Are you REALLY that disabled?

Greetings all,

Sorry that it's been a while, but we do the best we can everyday.  Some day's, many days, I'm not up to writing.  Others are so busy that I don't have the strength or compunction to do much but hang on tight.   Yesterday was a long and busy day.  I had an eye Dr.apt, a appt with my VA doc, and got my new psychiatrist, a very nice but busy chief of psychiatry.  She read the letter from my Vet Center doc had given me to give her, and she almost cried.  She was sooo very sweet and kind.  She was good at asking me some pretty rough questions.  She sighed very sadly when she said how many times she had heard these same stories of sexual assault.  I had to tell her to story of how my career ended that day my disabled client started poking and barking at me, and how I had fallen of the horse and can't get back on.  She agreed and said that time of my life is over now, and I am doing good in my therapy at the Vet Center. 

She put me on an anti depressant (Zoloft) and a sleeping aid.  I hate the idea of taking the anti depressant, but I hope perhaps the sleeping pill will help me get a better night sleep. She told me to be sure to file for 'total unemployability' since I have only 70% for the PTSD, and you have to be about drooling and not know your name for the 100%.  She also told me to be sure to file for SSDI and that she would write any letters of support I needed to back it up. She is very busy, and the VA cut her staff by two, so now she has more patient's and less staff to help them.  How very VA of them. Pfffft!!!

Annnd.. to get to today's subject line.   After all that, I had a terrible trigger moment last night with a long time friend.  I told him what that psyc doc told me yesterday about my filing for 'unemployability'. Which means that while I am 70% disabled from the PTST, I can't hold or maintain a job.  I am truly liable to whack any unfortunate male who makes the wrong move or comment to me, and make a mess of things for us both.  I've lost my normal 'filters' to be able to handle 'spontaneous' outbursts of rage and giving waaaay to much imformation.  Now my friend, (of 10 years) hasn't seen me since my breakdown last Dec.  He hasn't been around when I've had total freak outs, or uncontrollable and pretty profane rages.  My feeling was that he thought I didn't need that much pay, and he seemed to resent that if I got the total 'unemployability' then I'd be getting more from the VA then he earns out on the hot Arizona sun as a welder.   He said "are you REALLY that disabled?'.  BAM!!!  Thank goodness my dear partner was at his computer right next to mine, and he could tell by the way I froze and something about the look on my face that something was terribly wrong.  He looked over my shoulder and read the conversation.  He knows this friend as well, and I think he was shocked by the attitude.  I felt.. sucker punched.  I was shaking and sobbing in moments.. all of the horror's came back to me.  I typed out to my friend "Yes, I AM!  Nothing will ever pay me back for not being able to have children, for being beaten, raped, choked, sodomized, attacked, humiliated and taunted almost every day for those 4 years. " Or how my jaw was fractured and now, I've lost most of the teeth on my left side where L was so fond of punching me before he choked me as part of his sick 'foreplay'.  The buzzing of the insects around me as he and his buddy took turns raping me and terrorizing me like a pair of velociraptors.  My friend says "Well, you never told me about it, so what I am supposed to think?"
WFT?????  You are supposed to believe me, support me, help me and wish me well!   My dear K reminded me again that this friend has not seen my breakdowns and rages, did not know the whole story.  I gave him the link to this page, and have asked him to come read my statements so that he will understand the  HELL I have been through.  He stuck around in Second Life a while (where we were having this chat) to make sure 'we are ok'.   I said yes... but.. are we?  I don't know. If he comes and reads all this, and can finally get it, and can see and feel what I have been through, then yes, I think we can get past what he didn't understand.  But.. if he doesn't.. then no.. after all these years... If he doesn't care enough to get the depths of the pain that I have suffered, and that F%$@ yes, I deserve every friggin' PENNY I can get, well, it's not justice, and I still won't ever be able to have kids, and I'll always have some anal problems and head aches and clicking jaw and can't hardly hear out of the side I was hit on the most. The money will never fix ANY of it!!!  The docs can't fix it, and I can't fix it. Somethings, once they are broken, they'll never work again like they did... and I am like that.

 I was making $36,000 at my most (not a lot granted but I don't need a lot, just enough to pay bills, feel somewhat comfortable and have some to help my friends.) And the VA pay for total disability, or 'unemployability' isn't as much as I've lost.  I can't even envision working again at this point, except maybe some Reiki on the side where I am in control of what I do totally.  But not for a business or agency. Nope.. done with it.    

So today.. I feel sick, sad and pretty depressed. This friend asked me last nite, what I had to be depressed about now. HIS FUCKING ATTITUDE AND THOSE OF OTHERS LIKE HIM!!!!!!!
(Sorry, that's one of those 'outbursts' I tend to have these days.. I'm really not too fit to be around sometimes if you have tender ears) I read about how all this is still going on like this that triggered me again this morning:
 http://www.notinvisible.org/her_story


I worry about my best friends daughter, out at sea this very moment on a ship, and pray she gets through her time in the service safely.  I rage about the the fact that so many want to cover it up still.  I rage, I rage I rage... and..
I pray. for wellness for myself, and all the others out there. For Joan and Brigid, for Devyn, for Ani.. for all the ladies in my group, for all the new stories that come out here: 
http://mydutytospeak.com

Now, I'll take a deep breath and try to settle down, having used this as I'm supposed to, as a place to vent and release the pain for the moment.  So now, I give it to you, the readers...

I wish you well, and I'm sorry this is hard to read sometimes..
Over and out,
Myst

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Back in Action...

Greetings Readers...

After a vacation break enforced by a stream of visitors, the house is now quiet again.  And there was some big news while I was away... but first, a huge huge congrats to my friends over at Enemy in the Wire.. they have gotten to share their story with the Cedar Rapids Gazette. It takes real character and courage to step up and tell the things that have happened!!!

As for myself, two weeks ago, K went out for the mail and came back with what looked like... a .. check???? It said for VA Comp and disability!  Already???  It was only about 3 weeks after my psychological testing at the Houston VA!  No letter, just a check that K quickly figured out was about 6 months of backpay!  So I sent a text to Joan asking if that was normal, to get a check before formal notification of some sort.  Bless her dearest heart when she texted right back that yes, that's how it rolls, and congrats.  I sat and cried for a bit.  I was really, really in shock!  It meant... so many things to me.  Especially that now.. although this won't make up for the 35ought years of hell, after the 4, but it does give me an income again, of which I've been without since I had my breakdown and almost abandoned my disabled client in Jan, after he began roaring, barking and poking at me..effectively ending my working career.

So on Mon after the check came,  I had MST group at the Vet Center... after that, I drove down to the Houston VA admin center and waited to talk with someone to see what I could find out.   They had my name wrong on the check, what it was when I got out, but good 'ol USAA Bank just told me to sign both names on it and it would be good.  But I wanted to get that fixed, and get direct deposit started too.   After a couple hours I got to talk to someone.  Turns out I am yup, 70% nuts. Think I'll be a macadamia nut as they come from Hawaii and I like it there a lot. *grins*  Although Dr. Oz says that cashews are healthier.  In two days it will be 2 weeks since I got the check, and still no 'official' letter from them yet.  Still, I'd much rather it went the way it did,, that I got the $$ first and am now waiting on the letter, then have the letter and be waiting on the $$!

I finally got to see a VA doc up at Conroe.  The VA is soooo slow it took 5 months.  She is a nice lady named Dr. Yee. And she says that she thinks due to the physical trauma I am still suffering from (busted left jaw, loss of teeth on left side, loss of hearing in my left ear, crushed trachea and being beaten so i couldn't have kids) are things that they still need to recompense me for. The disability award now is just for the PTSD. So she is sending me to some specialists to get it in writing so I can submit that to increase the amount of disability I am getting. I thought what I was getting was good, but she felt very strongly that it isn't. She and my counselors have also told me to file for SS disability as well, especially since the 70% isn't near enough to live on.  She also got me an apt for glasses and to see the psychiatrist.  So while it's taken a while, I feel much better that I an now in the system and got some good apt to get things worked on.  

On Mon, I got to meet our new Vet Center counselor. I'd been very anxious about it as my friend Ani had a TERRIBLE doc at her Vet Center in her state. I've been blessed to have two wonderful ones so far. But the new doc seems nice enough so far. All the 'Ladies of the Group' were and to some degree still are withholding judgment to see how she does running the group as our current counselor was still there too. In our group, or in our lives... getting someone new to have to re-explain the horrors we survived is never easy. We HATE having to start over and tell new people about it all over yet again. She seems nice enough..  I'm still not really looking forward to that first time I have to sit down with her alone and start over again. 

Because my doc was leaving, she didn't have a chance to really push for the Invisible War, and with my company around, I didn't have much time to work on pushing it.  But now that they are all gone, I will have free time again, and I expect to become a pain in their ass until they get it here and showing as well

Well, that's the update for now.  Many thanks again to Joan and Brigid for their inspiration and courage!

Over and out, 

Myst

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