eagleheart

Greetings,

I am both MST and other. I dont feel like people can relate to me. So I have a tendancy to try to help other women but that doesnt always work the way I would like it to. Sometimes I have to take time out for me.

eagleheart

[ You told my story with the VA system and made me feel not alone.quote=LadyVet;616]Tiger Dane,



I am truly sorry you are experiencing such crap from the VA. They often "treat" female MST survivors in appropriate manners which not only preclude any treatment conducive to the healing of the female vet, it often time exacerbates existing ailments, specifically PTSD.

I have experienced doctors putting me into direct harm's way by their failure to disallow my stalker and attacker from further attacking, stalking, and harrassing me even after I had shown them the obvious and visible evidence of an attack on my person that occured less than 10 minutes prior to my reporting the incident. The same doctor forced me to sit next to my assailant during the next group therapy session led by her. She further allowed my attacker to touch me physically during the course of that group therapy session. She also told me that I was not allowed to discourage my attacker from speaking to me, following me, or preventing him in anyway from approaching me anytime he desired in order to not impede his return to health. I asked the doctor "Who was going to protect my return to health when being attacked by the male veteran in question was directly impeding my return to health and greatly, negatively impacting my ptsd." She told me that my perceptions were flawed and that my attitude was negative and therefore I was not cooperating with medical treatment.

In another VA clinic, my primary care psychologist forced me into group therapy (knowing I had been raped in the military) where I was the only female in the group of patient's receiving therapy from her. I would attempt to sit next to her so I could have at least on side of me bordered by a female. This doctor woud often times leave the therapy room and upon her return have a male move into the chair next to me that was formerly occupied by her.

I don't know what the answer would be for you in your state. TX is finally becoming more receptive in some of our clinics to treating females with dignity and protection. This has been a long process. I had spoken personally with the Secretary of the VA (Brown) under the Clinton administration in the early nineties about some of these problems to include that there were no female shower facilities at the VA Hospital in Temple TX.

He was appropriate and took as many direct steps to find solutions to such problems as he could until the government found a way to get rid of him. The overt problem seems to me that anytime there are people in power within the VA that attempt to make treatment of female vets better, the government finds a way to get rid of them.

This entire process has been a very slow moving progress. It is better now in TX than it was in the 90's. It still has a long way to go. I am encouraged that there has been progress. I am discouraged at the slow rate at which it has improved. I am in hopes that one day every female veteran will be able to go into any VA clinic or hospital anywhere without fear of harm from other veterans or medical and VA personnel. I know I will probably be dead before that happens at the current rate of improvement. Until then, I vocalize, pay attention to my surroundings, report every attack, report every VA employee for abuse or bigotry due to gender, and do what I can to inform the VA of its shortcomings to try to assist in this process.

I am truly sorry you are having such a rough go of it. Let me know what I can do to help you. I hear you. I believe you. I am concerned for you. If I can help you, I will.
LadyVet[/quote]

eagleheart

[So thats what the problem is with posting. There was a few times where I had some writings that I worked on and suddenly I couldnt post it and lost the wrtting itself. Thanks for letting me know.quote=Railroad Momma;607]Sorry you had problems posting to the forum. Unfortunately, the site isn't set up for long posting, either on the forums or the blogs. The solution to this is copy and paste. My advice if anyone wants to write for more than a couple minutes (not sure the time limit) is to write your posting in a word processing program, highlight your material and then copy the material by clicking Ctrl c, xing out of the word program and go to GAF's forum or blog and then when ready to paste the material where you want it- click Ctrl v. I hope this helps you Tiger-Dane-Mom and any other members who may be having this same problem. If not I can talk you through it in the chat room or by phone. Just leave me a message on my profile for any further assistance. Also, sorry to hear about your painful experiences with your doctor and the MST. I hope things go are better for you in the future. I also hope you get some benefit from the other postings here on GAF. Good luck![/quote]

eagleheart

Female vets have many rights that have been mentioned. However, the VA has docs and med students who give them flak for inforcing thier rights. They use scar tatics. I remember one time that I asked for a specfic right to be enforced ,and I got told You better watch out they might shut the whole system down on you. The doc who told me that actually was a very nice doc who felt she was helping me out by giving me a heads up. Alot of people who work for the VA arent vets and dont know what their rights are. They dont asked because they get labled a trouble maker. I know of a few female vets that work in the Las Vegas VA sytem that are great people because they make sure that rights are enforced and dont care about the flak. We need to go back to the days when vets were helping vets.