Happy Valentines Day to everyone out there. I hope everyone had a great day and that you were all surrounded by love. If you were alone, that is ok to, because at the end of the day, there are people out here in this big ol’ world we live in, that love you – even though you might not know them. I will continue on with the previous post tomorrow, for now we are gonna jump back into our minds, so here we go.
I do not know why I am surprised about this – but story time. So I reached out to my team Jan 31, told them that I would like some outside of the VA counseling through a Christian counseling service – because I do not trust the VA. They got back to me on Feb 1 and told me they would forward that to Mental Health because that is who handles those referrals. On Feb 2 I got an email from them telling me that they are unable to give me an outside referral, but would be more than happy to give me an appointment with one of the VA Counselors. I then spent 4 days trying to respond, but for some reason it was not allowing me to. Finally on Feb 7 I sent a general email to mental health – addressed to the person who sent me the prior message, basically telling them to go ahead with the appointment (spoke with my service officer before in order to get some guidance). Then on the 8th, she responded back telling me that she will place the consult, and that I should hear back from them in a few days to get it scheduled. Tomorrow makes a week since that message, and I have had absolutely ZERO phone calls. Ridiculous – absolutely ridiculous. BUT the VA – according to their annual report from last year, is doing such a great stupendous job at helping Veterans with their mental health. YEAH RIGHT, I call bullshit (well just 1 of many reasons I call bullshit on that report).
As I looked at the image I shared on this post, it was like my mind was putting checkmarks next to those, sadly I do not think that is all of them. I will say, I am damn tired of the headaches/migraines every single freaking day, all freaking day long. They finally have me seeing a Neurologist outside of the VA for that, unfortunately – just like the VA – they just wanna throw meds at it, freaking tired of getting a medication, then another prescribed to counter-balance the side effects of the first one, and that cycle repeats itself, leaving you with a big ass bag of medications, and even worse off than you were before them. They ended up injecting something into both sides of the bottom back of my head. The injection wasn’t that bad, I mean I have 8 tattoos right now (not enough, I know, got my next one mostly planned out already, but gotta have money for that) so needles do not bother me, it was the feeling of him pushing harder and harder as he injected that bothered me, I mean he pushed hard enough to where I had bruises and those 2 spots were sore for at least 4 days after. Needless to say, they haven’t done a bit of good. I noticed on my next appointment with them, they have it written down as “botox” which tells me they wanna do a botox injection because “it has been shown to possibly help with headaches.” I do not know about y’all, but I know I am sick and tired of being a damn lab rat for big pharma.
Anyway, I know that we all suffer from most, if not all, of those symptoms, and so many more. I also know we do not like talking about any of it with anyone. Civilians do not understand (to include family and friends), VA don’t give a shit, and there are so many damn judgey people out there in the world today. We gotta figure out a way, that works for us – as each person is different, that we can unload the burdens we carry around day in and day out, so that we do not get overwhelmed by burying it all, to the point where we start considering suicide. But there is a whole other side to that – PAIN. Pain sucks, and that is also something different for everyone as well. I have been living with the pain for over 18 years, and unfortunately it gets worse with time, but at the same token our pain level increases as well. Our “1-10” scale, after dealing with our pain as long as we have, is far above their normal scale, but they don’t care. I have heard so many Veterans talking about how badly they just want the pain to end, and I get that. But when the pain is so bad that it causes Veterans to take their own life just to make the pain stop, that is an issue – AN ISSUE THAT IS NOT BEING HANDLED PROPERLY FROM THE DAMN VA.
Well, enough for now, we will go into this another day. As always, I love every one of y’all, especially my fellow Vets, if ANY of my fellow Vets need someone to talk to, please reach out to me, I am ALWAYS here for you. Just remember – YOU ARE LOVED, TOMORROW NEEDS YOU, WE NEED YOU, WE LOVE YOU!
IF YOU ARE A VETERAN WHO NEEDS HELP, YOU ARE NOT ALONE – YOU ARE LOVED – YOU ARE NEEDED!
CALL – 988 – OPTION 1
TEXT – 838255
CALL – 800-799-4889
CALL – 844-889-5610
GO TO – WWW.VETERANSCRISISLINE.NET
GO TO – WWW.STOPSOLDIERSUICIDE.ORG/GET-HELP
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