PTSD PART 1:THE MILITARY WANTS TO USE THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESIONALS IN RURAL ALASKA WHO CAN'T EVEN PROVIDE HELP FOR THE CIVILIAN POPULATION

I find it very alarming that the military is planning to use mental health professionals in the rural areas of Alaska to treat the soldiers who have PTSD. I tried to see a psychiatrist five times when I was getting sick with PTSD in Nome. Keep in mind Norton Sound Health Corporation is the only mental health care provider in that area. At that time I was not sure what was going on and had not heard of workplace bullying. A competent doctor would have diagnosed me and told me to get the hell out of there even if he or she had not heard of workplace bullying themselves. The behaviors of the people were an indication that they were trying to harm me and anyone who was there would have know there had already been multiple people they had done this to. What I really needed was an intelligent objective opinion of the situation I was in. This should have been simple, but turned out to be impossible on many levels. Let me repeat the psychiatrist refused to see me FIVE TIMES. The other doctors REFUSED TO GIVE ME MEDICATION, even one I had been on for years which would have helped the PTSD immensely. They even tried to stop me from increasing the dose of the one medication they let me have. They started false, negative rumors to harm me in Nome(from the Behavioral Health Department) about this medication which has been around for decades and is very well known, Trazadone. It was my own knowledge, common nursing sense, experience in psychiatric nursing, and some really good decisions that helped me survive the medical bullying fueled by the ignorance, lies from the serial bullies, and prejudice in that village. If I had not gone against their advice I believe something really bad could have happened. If I had seen a real psychiatrist and gotten treatment I would have never been ARRESTED, WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED and TORTURED by the CORRUPT JUDICIAL SYSTEM in this state, because I would have never had the temporary episode of psychosis that gave them an excuse to suck me into their system of judicial injustice. They would not have affected the death of my cat, the theft of my property, or the long term continuous bullying which made my PTSD worse. Then there is the social worker mafia on the Kenai Peninsula, good God!

I would advise the military to hire contract personnel from the lower 48. I did see some good people in Anchorage this summer, but my experience there is just limited to Providence Hospital which has an inpatient unit I tried to go to from Nome and was not allowed to go. It took me about 3.5 years to finally get to this program, which is excellent. I also saw one practitioner at Community Mental Health in Anchorage who was excellent and I wish was here in Soldotna.



 The next quotes are from an interview by David Kupfer with Edward Tick an expert on PTSD who uses a spiritual approach to healing veterans with PTSD. Tick is a psychologist with a PhD in communication and rhetoric as well as an interfaith minister. I would suggest that anyone interested in the process of healing from PTSD read this article. In other posts I have discussed the process in PTSD before that changes the victim's spiritual beliefs. Healthy humans generally have some kind of spirituality that helps them cope(Religion is not a requirement, spirituality and religion not the same thing). He has an approach to heal this aspect of the disorder. This is what I believe causes radicalization of religion which causes a lot of terrorism and violence in those who have psychological trauma injuries. I also believe Dr. Nadal Hasan was radicalized from PTSD from multiple causes, even though he was never in battle he heard one story after another about what happened in the middle east to our soldiers and the innocent civilians, including war crimes, as well as some trauma personally from other areas.

One element that is making the PTSD of our soldiers worse is the conflict of conscience about harming innocent civilians, the objectives of securing the resources of other countries for the U.S., and fighting unjust wars which destroy countries. If I had been in his place they would have me locked up at one of the ghost sites where they put federal/military whistleblowers to prevent them from talking. Watching others suffering over a long period of time is a cause of PTSD. I don't care what so called experts say for news cameras.


“Veterans need a safety net when they come home from Iraq and Afghanistan,” he says, “so they won’t crash and burn like so many Vietnam veterans did. People in the community should be waiting to catch them.”

Key to the healing process for veterans, he says, is for them to experience the emotions that they could not allow themselves to feel in the war zone and to address the spiritual damage that they suffered during combat.

This is why I write about my own PTSD, it allows me to feel the experiences without actually being in them. Sometimes it causes triggering and flare ups, but I know it will be healing, so I continue. I tried to get counseling in rural Alaska on multiple occasions and it was clearly impossible. Trying to get help from these people who run the community mental health centers in Homer and Soldotna is very traumatizing as well as a waste of energy. I have to do what I can to heal on my own, realizing I do have some permanent changes that can never be healed. I will never be the person I was when I came to Alaska, I consider that a theft perpetrated by sociopaths(Soul Stalkers) at the corporation I worked for, key employees at the public defender agency, the department of law, legislators and the incompetent, corrupt governor who was in place at that time. Many were made aware of the gross injustices in my case and very apparently did not care, even when they were informed as they were being carried out. Perhaps that is due to there being so many people in Alaska in the same situation or even much worse.

All the symptoms of ptsd — substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual promiscuity, child abuse, employment difficulties, intimacy problems, high divorce rates, suicide, homicide — all are epidemic in our population. If we can diagnose an entire culture with ptsd, then the U.S. has it. The illness of the culture may be related to the way we are practicing war against other countries and the planet while denying responsibility for it.

This underlying milder degree of PTSD-ness in our society also contributes to those who have a very acute exposure to trauma getting very ill and the pervasiveness of this societal PTSD-ness makes people in the U.S. think the trauma that causes it and the PTSD-ness are normal. We can't see how much harm is really done because bullying is a part of our culture. Those who end up harmed are seen as weak and they are blamed for the damage done to harm them. Those who do the harming are rewarded with high paying jobs and political positions. Part of the effects come from the way children are bullied at school, people are medically bullied, workplace bullied, and legally bullied, it is the culture that does not recognize the pathology caused by trauma that continues to allow people to be treated this way. Our culture puts many of the worst of us (sociopaths) in positions of power(politically, legally, corporately) and then lets them prey upon us, how sick is that? Employers, especially in corporations understand how to use trauma to harm adversaries, destroy competition, and get rid of particular employees, for example older nurses who cost health care corporations more money. The cost to society is high for many reasons, such as the loss of the most experienced nurses in health care.

Even though we have a justice system in this country it is not working and when people can't get justice in a society some will find their own justice. Part of finding justice for may soldiers could be prosecuting those who sent them to execute actions that were based on lies which they now feel were wrong given later revelations. Soldiers just do what they are told, they are not given rationales, and are punished if their conscience tells them to not follow orders. The lack of justice that we are seeing with regard to corporations, politicians, powerful people, and the wealthy is doing a great deal of harm to people in this country and yes, contributing to the traumatizing of many. Justice heals. Without justice a country will rot from the inside out.

Soldiers are sent into situations which can cause unintended incidents which they would have never have wanted to happen. Dysfunction leads to chaos. Those who have been tormented and have no recourse(justice) may go after their tormentors when they become seriously disturbed. In the U.S. much of the bullying that goes on has been set up by those who bully (military-industrial complex, politicians, judges, attorney generals, and corporations) to be non-prosecutorial, not having any recourse and having to not disclose any information about “incidents“ such as in the military make people sick. PTSD is not a mental illness, but can certainly lead to mental illness when multiple traumas occur over a long period of time, it is the result of psychological trauma and it is not the victim's fault they are ill. Sending soldiers who have PTSD already back into combat has very predictable consequences and the military is very aware of this.

Have you noticed it took the military a long time to "understand" PTSD. Many people have been screaming about the treatment of veterans with it for decades. The soldiers who were affected in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, previous middle east invasions, and other military actions were basically expected to just deal with whatever harm was done to them. Even though they are known to be ill with PTSD they get minimal treatment and are sent back to combat. They later commit an illegal or violent act in a state of dissociation or temporary psychosis, then they are prosecuted not allowed to use PTSD as a defense(murder or murder/suicide can be one of the consequences of complex PTSD, especially in those trained to kill and see guns as a solution to problems), and the horrible things they witnessed or were ordered to do were denied by the military. The military has a history of minimizing, denying, and lying about harm done to soldiers and the people in the lands they fight in.

Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome (organophosphates, depleted uranium, biological weapons, smoke from burning oil wells), PTSD, and other health problems were turned into a joke and used against the soldiers whose health was often affected to the point of death. Gulf War Syndrome even affected some of their families, including offspring. They were already ill and had to go through years and years of misinformation, being seen as malingerers(stigmatizing again of those ill due to service to this country), and fighting to get any help. Most people know Agent Orange from the Vietnam era caused multiple health problems and they were treated the same way. The military likes to call those who have PTSD and commit suicide cowards, this is a myth. Compare them to those at the Pentagon who encouraged the military staff to promote negative thinking about those who have PTSD, like the military encouraged for centuries. Some of the people with negative attitudes about PTSD are actually mental health professionals who know very little about it, but think they are experts. Early interventions can help prevent PTSD or keep it from evolving into a more severe form. Stigmatizing and denial of help for those affected will only compound the situation. Minimizing future trauma is also very important. There is also an effect on the morale of those who have to deal with the problems of their fellow soldiers who have been traumatized when they see them viewed in a negative light. When they have symptoms themselves they do not seek help.