A SOLDIER'S PERSPECTIVE
THE WEB'S LEADING MILITARY BLOG SINCE 2004
This article seems to say they are passing out PTSD diagnosis to anyone who walks by and sneezes. It is not easy to get a PTSD diagnosis, that is the truth. When this same issue was brought up in the Veterans Administration, the government investigation showed that there was less then 1% actual fraud on PTSD diagnosis and service-connection compensation. When we do get that term put on our records as a service-connection, it is not a favor done for us. It means that we owe these men and women who have been destroyed in mind, body and spirit by the incredible sacrifices the average person would not think possible.
In a lecture to colleagues, a Madigan Army Medical Center psychiatrist said a soldier who retires with a post-traumatic-stress-disorder diagnosis could eventually receive $1.5 million in government payments, according to a memo by a Western Regional Medical Command ombudsman who attended the September presentation
The psychiatrist went on to claim the rate of such diagnoses eventually could cause the Army and Department of Veterans Affairs to go broke (By Hal Bernton, Seattle Times staff reporter).
We did not hit the lottery because we get this diagnosis, this in not a windfall or something special in terms of winning. The diagnosis for PTSD is not permanent as it suggests, we are subject to reviews yearly and can be called to come before the Compensation and Pension Board. The 100% rating is a living wage paid monthly to us while we heal, and some of us may never heal completely. Most of us do not get the 100% rating, to suggest that this is the normal ‘payout’ for this detrimental psychiatric wound is dead wrong. Most veterans diagnosed with PTSD carry a 30% rating, not much to live on.
The system is overloaded not because of fraud which research shows is under 1% at the VA; the problem is not veterans or soldiers trying to work the system. The problem is not taking care of our soldiers and veterans when they become symptomatic, its not taking them seriously when they get home. This type of culture in the military and the VA effectively keeps soldiers and veterans from getting help in the beginning when it would do the most good.
As axiomatic to veterans as the oath they swore to defend the U.S. Constitution is the reality that a veteran filing a disability benefit claim encounters the VA’s ‘deny-delay-and-hope-you-die’ culture (Micheal Leon, Veterans Today).
It is sad that the we are being labeled as malingerer’s again by another government organization trying to balance their budgets. I was called a malingerer to my face by nurses, doctors, psychiatrists and many people at the VA for the first 5 to 10 years due to a hostile culture towards veterans in the 90s in Louisville, KY (VA is better now in Kentucky). It was after the overwhelming evidence from the wreckage of my life I was finally diagnosed with PTSD in 2005 and received my 80% compensation in 2010.
I was actually service-connected in 2002 with hearing loss and tinnitus due to enemy artillery, but they had issues with reconciling my personal combat experience with the way Desert Storm was portrayed in the media; the myth that the First Gulf War was a bloodless conflict of buttons and smart-bombs. When I told them of the Highway of Death and driving seven (7) days without sleep, about what it looks like to see the world erupt in so much death in so little time; the 100 Hour Ground War was an enemy meat grinder. I was the Point Driver, an Mechanized Infantry Soldier leading our Main Battle Tanks to the enemy. My vehicle led 5,000 men into combat in the Biggest Tank Battle in the History of War. Driving in between explosions, mind screaming to go anywhere but here. I’m looking to move a brigade, not just myself. I am scanning the immediate ground and the terrain for the best movement for our unit, the landscape has a moon quality due to all the craters erupting from explosion after explosions. Their artillery was as good as ours, I hear it most days, boom, boom, boom in the distance, but when the detonation is near you can feel the meat in your body shake like jelly and you try and control your movements to keep going, no time to die.
We operated at exponentially high stress rates everyday of our deployments, living on the edge of life and death to serve our country and freedom. Knowing you should have died a hundred times can leave us numb to everything; our loved ones included. This country owes those who cannot cope with life or make sense of what we did and saw in combat; this may take decades. That is what we should focus on, how do we reduce the amount of time it takes to reconcile war trauma so that we may live without the red vistas of war spraying all over our reality today.
Any therapist or psychiatrist worth their salt can discern malingering, lets test them on that and not the veteran. To blame the soldiers or veterans just alienates them further and reinforces “If you go forward with asking for help then you cannot be trusted.” We loose 18 to 22 veterans a day to suicide, this culture of denial is killing more of our soldiers and veterans then the last 10 years of war, over 60,000 veterans to suicide in the last ten years. That’s not counting the suicide in the military.
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Excuse me ladies but how would you know if the scammers are aware of e
CJ
Who would WANT a PTSD diagnosis? Only a fraud would. I would give anything to get rid of the chaos going through my head and be a normal person again. Since going public about my battles with PTSD, my life has been turned upside down. I have been isolated by the military and marginalized. When I got my driver license renewed in Texas, I couldn’t just pay the fee and walk away; because I had PTSD I had to prove I was capable of taking a test and actually driving the damn damn vehicle!!
You are right, this will encourage troops to keep it bottled up until they internally combust.
This post is my personal opinion and not representative of the Army, the Department of Defense, The United States Government, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, III Corps, the 101st Airborne Division, the 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, the 511th MI Company, the School of the Americas, ISAF, RC(S), RC(E), RC(N), RC(W), CENTCOM, TRADOC, FORSCOM, Recruiting Command, The United States Marine Corps, the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, The United States Coast Guard, The Boy Scouts of America, the Department of Education, or any other unit, department, office, Section, squad, platoon, company battalion, brigade, division, Corps, any branch of service, rank, MOS, or any other segment of official military or government, real or imagined.
Scott Lee
Thank you CJ, I too would give just about anything to not have to perform heroic mental feats just to talk to a friend and remain in the moment and not let the hallucinations, both visual and audio and other nasty traits of Combat PTSD from interfering in my life. It is too easy to become lost within the swimming vistas in my head.
Now that is insane; to prove you can drive because you have PTSD. Wow, talk about ignorance and stigmatization.
CJ, today I try and look at issues and moments like this as a teaching or learning moment. When I TRY and see it through this perspective then it helps to defuse the anger rolling in my head. Whether I write about it (journaling for you since the Army has imprisoned your creative outlet) or getting through to another bureaucrat to change a hostile culture towards people with a mental wound, one person at a time.
howard love
CJ, we thank you for your service and all you have been through and hope you keep healing. Howard and Americas Littlest Patriot
Scott Lee
Thank you for your continued support of CJ, we need understanding and unconditional love to begin to heal.
Claudio Alpaca
Dignity require to get PTSD with evidence. It is not synonimous of people without mind or with compromised mind: it is, on the contrary, synonimous of people who has conctracted the problem from several sacrifices made for serve others, for serve us by war, threaths and more. Buddies, have not problem to tell You are affected by PTSD, as this is the consequences for a live spent for freedom, for others. It is a problem for You, as any health problem, and require a silent war.
Be sure You are not alone. I solidarize with all You; if you have necessity, also if for a word, conctact me by
e mail to this address: claudioalp@alice.it
Sincerily Claudio Alpaca
Pieve di Teco, 10. 2.2012
Scott Lee
Yes, when we contract Combat PTSD our sacrifices can and will continue for decades. But this does not have to be a silent war we fight in our heads. CJ is on the forefront of not only battling a physical war with the REAL enemy, but he is combating a hostile military culture towards mental wounds. Speaking up and talking about PTSD to dispel the ignorance and stigmatization is whats needed. Instead of marginalizing CJ, the military should use his experiences as a leader in a campaign to educate the military on the ways of Combat PTSD and how to get help.
Debbie
I think it’s important for a person who has been traumatized to eventually come to an understanding of the symptoms of PTSD. Not to have it crammed down their throat or for someone to sit in judgement of them, pointing out to you that your behavior displays the classic symptoms of PTSD and recommending to you that you get help for your problem. How annoying and belittling. But to simply understand on your own, apart from the opinions of others (which are generally unhelpful) that what you might be experiencing is well within the normal range of human experience after going through traumatic events. My personal opinion, just for myself, I do not think it’s important to get therapy for it. I consider therapy to be counterproductive. I’m not saying just suck it up and get on with life; certainly that never worked for me, but without ever having had therapy (and which I’m better off for), I feel that I eventually came to a point where I can move past the pain in a positive direction, even while acknowledging it, and I know I’ll survive because I already have for the past two decades. My PTSD is not combat PTSD, but stemming from two other major areas of my life, both stemming from and intimately connected with military service, but I’m sure not what anyone disconnected from the situation would consider to be service-connected. I don’t mean to be taking anything away from combat PTSD, of which there is no match, but in reality, it is in observing combat PTSD that I have come to learn and understand so much about myself and my own behavior.
Scott Lee
If you have never been too therapy, then how can you say that it would hurt more then help?
Not getting help for Combat PTSD is how we are loosing 18 veterans a day to suicide. Not getting help and doing it on your own will make most combat vets live a life of solitude, rage and anger of which the consequences can and probably will be too much for us to take. Not getting help is not the answer. To suggest that we can do it on our own is counterproductive and actually serves the purpose of those who wish us to just go away.
Therapy and therapists are fallible just like us, they bring in their personal stuff into therapy as we bring our selves and issues to work. I suggest that therapy can help, I have been in therapy for 6 years now and it has been my savior of my mental health. The best therapy that works for my is Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), as it forces us to challenge the survival instincts that have been burned into our consciousnesses. Go to at least 3 or 4 sessions, if you are not connecting with your therapist then ask for another one. If you are in the VA receiving your care then go to the counter and ask for a ‘Change of Provider” form. Fill it out and tell them you don’t trust your therapist.
The chronic nature of Combat PTSD necessitates that we get help immediately, this culture of denial is killing our soldiers and veterans. We cannot do this alone. To do it on your own is not to live a full life, it can and will consume you and your loved ones.
For the Combat Vet suffering in silence, Please get help as soon as possible, you do not have to do this alone. Please read, We Cannot Make it Through the Confines of our Minds Without the Help of Others.
Harold
Guess where the Administration will be finding those 178,000 troops to be RIF’d….does the initials PTSD give you a clue.
Grace
All of you who are suffering PLEASE believe me that there are so many people in so many places who feel for each one of you. We try to understand your pain and help you if we can. Please don’t keep your symptoms locked inside yourself. Give therapy a try. If you don’t connect with one therapist try another. Most of all please do not feel you are weak or to blame in some way because it is so difficult and painful for you to deal with life.There are lots of us supporting you, believing in you and understanding the terrible way the system is treating you. I wish I could say more to help you but I don’t know what other words I can use here. Please know and remember that many, many of us understand, believe in you, realise what horrific experiences you have been through and care about what happens to every one of you.
Scott Lee
Thank you Grace for your words of encouragement and acknowledgement of our sacrifices.
Karen Teeter
Scott, Sir have you ever read about the Coping Strategies that Col. Antonio Monaco gives freely through the 501c that he founded, named “Patriot Outreach?”
I use the civilian version of it, and it has helped me more than anything I’ve ever tried. The wheel of my mind is something that no longer drags me along with it against my will. Thanks to this mental exercise I can get off of this wheel. My mind was stressing me to death but it is not, anymore, though Of course I use it twice a day because I’m not “home free,” yet.
He has finally gotten some folks from within the ranks and some recently retired to give their names in endorsement of it. Col. Monaco’s website is http://www.patriotoutreach.org .
Here’s a few of the folks that are recommending the colonel’s discovery.
“In my own experience as a commander, I have seen Soldiers make rapid and sustained improvement through use of these [Coping Strategies] CDs. I was relieved to have these CDs available as a tool our Chaplains could hand out to Soldiers and their spouses. Soldiers, who otherwise refused to seek help, benefited by using the CD in the privacy of their home.” – MG(R) George R. Harris, recently retired West Point General assigned to the Office of the Secretary of the Army
“Amazingly, it (the Exercise) keeps showing and reaping benefits. I’ve never been more patient and alive. The secret is in the watchful observance without struggle.” – L. Brown U.S. Navy, Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam
“Patriot Outreach Coping Strategies CDs. “I have rendered a positive opinion to TSG (The Surgeon General).” – Dr. (COL) John Bradley, M.D., Chief of Psychiatry, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
“The Be Still and Know Exercise works for me. It calms my soul, enhances my thinking, and improves my emotional regulation. I am thankful to be a more resilient chaplain.” -Chaplain (LTC), U.S. Army (Southern Baptist)
“Hello I am a Professional Counselor in private practice and a volunteer in the ‘Give An Hour’ program. I anticipate needing no less than 6 copies of this product to use in conjunction with current and future active therapy cases. If you can supply this request i will be grateful.”
Thank You,” -Major W. K.
“May I have 10 copies? I am a family member of an active duty soldier. I am also a clinical psychologist working with soldiers who have combat stress and PTSD. I think the cd would be a good resource for my patients. Thank you,” – D. L, PsyD RN FNP (Clinical Psychologist)
“This is basic training for the mind!” – PFC J. Oehring, U.S. Army Infantry (Deployed to Iraq)
Thank you for your service and for allowing me to share here.
God bless and keep you,
Most sincerely,
Karen, a military wife and mom-in-law
Dan Holdwick
Can anyone please point me to the reference for the 1% fraud rate? Also I would like to get in touch with Scott Lee for permission to use website for training program under development – great resources / links / etc…
~ Dan