Libralabsoldier
Hero Member
- #1
Thread Owner
I got lucky at the VA Clinic today, and got in to see the Social Work service guy. I just recently put in the full packet for my anxiety and PTSD claim (nothing helps the healing start more than having to relive a painful event that causes you nightmares nearly every night in triplicate). The social worker did a full intake, and put his findings into the system. Basically, my PTSD and my anxiety increase claim will go through without a hitch. However, this may affect my ability to own firearms in the future, and may also affect my ability to become a high school teacher.
My back pain continues to get worse, and due to the ice storms in Oklahoma, I now have no tree in my yard that is completely whole (I am afraid my apricot tree may not survive, as it split right down the center) and lost a big chunk of my house siding, my telephone and internet lines ripped out, and have not had electricity for over a week. I am staying at my mother in laws house.
I will be getting back surgery sometime in the next six months or so, and am driving on with my graduate degree. Although I cannot shake this depression I am feeling at being in constant pain, and all the extra work my wife has to do to take care of me. I have not done any detecting in weeks, and may have to give up the hobby, which I hate.
I do not know why I am posting all of this on here, but it is just really getting to me. I had an A hole at my Army Reserve unit (I still have to attend drill until they officially decide to medically retire or chapter me) who weaseled his way out of deploying with the unit accused me of faking, and then tried to use his rank to order me to bend down and pick up a cigarette butt. I did not drop the butt (I field strip all of mine and keep them in my pocket. Wifey hates it when she finds them in the dryer). It just feels like no one really understands how much pain I am going through, or how I feel like half a man. I cannot do the yardwork that needs to get done, cannot get my vegetable garden ready for the spring, and can only drive if I do not take my pain pills. It feels like my independence is slipping away a little at a time.
I went to group therapy once, and basically got treated like crap because I was a "fobbit" who never went outside the wire. It did not matter that I saw guys who had been shot up every single day, or body parts, or any of that other stuff. To these combat arms guys, I was just another soft medical soldier, who got three hots a day and did not equal their service.
Sometimes I wonder why I have spent so much of my life in the Army, if at every turn it seems I either have to defend my service to other soldiers, or have people get disappointed when I do not have some cool story on how I got a back injury.
Does anyone have anything for me? I cannot sleep due to nightmares, I am scared to death that this back surgery is going to leave me permanently crippled and my young wife is going to have to take care of a guy in a wheelchair, and my exwife is going to try to take advantage of the situation to try and take custody of my kid away. I am looking at losing my two favorite hobbies, gun collecting and metal detecting, and possibly hunting. Fishing is at least sedentary enough to where I can still do it without aggravating my injury.
My VA docs are great, but she gave me a huge bottle of percocet and a big bottle of valium, and I am scared of becoming addicted along with becoming partially paralyzed or otherwise crippled.
I am not looking for sympathy. Just somebody tell me how do you deal with all of this? I just do not have anyone to turn to right now. Even though I am an agnostic, I have even taken a bash at praying to see if I could get any answers that way, and so far, nothing.
It is just getting to be too much to keep inside of myself.
My back pain continues to get worse, and due to the ice storms in Oklahoma, I now have no tree in my yard that is completely whole (I am afraid my apricot tree may not survive, as it split right down the center) and lost a big chunk of my house siding, my telephone and internet lines ripped out, and have not had electricity for over a week. I am staying at my mother in laws house.
I will be getting back surgery sometime in the next six months or so, and am driving on with my graduate degree. Although I cannot shake this depression I am feeling at being in constant pain, and all the extra work my wife has to do to take care of me. I have not done any detecting in weeks, and may have to give up the hobby, which I hate.
I do not know why I am posting all of this on here, but it is just really getting to me. I had an A hole at my Army Reserve unit (I still have to attend drill until they officially decide to medically retire or chapter me) who weaseled his way out of deploying with the unit accused me of faking, and then tried to use his rank to order me to bend down and pick up a cigarette butt. I did not drop the butt (I field strip all of mine and keep them in my pocket. Wifey hates it when she finds them in the dryer). It just feels like no one really understands how much pain I am going through, or how I feel like half a man. I cannot do the yardwork that needs to get done, cannot get my vegetable garden ready for the spring, and can only drive if I do not take my pain pills. It feels like my independence is slipping away a little at a time.
I went to group therapy once, and basically got treated like crap because I was a "fobbit" who never went outside the wire. It did not matter that I saw guys who had been shot up every single day, or body parts, or any of that other stuff. To these combat arms guys, I was just another soft medical soldier, who got three hots a day and did not equal their service.
Sometimes I wonder why I have spent so much of my life in the Army, if at every turn it seems I either have to defend my service to other soldiers, or have people get disappointed when I do not have some cool story on how I got a back injury.
Does anyone have anything for me? I cannot sleep due to nightmares, I am scared to death that this back surgery is going to leave me permanently crippled and my young wife is going to have to take care of a guy in a wheelchair, and my exwife is going to try to take advantage of the situation to try and take custody of my kid away. I am looking at losing my two favorite hobbies, gun collecting and metal detecting, and possibly hunting. Fishing is at least sedentary enough to where I can still do it without aggravating my injury.
My VA docs are great, but she gave me a huge bottle of percocet and a big bottle of valium, and I am scared of becoming addicted along with becoming partially paralyzed or otherwise crippled.
I am not looking for sympathy. Just somebody tell me how do you deal with all of this? I just do not have anyone to turn to right now. Even though I am an agnostic, I have even taken a bash at praying to see if I could get any answers that way, and so far, nothing.
It is just getting to be too much to keep inside of myself.
