jlandryit

I hope this is in the right section.. I went to see my VSO last week because i haven't heard anything from my claim recently. He looks in the files and there is a decision made on 8/04/2015 that i am 100% bipolar and PTSD and 10% for my back. They gave effective date of when i filed my claim back in April of this year. I have a few questions about this. How long before i get official letter? Secondly they denied my claim back in 2002 because my original medical records from Army read personality disorder but the decision letter states I never had one Can i appeal back to the 2002 date? Also the PA from VES never used anything to measure my range of motion for my back. I was in and out of that exam in less than 30 minutes should i file an appeal on that? Last but not least it also said that the 100% rating it isn't permanent and that i would be scheduled for exam in future. What does that mean and how can i make it permanent? And what does being 100% disabled actually mean? And can i still see my private mental health people or will VA want me to go exclusively to them? Its not a money issue for me its just so i can get the help i deserve after fighting the VA since 1996 went i was discharged. Thank you for your time and for your knowledge

Dear Fellow Veterans & Friends In 1993-194 I spent 1 year and a few months in the Army I was stationed at Fort Hood in an E-5 job as an E-1 private just trying to make it through. I did not know I had it at the time but it being an E-5 slot made my job much harder. I was bullied by the other people in my office and made to feel inferior to them. After I got to the unit I was the lowest ranking person in the office so they made me do all the menial tasks like clean the floors & pick up trash in the parking lot etc. etc. along with my job duties. I was a 71D a legal specialist so I would get all the reports of guys doing bad things and why they did the bad things they did. I had one case that still haunts me today about a solider beating his wife, then taking their baby and laying her on the couch and putting pillows over her legs and bouncing up and down on them until her legs broke. I read these reports and immediately felt bad and I had no one to share any of this with it was confidential information. So I would retreat into myself and not eat or sleep. None the less believing I had no serious problems it then started to manifest its self I overslept when I slept my work suffered showed up to work sometimes messy and out of it. A few months later I bounced a check and instead of counseling and giving me a warning they threw the book at me stopped me from getting promoted and fined me. That just made me more withdrawn and more depressed. A few weeks after that we were in the parking lot picking up trash and they made me climb on top of a garbage dumpster to open the lid. I slipped and fell and hit that black top hard. I went to sick call and they gave me a bunch of muscle relaxers and pain pills. I refused to take them the pain was the only thing keep me feeling like I was alive. After that they transferred me to another unit in the same battalion. I felt like more of a failure then. So one afternoon I down half a bottle of pain pills and another 2 half bottles of muscle relaxers. I spent the next 3-4 weeks in the psych ward at the hospital in Fort Hood. I am out the hospital 3 weeks and they start discharging me. I got a “personality disorder” discharge. I get out and less than 6 months later I try to kill myself again. I end up in a psych ward for 3 months and a ward of NYS. Apparently they tried to get benefits for me from the military but couldn’t I have a generalized anxiety disorder 0% Pension and I was 100% disabled according to social security. But ever therapist I have seen for the last 20 years have said Im Bipolar/Major Depressive. For the last 20 years I haven’t had a healthy relationship with anyone not even an animal. Before the military I was out going, fun and lively now I’m just here. I finally got in to see a VA psychiatrist she says I might have non-combat PTSD from reading the stories from when I was working in JAG. Then they tell me I’m not eligible for VA healthcare because I didn’t service 24 months. And they cut me off and canceled my appointment to see the therapist that the psychiatrist says I need to see once a week because I’m so messed up. I don’t know what to do I filled a claim for my back and for my depression but I read how long it takes for a claims to go through and I fear I’ll be dead before I get a decision. I just want help to stop being like this to feel whole again. Any Advice??? Thank you for letting me vent. John