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From War To Home

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Experiences of Care

A lot of people are looking to heal in other ways including using marijuana. But how do you even know if you are abusing it? Am I self-medicating? Is there somebody I can talk to about that? I don’t know and you cannot ask at the VA. You cannot ask that because you will be in big trouble. - Anonymous We had a lot of females that got raped. We had males that got raped. Okay? You’re in that situation where people don’t want to see, don’t want to hear, don’t want to speak. It’s like a triple effect. So, it’s not reported. And when the soldiers come back, they’re living with that. A lot of them have jobs where they could lose their job. Seeking help could be a flag in your record. So you have a lot of people who don’t want to say. - Raquel R. When I was in the Marines, they’re like ‘Do you have an 'I love me' binder? It should have DD214s, paperwork, everything to prove that you are you.’ So all that stuff is in there, and I call it the “I love me” binder. I’m very meticulous when I do paperwork. You have to be if you want to get your VA care. - Michael B. This is why veterans should go to the VA; you never know what the future’s going to hold for you, or how things that happened on deployment could affect your future. When I went to my first assessment at the VA, they asked me about my deployment. They asked ‘Were you ever exposed to any environmental things that might concern you?’ And I said ‘Yeah, we were next to a burning garbage dump for an entire year.’ And I’m thinking it’s good you’re documenting this because later down the road if I get lung cancer or something it might not be from the cigarettes that I used to smoke. - Anonymous There’s a pill for everything now. The fast fix. We’re addicted to pills of one kind or another, and they keep pushing them on TV. I guess I’m a little bit discouraged that so many people are hooked on medications. I very rarely see anybody [say], ‘Go through psychotherapy before you go on happy pills.’ - Scott S. I was incarcerated in Camden County jail. It’s one of the worst county jails in America. There’s no dignity; you’re treated like an animal. A social worker from the VA found me in the jail. She came to pick me up and take me to Fresh Start, the recovery house for veterans. This is where I live, at Fresh Start. The VA basically saved me. <br> - Drew B. There sometimes is this overwhelming patriotism that you experience in the VA when you just would like to go see your doctor. Maybe if they knew you did not really need all of that with your healthcare they would just treat you like a patient. I come in [to the VA] with a certain level of fear about [my membership in Iraq Veterans Against the War] being a secret that I have to keep. Or maybe they won’t treat me as well. - Chantelle B. One time they gave me 7 different medications and I had some kind of an allergic reaction to them and all of my limbs swelled up, all my joints swelled up. I hobbled to primary care, and they told me I had to go to the emergency room to wait there. I waited for hours. - Thomas C. That’s after a medication reaction. It has happened 6 or 7 times. They’re not sure what causes it. My face would get so big that the pressure would hurt, you know? So now I'm very careful about what I take. If anything, I don't take medications I’m supposed to because I don't want that happening again. - Micky D. I take all my medications with me to work, in case I get stuck somewhere. I don’t want to take the chance of being without them; especially the ones that help with my breathing. I don’t want to have to worry about trying to get them again. It’s just too long to come to the VA and wait at the pharmacy for them if you have a job. - Jacquelyn B. These are my pain medications for my back. I really can’t take anything too strong because I have school. It’s been a balancing act of when I can take them. You have to be either drugged up or in pain. - Mac You’ve heard the expression: ‘I’m a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me crap.’ A lot of times, you feel like you’re not getting all the information you need. The government prints enough paper to destroy the entire world’s forest population; even though [the information] is all there at our fingertips, we get overwhelmed. You sit in your little corner and try to absorb what you can, but a lot of it you’re going to miss. - Scott S. The only kind of counseling I had access to was a chaplain. And I’m an atheist. But I was so desperate that I went to the chaplain. I started telling him about how lonely I was, and how I just didn’t feel strong anymore. Finally he says, ‘What I do is, I say a prayer.’ I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I told you that I don’t believe in God and you’re still doing this.’ I’m like, I think I’ve had enough here. So I didn’t go back to him. - Ray F. When I came back from my first deployment, I didn’t think about claiming unemployment because of the stigma. The second time around a VA counselor said; ‘One thing I’ve been telling all the guys to do, if you don’t have a job to go back to, is start collecting [unemployment] immediately.’ Later, I decided to go to school for social work. I was like, ‘Hey maybe I should be like [that VA guy]. This could be a good career for me; helping other vets.’ - Ray F. I shot this to express how I feel about the VA; it is like a maze. The system is not set up for people to talk through things. When I finally got a doctor through the VA my practitioner was asking me this battery of really intrusive questions, but there was no space to work it out. There is a serious lack of listening at the VA. People will ask you questions, but no one is listening to you. - Chantelle B. This bench is in front of the [Coatesville VA] Medical Center. They just did it for the view, not for what for it does for the soul. But it helps me a great deal. I sit there all the time. - Keith H. There’s the Veterans Multi-Service site. When I first got back, it became like the silver lining in the dark clouds. For a time it was like, everywhere I went was just dead ends, more dead ends. And then this one place was just like, maybe. - Philip L. There was blood in my poop. I spent months trying to get a colonoscopy appointment through the VA. - Michael B.
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A lot of people are looking to heal in other ways including using marijuana. But how do you even know if you are abusing it? Am I self-medicating? Is there somebody I can talk to about that? I don’t know and you cannot ask at the VA. You cannot ask that because you will be in big trouble. - Anonymous
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Last updated: June 3, 2015