Sad story of a veteran with ptsd

[rocketman]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news....Enemy.Within/


This is our time as civilians to either do our part to help where we can, or turn a blind eye. We will have a generation of people needing help, and the military beaurocracy will certainly let many fall through the cracks. Hopefully they will treat the iraqi/afghan vets better than the Nam vets who they waited for most to die before they acknowledged they were exposed to agent orange, and other atrocities commited against them after they returned from war.


Helping can be as simple as being there for these men and women to listen and lend support where we can. They deserve better than what they will likely get.

[Beastmaster]

An overhaul of the VA would be nice....

[Lefty]

Bet the other shoe on those depleted uranium shells is still years out.
True shame if you have ever visited most VA hospitals.

[Irishlion]

yeah man those depleted urainum shells are extremly radio active. That why you have to take the protective coating off them before loading them into the cannon. And yes coming from a disabled veterian a overhaul of the VA's Hospitals would be nice but, their care is top notch when you find a decent hospital like we have here. But, they could diffently be ALOT more efficent. But, IMO someone should have reached out a hand when the symptions of PTSD first showed up. As a verteran that used to suffer from PTSD and still does. It takes alit of counsoling and theropy and a strong mind to keep it from destroying you. Especially when they just slam you back into civilian life from what you are used to. It is a very very very overwhelming experience. IMO any veteran that has combat experience and is trained to do certain tasks as special opps are or extreme combatives have experienced should have to the option to get or go to consouling and theroy (deprogramming if you will) before they are ever discharged.

[firerat]

I have a family member that is going through this right now. His hand was blown off by an IED in Iraq. He was "evaluated", treated, given his purple heart, and sent home.

For the last 2 years, he hasn't been able to go anywhere that is remotely crowded. Movies-no way man. When he first came back, we attempted to go to the local mall. He started sweating, and his eyes were pinned wide open. I asked hime what is wrong, he said he didn't know where all the exits were and had no weapon. He slowly declines in his room getting worse everyday.

We try to get him to go to the VA but he refuses. Not like it would be much help. The VA hospitals around here remind me of going to urgent care with no health insurance. You wait for hours for a frustrated, overworked doctor to rush you through, give you some meds, and send you on your way. Half the time their record keeping is awful. There is never enough people working. The ones who are look exhausted.

It's really sad. These guys go over there and fight without question. Whether or not they are for the war is irrelevent. They fight. Some die. The ones that survive should have the best medical treatment that exists.

Ok i'm done ranting.

[Hippie3]

i don't think there is a way
to fix a soldier who has seen alot of combat.
no drug, no counselor can un-do
the damage done.
they are casualties of war,
and no amount of spending
can change that
nor make the nightmares stop.

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i don't think there is a way
to fix a soldier who has seen alot of combat.
no drug, no counselor can un-do
the damage done.
they are casualties of war,
and no amount of spending
can change that
nor make the nightmares stop.

i agree hip i still have flash backs and have very tormenting dreams at times but, after 4 years of thepory and alot of psyatic drugs and over 9 months of pysc ward lock up. I am better to function in society then I was to start with but, it is true it does never really go away but, the treament does help one function a lil bit better

[firerat]

I agree that no amount of therapy will make the nightmares stop. But it may well assist in coping with what they have seen. It saddens me to think they(veterans) are not getting the treatment they deserve. Whether or not the treatment helps is based on the individual.

To say they cannot be helped is like a cancer patient not going for treatmen because it won't help. I don't think someone with advanced prostate cancer or lung cancer will be able to "get rid" of it. But they still should get treatment all the same.

I don't like to think of them as casulties. Lost maybe, but noy casulties. (I just personally hate the word).

[Hippie3]

helped ?
do you know any vietnam vets ?
i have friends who left 'Nam behind
nearly 40 years ago,
been in and out of the VA mental wards,
and let me tell you please
what 'help' society gives-
they keep them sedated.
that's about it.
the docs shovel pills to the vets
to keep them from going off,
just about anything they want, they get
because everyone is afraid of them,
even their own family and friends.
they're just
waiting to die,
living on a disability check
in a housing project-
warehoused, sedated, paid off.
it's not about helping the vets,
it's about protecting society from them.
that's the 'treatment' vets are given,
because no one knows how to fix them.
best to just keep them
comfortably numb.

[lost_onabbey_rd]

pretty fucked up
but thats the truth hip
very hard to de-wire several years of programming
way more effort then our government is going to put into somebody they no longer have a use for.
grew up with a nam vet next door, chain smoked cigs like they were going out of style and his buddy jack was never more then an arms reach away.
wife left him, his kid was a rebellious little punk (though probably a product of no mother and an alcoholic father)
my mom hated for me to go over there, place was a wreck, and she didn't exactly trust his temper i guess.
but as far as my memories of him go he was pretty cool, not in a james dean sort of way. but he was a smart guy and always really nice to me, granted i was one of the only kids around that actually called him Mr. and not just bobby.
but you could tell he hadn't slept well in YEARS.
sad really that these soldiers are programed to do a job and endure the stresses of live combat, but little to no effort is put into rewiring them for civilian life.
one could almost argue that it would be best once over there to just leave them there.
if your gonna train a dog to be an attack dog and attack anything that appears even remotely threating
you probably don't wanna take it to play fetch with a bunch of kids.
i think it would be interesting to see effect what psychedelic therapy could have with PTSD.
i know they have been trying to do some research with MDMA, which makes sense, try to reconnect them with objects and people here, as opposed to the metal and sand they are used to.
this thread reminds me of the Charlie Daniels song still in saigon .. that song used to bring a tear to my eye even when i was a kid...

[firerat]

My father and 2 uncles are vietnam vets. A 3rd was killed. 4 of my cousins are veterans of the current Iraqi war and 1 is still in country. Yes I know few veterans.

Yor right, some are just too far gone for help. Sedation is the only logical answer. But to say all veterans cannot be helped is quite bold. In fact most can be helped to cope with what the have seen. Unfortunately the resources in our VA hospitals are limited to passing them through and dosing the shit out of them.

[Hippie3]

i am speaking of

a soldier who has seen alot of combat

. not all do.

[firerat]

I myself would have served but I was in jail.

[firerat]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

i am speaking of . not all do.

And not all who have seen a lot of combat are casulties.

Some are.

Some just needed a little help.

Some need a LOT of help.

ALL deserve the best of help.

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

helped ?
do you know any vietnam vets ?
i have friends who left 'Nam behind
nearly 40 years ago,
been in and out of the VA mental wards,
and let me tell you please
what 'help' society gives-
they keep them sedated.
that's about it.
the docs shovel pills to the vets
to keep them from going off,
just about anything they want, they get
because everyone is afraid of them,
even their own family and friends.
they're just
waiting to die,
living on a disability check
in a housing project-
warehoused, sedated, paid off.
it's not about helping the vets,
it's about protecting society from them.
that's the 'treatment' vets are given,
because no one knows how to fix them.
best to just keep them
comfortably numb.

i agree hippy man I take alot of meds and most of them are anti psycotics as well as pain meds if I may without geeting punished i would like to explain something.

Imagine this going into a store and thinking that certain races are carrying bombs on them or watching over your shoulder every minute, worrying that someone is going to come up behind u or grabbing your mate and almost cutting her throat cause you sleep with aknife under your pillow cause you think that someone may try to hram you in your sleep and your mate tries to wake you up for a appointment and you grab her and put a knife to her throat cause she touched you beofrre you relize what you are doing out of natural responce. Or you are at a club and someone shoves you and your first instint is to kill them or that you have flashbacks and you think the people around you are trying to kill you and you hurt 2 of them extremly bad before you relize what you are doing and you have tormenting nightmares about what you did for "the governement" in the name of our country. Or that fact that you know in your sould you could kill your own mom and not feel anything from it. Thats what its like to have PTSD it is nothing short of living in a pure hell and there is nothing you can do except pay atentoin to your every move and try to keep yourself medicated enough that sometimes you just pass out most of the time just so you don't have to deal with the thoughts in your head. Its true hell man nothing short of it and I really wouldn't wish this on anyone. I can only imagine what my uncles PTSD was like before he blew his brains out over it. So yes man It is pure complete hell and I am sorry if I have offended anyone I just wanted to put it in perspective of whats its like to actually have this disorder and what I have posted here isn't even close to the worst of it.