Of all the spaces to be, I’ve been in a bad one. Really, I have been far from my happy place for quite some time now…about a month.  Yea, it’s been really close to a month now. I decided to go ahead and file a claim with the Veterans’ Administration. Last August/September I contacted the VA and got a packet of forms so that I could initiate a claim and renew on that I had cancelled when I went back active duty. That was the easy part: fill out the form and say something like, “I wish to reinstate my previous disability claim. I would also like to have it re-evaluated. Additionally, I am initiating a claim for injuries I received to my right shoulder, elbow and wrist while in Iraq in 2004 and a claim for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” And, into the mail it went, no postage necessary. In early December the original claim came through, but VA called me about the other claims. I chatted to the lady and she told me what I have to do for the process and she mailed me another packet for the new claims. Not much of a problem for the arm, but to make a case for PTSD you gotta prove

• “Stressor”:  Proof of a traumatic event in-service.  Called a “stressor,” it is the basis on which all PTSD claims are based.  In short, no stressor, no claim, end of story.  A stressor is generally defined as personal exposure to a life-threatening event such as combat, a serious accident, or rape.  For those who hold a combat-related decoration such as an individual valor award, the Purple Heart, or the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the issue of a stressor is conceded by the VA.
• Diagnosis: A diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder rendered by a psychiatrist.  Counseling reports prepared by Vet Centers may be considered in determining the degree of your impairment; however, there must be a diagnosis of PTSD made by a physician specialized in psychiatry.

Well, I have the diagnosis, but I haven’t put a lot into the ‘stressor’ in a written format.  The claim requires a written format. And the VA being the VA, they have access to all sorts of records that reflect the combat actions. In a lot of cases down to the specific engagement. I’m not sure how all that is recorded and maintained between the military and other agencies and the VA, but there seems to be a good method for follow-up. This is one way to help prevent fraudulent claims, liars, and wanna-be folks.

Well I took a stab at the written part. I did some research on how to make a good report got a worksheet to help out and got started. Then got stopped. I found it pretty hard to actually put this stuff into a narrative form. It was really hard. I felt like my head just put the ka-bosh on any ability to write it down. And I got crappy over it too. This was in early December, maybe later in November. I decided that I would just let it go and not bother with the claim. Take the old claim and leave it at that. It was definitely easier. But the week that I sat on it, I couldn’t stop ruminating about it. So I contacted the Veteran’s Services. [for you UKers and other out of the US folks, each state in the US has a state-level veterans assistance organization. How effective they are and their focus vary between states. Not to mention funding, staff, and location access] I called the fella in my town, but he’s really new and decided he couldn’t help me. So I contacted a regional office and set an appointment to go over my claim with a person there. Set the date for December 17^th. This was a good guy to work with. He’s been helping vets for quite some time and knew how to go about it. He and I got all the papers filled out, waivers signed, releases of information finished, and all put into order.

Then I had to work on the PTSD statements. That sucked. I need to mention here that by this time I had started to go bonkers. I felt like I was barely hanging together and the thinking patterns of a PTSD episode (I don’t know what else to call them) was coming on hard. Once that ball starts to roll, it’s near impossible to get out of the way. Things go crazy. But since I felt something coming on, and because I felt emotionally explosive, I met with my doctor the week before I had to go for my appointment. We did the doctor-patient thing and I let him know what was happening. That I was going down pretty hard even with the medication I’ve been on. I wondered if I was building a tolerance to the Welbutrine. I thought I was on the maximum dosage, but he only had me on 150mg tabs two times per day. He raised my dosage to 200mg twice a day. I started right away. he also prescribed me Ativan (or Lorazepam) to help ‘soften’ the anxiety. I didn’t take any of the Ativan, it was in case something came on.  I was on the new meds for about four days before I went to the meeting with vet services.

The PTSD statement wasn’t fun. I churned up a lot of sh!t. I had to go pretty deep and it just stirred the pot. Cotton mouth. Shakes. Not fun. But I didn’t feel too wacky as I drove the 45 minutes home. I thought, and even told my wife, that the meds seemed to be helping because usually in this situation, I would have fallen fast and right away. At that time I felt okay. God that changed in a couple of days. I went down as fast as a bomb over Afghanistan. It took me about three days to realize that I was spinning out of emotional control. I was isolating, sitting at work just staring out the window, totally unfocused, didn’t shave and hooked my brain onto a lead weight and cast it overboard to sink. When my boss said something to me about my office presentation, I took the rest of the day off and went home, straight to the Ativan. I took one tab (benzo’s can get addictive pretty fast) to try and chill the head. This lasted from about the 23^rd until just a few days ago, last Friday. I had to take the Ativan two to three times each day and I still felt like I was barely keeping thing together. I was an inch from divorce. It was just a miserable time. My brain was in a blender non-stop.

It’s a very sickly feeling to have, knowing that I am in the throngs and spasms of a horribly crazy experience; reaching to get to the bottom and waiting for the bounce; and being utterly unable to stop the emotional drop. Not even caring. In a near-vomit like state always. Impatient, intolerant, insomnia. At the same time being emotionally cathartic. Noise, of any sort, driving me crazy. Even just my kids talking loud. Not in a ruckus. I would just plug my ears and close my eyes hard trying to get it all gone. Somewhere in there it stopped. End, done, finished. I woke up and the stomach nausea was gone, head clear. That was last week. This sh!t is crazy. Sucky part is that I will have to go get some evaluations at a VA hospital to go over it all again with a psychiatrist. Not looking forward to that. I gotta ask myself if it’s worth it.

My insurance just took on some mental health finally. Better than nothing, but I have to pay 50% of the bill and they limit me to 12 sessions in a calendar year (that makes absolutely no sense). So I will have an obnoxious bill paid off at the end of February and those funds can help out with the cost of some counseling. The insurance carrier says 12 sessions will fix me and I don’t have $200 available to pay for more individual sessions each week. And so in 12 sessions I will have become better and all over it. Fixed.