PTSD and the "volunteer Army"

Yes, I know, it's been quite a while since I have posted here. I moved from my rural area, complete with hot and cold running rodents (but not hot and cold running water), to Cleveland.

Now I am nearer to the doctors at the Veterans Hospital who are supposed to be treating my various illnesses. Of course, VA health care continues to be second to none. Or almost second to none. I am still not being treated with real honest-to -goodness treatments for my disorders. So my health continues to be poor.

With the stress of moving, ,I simply did not have the time or energy to post. I am sorry about that. Of course I am sorry about many things.

I am mostly sorry about being mentally ill. I have PTSD, as those who may have read previous posts have discovered. This was an illness that I acquired as a direct result of serving in the Armed Forces in 1974. I joined voluntarily, thinking I could make a difference and serve my country, as my brother and father had. Wow. It didn't take long (Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey), to find out that some of my "brothers in arms" did not welcome female soldiers, other than in a primal way. After 40 days in a military hospital I was discharged from the service with a "personality disorder," which is something people are born with. Hmm.

Years of arguments, claims, and appeals finally resulted in the VA admitting that "more likely than not" my diagnosed PTSD was the result of military sexual trauma. MST, they call it. Sounds better than raped and bleeding, don't ya think?

Anyway, I had a counseling appointment with a new counselor in Brecksville yesterday. She dresses nice. Pretty dress, diet thin, nice impractical shoes. Smiles a lot. She can help me. We talked about my dissociation, which is when I'm not really here. This is a severe symptom. I lose time. I lose memory of events. I get lost. It can last for hours. Happens a lot to me.

Scary, huh? Not to her. She doesn't think most people are afraid of these symptoms. Hmm, sort of like being drunk or on roofies, although not with the fun parts. And there is a reason they call that the date rape drug, isn't there?

Anyway, she wanted to help me set some short-term goals. For example, would I like to reduce my dissociation from spells that last for hours to spells that last an hour, or from having spells seven days a week to having them four or five days a week. I replied that is sort of like asking me if I want to bleed for five days a week or seven, or for five minutes or an hour. I don't think that was the right answer. Then again, I am out of answers. I only have questions.

One of my questions is "Why the hell are we still in Iraq?" We know war causes injuries and mental illness, so why are we still sending overseas our people with no options, the poor, the rural, the residents of the inner city, the people society doesn't care about, to fight in the fucking desert over nothing? I don't need more members in my PTSD club! Society has no way to deal with the problems of these returning soldiers, and the VA doesn't care, even though caring for us is their stated mission.

Sorry, I guess I'm bleeding again. The pain is overwhelming.

Please watch this video that someone sent to me. I know it's long, but watch the whole thing.