The VA ignores and downplays not just the severity of the symptoms of PTSD, but the events that cause them as well.
I want to apologize for the paucity of posting. The nightmares have been so severe and so frequent that they keep snapping me awake every few minutes after I manage to fall asleep, so I'm subsisting on an hour's sleep here or there, always during the daytime or with a light on. As a result the hallucinations have gotten to be especially severe. My roommate keeps telling me gently that I call out in my sleep a lot and ask her to please go see who's talking. Yeah, I hear voices. It's come to that. It's exhaustion, partly but---not all. I guess some of the drugs I take might be behind some of this.
I smell things that aren't there. One of the worst things is road repair during the summer, when the smell of burning tar makes my heart hammer in my chest as I frantically search the house for what's causing it. I wonder how many Memorial Day barbecuers know, for example, what the smell of fire and burning meat does to a soldier? Smell is one of the most vivid triggers there is; for me, it slaps me backward in time, to the smell of dust and smoke and blood. A young Polish soldier was running up to me in the gun turret, his hands coated to the knuckle in blood, bright red blood on top of his helmet. The Poles had left the gate one minute earlier than we had. The bomb had gotten them, not us. That kind of thing will stay with you. What do you have to do to a human body to make blood fly out till it tops your buddy's helmet?
I hear what these voices say. This summer one particularly chilling nightmare presented me with the sound of two voices talking quite clearly outside my open dining room window. "Do you think she knows we're listening to her?" I fall asleep because I'm so tired and I think I'm actually awake, so I have...I guess....waking nightmares and the voices are phantom enemies. They talk in other rooms and I ask my roomie to go see if someone's there and she looks at me compassionately and with worry and tells me that no one's there. There are also the noises of someone prowling in the house, of people trying to break in, or insurgents somehow finding the house. I hear a lot of running footsteps outside, then look outside and there's no one there, no one nearby who could have just been there, nothing. I should point out that these are not the cases of the house shifting, or where I'm just mistaking normal noises for something else. These are sounds of phantom mortars off in the distance, of visions where dust and sand briefly supersede maple trees and Victorian houses. It's like fainting, the sickening feeling when the scent of burning rubber or the feel of the heat and haze in the summer make your beat even before you're aware of it. When I fall asleep I often dream of physical attacks where I have no battle buddies, nor body armor, nor weapons with which to defend myself. I also smell burning tar and rubber and electrical wiring. And sometimes I smell sand.
In one nightmare I had to lie down in someone else's blood and pretend to be dead to avoid a gunman. Except for pretending to be dead, this is something I saw in Iraq. She was eight months pregnant and her son watched her die before his throat was cut and he died slowly on the street. We should have protected her. There should have been so many, many more of us. Even today, it's the guilt over not doing more and better that rides me.
All these symptoms, I believe, are the result of the VA leaving these things so long untreated that they ballooned into immense proportions. They do not get better on their own, and treatment that was in a word stupid does not help, either. The vehicle-related panic attacks were and are tackled with little more than, "Oh, just get on the bus, get till the panic attack gets to be bad, then ride it out." That might work for mild panic attacks, but mine leave me soaked in sweat and unconscious. No help, no assistance---just, you're on your won, get over it. "Get Depends," suggested one therapist. There was no consideration of what would happen if I passed out on the city bus and how that would affect me emotionally.
My Iraq CO and I were talking about the convoys we did in Iraq, and he informed me that I had been using the word incorrectly. You see, a convoy is designed to cover large amounts of space, and we regularly crossed Wassit Province, the largest province in the country. I'll let him speak for himself--and for me and other soldiers as well. This was in resopnse to a troll who called me a liar and said, basically, that he was a real soldier, women were not, and that I was especially bad at it.
What the hell??????????????
Thanks for posting this. I had absolutely NO idea what people out there really think. 50 cal?? Who had a 50 cal? And for all that matters, for about half the deployment, who had armor on their HMMWVs?? Show me combat arms units who ROUTINELY tool around Iraq in two or three UNarmored vehicles and 4-9 soldiers (before you make up stories just realize I DO have crossed rifles on my collar). THAT was the world Ginmar lived in when she was at war.
In MY unit BOTH genders are soldiers, and will do ANY job they need to do. I have said it before, Ginmar and I do NOT agree on everything, but ANYONE who feels the need to question her war experience come and talk to ME. I have personally seen Ginmar's face covered with dust, sweat and sunburn. Do NOT belittle a soldier in my unit. That goes for all ranks and both genders. The only soldier you can berate in my unit is ME. I KNOW who works and makes me look good, and it's those men and women who apparently don't have the right to be affected by the daily stress of being shot at, mortared and going on WAY undermanned, under armed and under aromored patrols. A convoy when we were there had to have 6 vehicles, anything less than that was a patrol. We had OVER 300 patrols, and maybe 6 convoys.
I have certainly had individual soldiers who perform at different levels, but I have yet to notice that that has anything to do with breasts and vaginas. I am not to proud to admit that what happened to Ginmar's team in Kut was more intense combat than anything I have experienced personally. I know it doesn't compare, but it was the longest day of my life and I honestly thought we were going to lose them (yes, that means I thought they were all going to die or worse).
ANY soldier who needs ANY help (whether it be physical or psychological), PLEASE seek it out, and keep fighthing until you get that help. There are NO other explanations needed to me. You served your country, you need help, enough said. Let's make sure those soldiers (I'm using soldier as a member of all branches and other coalition countries) get the help they need with dignity and respect.
And for you the journalist who used to be an MP: FUCK YOU. You are a disgrace to veterans.
.....
Can't even handle convoy duty. What a crock. I remember when are USMC ANGLICO neighbors at Babylon heard we were going to Kut and asked us to deliver some radio hub batteries to their team that was at Kut. When we delivered them their Major Team Leader asked how the trip was. Then he said "YEah, I don't want to say you guys were the guinea pigs, but...".
Then the Marine XO in Diwaniyah "Your guys are more familiar with this area then we are, so could your guys escort our QRF when there is a call out?". So after that my "not real combat soldiers" ran escort for the Marine QRF for a few weeks.
The teams in Najaf were unable to get food and water, so my guys took it to them. The ODA said "You guys shouldn't come here, it's too dangerous." A few hours after that my guys dropped off MREs and water in Najaf.
Most of 11 MEUs HET teams were made up out of National Guard soldiers I personally took to Iraq.
My soldiers developed an infomal motto "If it's to dangerous for the Marines and SF we'll do it." Realize that it was a joke and not to be taken literally (before I have every marine and SF trooper start yelling at me).
I absolutely hate it when people have abolutely NO idea what other people did feel the need to downplay that experience. It takes a LOT out of you when you leave the wire (and not many soldiers left more than my troops). If you are not absolutely spent when you reach your destination you quite frankly didn't do it right.
Now after I said all of this to make my soldier look cool (and it's all true by the way, and I can go on forever) let's just realize that we all have different jobs to do, and we should simply do those the best we can. BUT Ginmar was at war, and she was in a "real war" no matter what anyones definition is.
....
People have no idea what we did. And most often I am ok with that, until they feel a need to somehow downplay the courage, valor and honor of my soldiers, then I just start foaming at the mouth and speaking incoherently at an inanimate computer screen. Remember when our crew served gunner used to be a soldier in the back seat of a soft sided (or NO sided) 998 with a SAW or 60 in their lap? And then it became someone standing in the back totally uncovered holding on to the stick (theoretically it was the gunmount) for dear life. And THEN finally the 1114s. Saw no real combat my ASS. SOme of these clowns have NO idea what happened there. I could give unclass stories for hours about what you guys went through. And not just in Kut, I mean the entire time and the entire MND-CS. (For example Ukranian Colonel to me: "You're going to Najaf?" "Would you mind escorting some tanks?" Me: "Tanks? As in they have guns?" Him: "Yes they have guns." I then find out that the tanks in question were FUEL tankERS that the El Sals needed in Najaf, but didn't want to escort themselves because it was too risky.) I'll stop, but it's something I feel VERY strongly about.
We spent an awful lot of time on the roads, and what's odd I liked it. I just couldn't stand the office and wanted to get out and talk to people and see the green, green fields, the palm trees, this lovely country. You manage, somehow, to bury how dangerous it is, but every now and then it strikes you; the times we had to drive over jury-rigged bridges where insurgents had blown up bridge, or that one time, as the region was cooling down from the Easter Uprising, where we crossed one third of the country to do a mission and found ourselves at an abandoned checkpoint. An Iraqi police vehicle was upside down in the river beneath another fragile improvised bridge, and the checkpoint it self was shot full of holes. As we searched for evidence of what happened, a mushroom cloud rose on the horizen---near our destination. Then another formed right beside it. We were going to drive right into that situation cold, which is about as fearful a situation you can imagine especially once you know what a really serious firefight is like.
Once I came home and started having panic attacks, it seemed perfectly obvious to me that there was a connection between these attacks and the amount of time I spent in vehicles in Iraq. But I had to figure that out on my own, and most of the time, that's what I'm stuck with. Is it really that simple? Or am I wrong? I don't know. As I said to one doctor, "Hey, doc, which one of us has the medical degree here? Maybe I should ask the questions and you give me the answers?"
The startle reflex has become extreme. God help the person who comes up behind me now. With it remains those weird, almost Buffy-like reflexes. I can throw objects with amazing accuracy, something I never was able to do before, but that's compromised by the injured shoulder and back, which cannot be treated until I can reliably get to the VA for treatment of the panic attacks, which are repeatedly addressed thusly: "We have to get you in here!" That's all. It's like they think it's a scheduling inconvenience. They do everything they can to ignore or downplay their severity, but they're the things that choke the life out of my day and make me despair of ever living a free life again.
When you have PTSD, there's so many layers that it takes ages to assess them. There's the things you saw and did that haunt you. Then there's the separate issue of the illness and its symptoms, which can be debilitating all on their own. Then there's the treatment, which is often frankly inadequate or hit or miss. Then there's the process of getting one's injuries and illnesses identified as related to your service, not some mythical childhood illness which has never shown up till after the war, and did not involve, say, mortar attacks. Hopelessness comes because war is often a character-builder, and surviving it makes you feel stronger than you ever have felt in your life. Facing rudeness, skepticism, and insensitivity repeatedly from the people who are supposed to fix you, though, robs you of that confidence. It never ends, either. Every now and then you get another slap in the face when what you desperately want is to say, "I went through this. I'm going through this now. I don't know what to do." And what you get is,
"Well, we've got to get you in here!" Yet they never ask about what you've gone through, so you wind up talking about symptoms, or making moccasins from a contractor's kit that does more for the contractor than you.
And so I spent my days trying to get snatches of sleep here and there, knowing that the anxiety and sleeplessness should not have been allowed to get so severe that they result in altered consciousness. Exhaustion can do that to you. Added to that the exhaustion increases the anxiety to the point where again I get terribly nauseated and anxious at the mere possibility of leaving the house. This includes but is not limited to extended spells of vomiting till I wind up curled upon the bathroom floor, shaking. I feel dizzy upon standing up and my vision is sometimes occluded by swirls and slashes of light. The VA---and its various personnel---have not been sympathetic, as one would think that when someone with a history of this kind of thing goes through an especially severe bout of this one might look back to the horrible series of events with the tooth, the various resulting infections, and the drug reactions and see how this could add to existing, untreated problems. One reason the debacle with the anti-biotic allergy and skin reaction went on as long as it did was because it turned out they had given me a medication that I had had a anaphelactic reaction to a year before. This reaction---in which I had trouble breathing, my face swelled up, my eyes became swollen, and basically experienced every symptom on the box requiring emergency care---was greeted by my doctor with skepticism. I got the distinct impression that she was skeptical. Now, when a patient has severe symptoms you would think that this would be cause for alarm. In her case, it added up to a patient who had done their research and was faking it. In fact, one thign I've dealt with at the VA repeatedly is the idea that if a veteran presents with classic symptoms of anything, that means it's more likely than not that they looked it up and are faking it.
What people don't realize is that this adds up. You're not just dealign with the actual illness, but with the the things that happened to you in the war. Then there's the process of getting benefits, wherein you get to see your medical records and how the doctors put in writing that they think you're full of shit. Or else what I saw repeatedly reflected in mine: the doctors do not write down or seriously underplay symptoms of PTSD that point to service-connection; they often twist or exaggerate what is said about things that help the VA deny claims. In the case of women veterans, sexism means that women veterans are treated as grasping, scheming, whining gold diggers or whatever the stereotype of a scamming female is. (My lawyer who helped me win my case has contact with lots of other lawyers who help veterans and all of them agree---off the record----that a major component of women veterans not getting adequate treatment are sexist beliefs, even when the care giver themselves is a woman. Even when, say, female patients are subjected to sexual trauma, the veteran is urged not to fight it or offered support, she's encouraged to change her attitude toward it, not fight, just accept it and adjust her behavior. I saw sexual assault victims whose therapy included developing a less abrasive and more accepting attitude.
Here's the thing. Untreated PTSD symptoms are added to the memories of what happened during the war. There are layers and layers of things to deal with. The lack fo understanding from the VA is yet another one of those things. These people are supposed to be medical professionals. They reguarly fail to notice flat affect, signs of disorientation, and a hoarse voice, which is a common side effect of throwing up. It's like they look for ways to avoid paying attention, something that has been in marked contrast to the non-VA personnel I've dealt with at regular hospitals. I was shocked when I tried to commit suicide and the staff at the civlian ER treated me with kindness, compassion, offered help that didn't have to be pried out of them, and didn't wait for you to ask the magic question before they'd answer you. "Magic questions" are those where unless you ask precisely the right question, they'll give you a yes or no question. Refusing to volunteer obvious information is a hallmark of this performance. The VA excels at this kind of thing. I just found out that the VA has a program where therapists can visit you at home. You would think that this sort of thing would be a boon for a veteran who's agoraphobic, right? No. I had to find out about it from another source.
This is not a case of butterflies in the stomach, by the way. This is your body reacting in a conditioned way to fight-or-fight impulses that have not been eradicated through treatment but have been allowed to increase to incapacitating levels. I feel so weak right now that when I finish this I will collapse and wait for the bed to stop spinning. If I'm lucky, the struggles during nightmares won't wake me a up a half a dozen times. Most often I'm not lucky.
This, in various degrees, is what I slog through every day, and I mention this not for pity---I dn't do that kind of shit----but as an explanation for why my writing has been so infrequent. People go, "Oh, nightmares' as if they were childhood nightmares. When I'm in the midst of one, I think it's real. So it's hard for me to collect what thoughts I have and write about important issues when I'm having problems with basic functioning.
So, again, I'm sorry, because I feel that I have a duty to try and inform people because I cannot serve in other ways. I think that we owe it to our fellow citizens to be helpful, and as a soldier this is especially important to me, as I grew up with the notion that you're only entitled to what you earn through your own labor. When I was working, this was no problem, as I regularly worked 90 hour weeks---and loved it! People who work, whatever job they do, are I think an extremely valuable part of our society, our social contract. This is why I really don't understand the way immigrants---illegal or otherwise---are so reviled in some sections. They come here, they work, and even if they send money home, their labor still produces for the economy, and it enables others in their shop to produce as well.
Please don't tell me I've already paid my dues. I'm a citizen as well as a soldier. I think we are all our brother's keeper, no matter what.
And...I'm fading fast, so again, I'm sorry, and I hope I'll be able to keep it up.