’s work (to say hi), stop volunteering for anything related to helping others, start two home businesses that deal with just food to keep my mind busy. All this, all I had to do to just keep myself out of being hospitalized (yes a mental hospital), and the irony, this was caused by a previous coworker, her supervisor and the mental health organization that I recently tried to work for.

            I thought that after all of these years, all the self-therapy, professional therapy, medications and such that I would not ever have to deal with what I did. I know that hind-sight is 20/20, but I did not see this one coming and that made it so much worse. As I had posted before, I went back to work, or tried after I had stayed home with my kids, that and I could not actually get a job with my disabilities. From the military, the injuries that I incurred (many done to me on purpose) I haven’t been able to even think about applying for a job for over 13 years. I eventually understood that it was best for myself and my children that I did stay at home with them (it really makes a difference for them), but I have always tried to have my own business. I have dipped in and out of them over the years, along with continuing my formal education (and making sure that I was very involved with my children’s). As most of you all know I have written a few books (5) and even though I have wanted to be a writer from when I was very little, I wanted to be a fiction writer, so of course my last, ok all my books have been non-fiction (one of the many things that I cannot do anymore thanks to a few head injuries – yes, military again).

            So with my disabilities the ability of finding a job, any job seemed like it would never occur. I was thrilled when a position came open where I could help veterans, in person. I actually applied for it because the process of volunteering was actually taking longer and I would pretty much be doing the same thing. So I got the job, even talked my husband into coming with me (taking a pay cut) but it would be ‘great.’ I mean what could possibly happen? That is a statement that I need never to say, well I actually did not, I knew better, and I was right. So I get hired for my education and experience. I get to help start a veteran’s center, a place that is a one-stop, so that veterans (one day) would be able to walk in and get the help that they needed, talk to someone who really understands (because they are a veteran, been there and done that, got two t-shirts). I was very specific about what I had to have to work, accommodations for my disabilities. I had to have a flexible schedule. I get migraines and when they come on work is impossible. I also currently (and have for years) suffer from PTSD, both for sexual and combat traumas.

            So I get hired, and since both my husband and I are in the same area we cannot have the same supervisor, so I get put under someone for paperwork purposes only. Well this person did not know what she was doing as a supervisor (not that she knew what she was doing in her job either) but even her supervisor did not do what needed to be done. The first problem was that this organization is anything but organized. As I posted when I first got there, the organization did not seem to understand veterans and the issues that many of them suffer from.

            Anyway, I get hired, and I start to do…nothing. Yep, first month actually not a thing (training on computer) but no actual work. The next month my husband came on and I moved from one grant to under a contract. This contract is given to mental health organizations to help veterans. I thought, great something to do. The other grant started to really get going (my husband is great at that), and I thought that I would too. I mean the person that I was now working with, my supervisor (remember paperwork for only) but she had been in the same position for 2 years. Then I found out. This person should never have been hired for this position. She did not have the experience or the education to do it. Sure the qualification was only a high school diploma (the organization should have at least put bachelors) but there was not a requirement for that from the granting contractor – Texas Department of State Health Services.

            So let’s call her “L” (not that I do not want to mention her real name, it’s just that right now that I have an EEOC complaint in, I want them to investigate without her saying anything). L did not want anyone to work with her. You ask why? Well because she did not really do anything. She was given thousands to help veterans and the money was squandered for friends of her supervisor (who were vets) but for steaks (BBQ), gas money, and totally outrageously priced promotional products (they saw her coming and took her for a ride). I actually knew her for over a year. I had met her and asked if there was anything that I could volunteer with, and there did not seem to be. I was even trained, on the contracts bill (which means tax payers money) so that I could help other veterans, peer-to-peer, but nothing, never called.

            Fast forward to where she is with someone who takes her work very serious, that makes sure every dollar is spent in the proper way and to maximize it to the fullest, helping as many veterans that I could; that would be me. Her first comments were to complain about her supervisor that he had been using the contact money as his only personal bank account (really?).I am waiting, asking, waiting, asking, for anything to do, and am told ‘nothing.’ So I go to her supervisor where I am told that I have to be patient with her. Patient? She has had this job for over 2 years and I have to be patient? Finally after I continually asked and asked and asked (and just helped out with the other grants) I said that I could not work like that. I could not work with someone who did nothing. So the contract was to be divided. (This should have tipped me off). Her supervisor said that I should look over what I wanted to do and tell him, she would do the rest. So he tells her the same thing. She comes up to my desk and asks what I am up to (I was asked to put together a program for a grant, and did it in two days off the cuff), so I said that I had been asked to put in for a grant (to write up the program). She asked if I needed any help and I said that I did not. I did not because I was already done and just emailing the final draft over. Not that I would had needed her anyway (she knew just enough to make her dangerous). So I get this look, the look that things are now different.

            The next day we are to go over the contract and each get our separate duties. She comes over to my desk and asks if I am going to be there for a while, a veteran was coming over and wanted to talk about ‘benefits.’ Now in the office, there was (and still isn’t) anyone who knew veteran benefits like I did. I prided myself on helping veterans and you cannot help what you do not know. So I stay. I hear that the veteran is there and he gets escorted to a private room so that we can talk. L comes by the desk on the way to the other room and with a by-the-way tone states that he is in crisis. Crisis? What the heck? As I walk to the other room I grab my husband and pull him aside and tell him that I had just been told this veteran is in crisis. I cannot help veterans that are in crisis, I have my own issues and it brings out too much emotional pain. L knows this, L also knows that I suffer from combat related PTSD (and she assumes because this young veteran is in crisis, it must be from PTSD). She had set me up, set me up because she does not want others to find out that she is totally incompetent, that she needs to be fired!

            I have a choice to make. I know going into the room and talking with this veteran will trigger me at the least, retraumatize me, most likely; but I also know that if I do not go in and talk with him (because he was sent over to us for help, sent over to the office because L told the person on the phone to send him to us, not to the ER, not to the mental health section to get assessed, but to the office where the only combat veteran was me) this veteran would leave and take his life. I disassociate all my feelings and go in. I helped him out (he was at the end and would have ended his life had I not spoken with him). I told him that I understood, and I did, I understood because I had been at the same point that he was and I had tried to end it but not educated with medications (at the time) and I did not take what would have killed me, not that I did not try, just not educated to know. Later that night I lost it, the disassociation crumbled and the thoughts came back, then the nightmares came back, then the irritability and more and more. I knew it would happen, but I could not allow a veteran to kill himself when I had the ability to help, even if that meant I would pay for it dearly (as I still am). But he is alive, he is fine, he knows that people do care.

            During the conversation, she continually would say things like ‘oh that’s in the past’ and other comments that actually escalated the situation. I had to make up stuff for her to check on to get her out of the room. Had that veteran just talked with her, he would have left and ended it. I know that. Had someone talked liked that to me under the same circumstances, I would have ended it. Thankfully my husband helped out a lot, as well as the other two veterans in the office to get services and such in place for him. But what had him open up was the understanding that I had, the understanding that I had been there, that I did know what he was going through.

            I told what she did to her supervisor, and his supervisor (well who I thought was), but it did not seem like anyone was listening. She had done this on purpose. Then again, I was influenced by others; she just was trying to help and did not know what she was doing. Deep inside me I knew it was wrong, but I thought, why would someone do this to me? Why would someone who knew my past (she had been given my books, by me) put me in that situation on purpose? All that I wanted to do was to help.

            The next month and I found out more. L lied regularly to veterans telling them that she would help when she had no idea what she was talking about. She lied to organizations stating that she would do certain things and she did not. She would get veterans who wanted to do groups, wanted to volunteer and would not take their information, let alone start a group (oh, by the way, that was part of her job). She would turn on a person if she thought that they were somehow doing “her” work, even though she did not. So the Stand Down (for homeless veterans) comes and we are but two weeks away and she does not have the food settled, her job. L does not have any veteran organizations coming, she said that they did not tell her; actually she did not contact them. L decides to ask the VA if they can just change the date. Yep, she does not have a clue about the VA, not that that isn’t also a part of her job. So my husband steps in and makes sure that the Stand Down actually goes off and that veterans are served. After that three organizations do not want anything to do with a program if she is involved.

            You would think by this time the organization would fire her, right? Oh, no, not then. So she tells me that in her previous job she was introduced as a grief counselor to soldiers that had a suicide in their unit, of course she would tell them she was not…nope! She said that she already had a relationship with the unit and wanted to help. Wanted to help? She has NO experience or education to really help…nope. Just as when two veterans (that she admitted to) called and were suicidal and she talked with them. No she did not give them the 1-800 number, no there was no follow up. Are the veterans dead? I don’t know, but from her comments while in with the other suicidal veteran, they probably are.

            I continue on. I am given the women veterans and I ask her for all the women veterans that she has contact information on. You know, her job, finding veterans. She states that she knows 1 (that happens to be the other woman veteran in the office). She really does not have one? Almost three years in the same position, 18 counties in East Texas (that’s what the contract covers) and she knows not one?! So I am just done with even thinking she has anything to offer. I go along and start to gather names. Both of us are tasked with having groups started in January, February at the latest. I am going along great then I am told that her supervisor (the person who divided the contract) is planning an ambush meeting. He is going to ambush me after the weekly meeting to talk about what I can do to work with her again. I say nothing, I wait to see if he actually is going to ambush me, I wait for an email, it does not come. I am not about to continue with this. I resign. I told him, as I had told everyone that I could not work with her, I did not trust her, I would not allow my name anywhere near hers (it was poison to veterans, veteran organizations and other community organizations).

            I resign, stating hostile work environment and don’t put an ending date. I worked part-time. I did not know how long it would take to make sure the work I had done went to someone who could be trusted to continue with it. So the next day I am working from home, emailing and going on when I cannot log into the website. I call my husband who tries it out and says to call HR because they might have a different way since I am leaving. I call and am told over the phone that I no longer work there. I am locked out of the computer. All the work that I was doing, all the emails that I had out, all the women veterans and others that I had been working with, all of it locked. The organization did not care that I was in the middle of anything. They did not care that veterans would not be called back who had been interested in groups (groups because they were not doing well after the military). A mental health organization did not care that people whose mental health was at risk were not going to get the help, just nothing, no call, no email, their emails would go unanswered because all of mine were locked out. I had some of their client confidential information, confidential office papers, lots and no one asked for it. There is a procedure that you do an exit interview as well as going over other stuff when you leave, nothing was done with me.

            Because my husband still worked there I was trying to be professional. I was not doing well but I was still trying to help. After a month I get a call from HR asking about my complaint and go in. I tell her what happened. Ok, now this is the scary part. I have the qualifications, education, skill and experience to make this statement and that it should be taken very serious. I stated that in my personal and professional opinion that L would be the end cause of a veteran to commit suicide if left in her position. I did not make, and I do not make the statement lightly. I thought that it would be taken as I had given it, but it was brushed off. I was brushed off. Here I had been retraumatized, the mental health organization knew it, yet was I asked if I needed any help? Was I even called? Emailed? No!

            What did happen was that after I told HR all that happened my husband (when he got home from taking our daughter to college, his first day back) got an email from his supervisor (yes the same supervisor of L’s, the same that I told, the same that knew all that happened) that he needed to have a conversation with my husband as to how I could continue to talk yet not have it effect the center or the organization! A threat? I no longer worked there, I could say anything that I wanted to, but to call my husband in and tell him that they need to discuss how I can continue to ‘express’ myself and it not look bad on them?! I could not believe it. Then I read the email that he had been sent. Attached to it was copies of my blog, this blog, highlighting areas insinuating that I am just a critical person and that I should not be talking bad about the organization, program or their employees. Then another email that this guy (his supervisor) sent out to an outside agency saying that I had personal conflicts with L, and insinuated that I was the problem, that I was spreading rumors that the American Legion Post that I was affiliated with was going to try and take the contract they had, and that they (L and the supervisor) were dealing with it, and that I had said this and that to certain people (who I had not) The whole thing was just a bunch of stuff tossed together mixing times, people and incidents to make it seem like I was just a critical person. Then an email forwarded by L. This email was a personal one that I had sent from my personal email address to an organization before I went to work at the center. The email had personal medical information about the limitations of my disabilities. L had gotten it from someone who did not have the authority to give it out. This was it, this was the straw, this put me over the edge. I was just hanging on and then this, just at it had been in the military, lies and people trying to make up stuff that did not happen to make it seem like I was a problem.

            Yes, I have an EEOC complaint in. I have also told the contract holder what happened. I am also going to put in a fraud complaint in. It has taken a while for me to get to the point that I could even write the emails, make the complaints. Actually make a sentence that made sense (not that I do, but at least I am told that many understand what I am trying to write). How ironic, the organization starting a trauma-informed care program (all the while traumatizing an employee then tossing her to the side). Oh, it hurts, and I am still trying to get things in order.

            As many know, trying to get into see anyone quickly at the VA is pretty impossible. So when it all fell I called and the first opening to talk about adding to the meds (and upping the ones I was taking) was a month after the call, and two months to talk with the social worker. So it has been rough. I thank all who have asked and been concerned for me. I am sorry that I could not formulate even a coherent sentence to explain what I was going through (what I am going through). I still cannot continue with the final draft of the book. I haven’t been able to help the people that I have wanted to. I have been in my own mental world trying to keep myself out of the hospital (no thanks to the VA) and I do not know when, or if I will be able to return to the advocacy that I was doing for veterans. The supervisor (L’s supervisor) was a Marine, and a Marine was the first person attacked me on the night I went into the military. A Marine was who took so much from me years ago, and it just hit so many triggers this time. I haven’t had these thoughts in over 20 years and I thought that I had worked through them, but it’s not just a retraumatize it’s actual another trauma that has now been added. All I wanted to do was to help and all I ended up getting was abused. For trust issues? Really what is trust, other than something you give no one! No one!

            I know this seems to just continue on without much focus, but that pretty much is what it is like for me right now. Hoping that I can make it through a trip to the store without bursting into tears, or fleeing because I ‘see’ things. Ok, before the VA gets any more information to actually put me in a hospital, another trauma the VA caused years ago. I will end this.

            (If there are misspelled words or sentences that do not make sense, well I did not go back through this, I just wrote, I cannot go back through it, not yet, not today.