Mr.

[Palu]

About 4 decades ago I was in the U.S. Army. I was not in a combat assignment, but was attacked by persons in my unit and in the psychiatric wards I was subsequently placed in. I was labeled schizophrenic and forcibly drugged and shocked. I was subsequently rated disabled and received payments of around $100 usd until 1995 when it increased to a little over $300 then increased again in 2010 to $770. I have a B.A. but have had to work mostly temporary and part time jobs because of the psychiatric record placed upon me in the army.
The last rating increase was accompanied by the admission for the first time by the Veterans Administration that I was misdiagnosed and in fact "have" ptsd. I have no faith in the medical paradigm and believe my problems should have been addressed in the criminal justice system. The kinds ofproblems I encountered while serving in the militqary are now becoming more public as stories like Abu Gahraib, The U.S. Embassy scandal in Afghanastan and other news items surface.
So called "mental illness" is the label given to to victims of that type of corruption so that the perpetrators may be protected and rewarded with jobs and wealth and the victims can receive the "treatment" and suffer poverty thereafter.
I spent nearly 40 years with an alleged "chemical imbalance" which during that time none of those claiming I had it could identify what chemical . It appears from reading this site it isn't much better in Australia, and would like especially to hear from American vets who had an experience like mine. I have found no similar forum here, if there is one anyone knows of , please let me know.

 

[CraftyCath]

Hi Palu, welcome to the forum! I believe there is a section here for Vetrans but I'm not sure how to find it. I'm sure others will let you know. I'm not military, I'm an x-nurse who saw too much and I'm in the UK. i really hope you find teh help and support that you deserve.

 

[cherryblossom]

Hi Palu

Welcome to the forum. The link to the Combat PTSD Forum is at the bottom of my post. While you are very welcome here, you may find the combat forum more relevant to your situation. I'm not a member there since I have PTSD from rape, so can't say for certain, but you will possibly find more info there about the VA, and meet other military sufferers of PTSD. It certainly might be worth taking a look.

Regards
CB

 

[jeeps for now]

"So called "mental illness" is the label given to to victims of that type of corruption so that the perpetrators may be protected and rewarded with jobs and wealth and the victims can receive the "treatment" and suffer poverty thereafter"

Palu, I agree with you 1000 %.

 

[Kim]

I'm so sorry for all that you have suffered.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Palu]

Thanks CraftyCath.

 

[Palu]

Thanks cherryblossom.

I checked out the link. It is for combat related PTSD. As I mentioned, mine was not combat related so I didn't find much to connect with there. There was mention of one of the more recent therapy fads, Cognative Behavior Therapy, which again is a product of the psychiatric industry, and an iteration of Behavior Modification, which was invented by a guy named Pavlov who used it to control his daughter and the Russians used to train explosive laden dogs to destroy enemy tanks.

The attacks I mentioned upon me were aimed at modifying my behavior as was the so called therapy I experienced (mileu, drug, ect.) I don't believe I have behavior problems, hence have no desire for "treatment" for them. I belive my attacker did however have such problems and it is they who should be recieving such treatments.

There are two other therapy fads I might be confronted by were I to use those available through the VA, namely, Prolonged Exposure Therapy which would have me exposed to those trauma producing stimuli that caused my trauma to begin with. Again no thanks. The other is "Forgiveness Therapy" whose aim is to have the patient adopt main Christian evangelical ideals. Since I am not a Christian Evangelical , this would be of no benefit to me either. The fact that the VA supports this therapy is in my view in contradiction to the intent of the First Ammendment. (to the U.S. Constitution)

Actually, in my view all these therapies are veiled attempts to foist Platonist ideals upon the "patient" and the aforementioned religion again in my view is one of the varients of Platonism.

 

[Palu]

Thanks Jeeps for now.

This view is gaining greater appreciation here in the U.S..Most recently, U.S. vets of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have formed groups pointing out the use of "Personality Disorder" as a diagnosis to punish selected individuals.

I don't yet have 25 posts so I may not yet post links to illustrate this, but there are a number of media stories which have appeared discussing the problem, and a group called SWAN which is seeking victims of this particular practice.

I gave SWAN a link to this site and perhaps they may be contacting Anthony.

 

[Froggie]

Welcome to the forum Palu. From what I've read, you are very skeptical about any therapy. I tried to google SWAN and have not found the group you are talking about. Are they journalists or what ?

 

[cherryblossom]

Perhaps you might like to look at the Wiki pages about different types of therapy
[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/therapy/[/DLMURL]

 

[Palu]

I'm so sorry for all that you have suffered.

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks Kim.

 

[Palu]

Thanks for the welcome Froggie. SWAN states it is a human rights advocacy organization, The acronym is for Service Woman’s Action Network. They focus primarily on womens' rights in the military, however have had some role in assisting the civil rights litigation for victims of MSA (military sexual assault) which includes plaintiffs who are of both genders.

On therapy, I think any therapy one chooses is fine for them if they perceive it helps. My problem is forced so called therapy. I live in a nation whose cornerstone ideals hold the rights of the individual paramount. The psychiatric profession and industry in my view have no value for such rights, except as empty rhetoric. Forced psychiatric confinement permits persons to be incarcerated who have committed no crime. They wish to replace individual choice with "best interest" based on the ideal of "parens patrea" (in place of the parent). This lends itself to a foundation for a two class system, the privileged who act in a quasi parental role under the guise of providing "treatment" and their victims, who are forever children whose wishes can be ignored. Such a system has already been tried. It's called feudalism. Because of this, I believe laws enabling forced psychiatric treatment should be repealed (civil commitment laws.)

There have always been those in my country who have wanted feudalism instead of a constitutional democracy. They have not only succeeded by creating civil commitment laws, but others as oppressive such as those for guardianship, which takes the right away from a person to make informed choice of treatment. Then there is conservatorship law that allows others to control your money. Both of these too should be abolished or tightly amended. Such an amendment I favor is that every time one renews ones drivers license, one designates who would occupy such roles, and what kind of treatment if any one would choose if one say had real brain damage making them unable to communicate their wishes.

My trauma occurred before the expression PTSD existed.

In a way, coining it was progressive, for unlike other diagnoses invented withing the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) it ascribed cause to a specific event or set of events, not some blue smoke and mirrors about some undefined “chemical imbalance”.

What is called PTSD in my view is not a malfunctioning brain. All the supposed “symptoms” are normal reactions to a horrible experience, most of which could be better addressed as “pain and suffering” in the context of criminal and or civil litigation.

It is true I think that the brain imaging of a person going through the kind of pain and suffering is likely to be different than the same person before the pain commenced. So too would the brain scans of a person engaging say in a competitive sport vs a contemplative walk. To call one of any of these images “evidence of illness” leads us down a road to reliance upon “Authorities”(eg; doctors) to treat, which in turn permits the stress producing entity to escape undetected. Human problems in my view (and in the view of many others) should not be medicalized, they should be addressed in the context unique to them.

In the American Military and VA system there is and has long been an epidemic of suicides, and each time this catastrophe hits the press, there is a call for “more mental health treatment“ .

Guess what? More mental health treatment appropriations increase, more persons are “treated”, and the suicide rate stays the same or increases .

Someone said a fool is a person who repeats the same thing over and over expecting different results. If the current military , legislative and VA system were a person, what would they be”?

<Edited for readability. Please post in forum text default. Amethist>