I do not see the relationship between seeking compensation from the VA and the need to free oneself from the dependence of the govt. This thought contradicts the entire purpose of compensation. An individual can get compensation and work at the same time. I know several people who have plenty of money to support themselves and still pursue their VA compensation.
If you want to have wars or make widgets you better have enough money in the budget to pay your employees and warriors a salary that will allow them to get medical insurance that covers them that while doing their job or pay for it from your own budget. This is the law of our great land. People who want to circumvent this law will find themselves standing in front of a judge. Insurance investigators bust these guys all the time.
This proposal that one should free themselves from dependence on the govt. sounds similar to the type of guilt trip laid on a retiree who I recently met. He said that will being processed out they found that he had a loss in range of motion in his shoulder and the doctor wanted to get a rating assigned. He said he also ran into individuals who were telling him that he was a “woos” for trying to get disability and do the manly thing and just take his retirement. Talk about low self esteem. Only a person with low self esteem would give up something rightfully theirs because some clowns laid a guilt trip on him.
“wouldn't you feel better if you could bootstrap yourself into some meaningful occupation and get rid of your dependence on VA?”
In the above generalization, are we talking about all disabilities are just psychiatric disabilities. Should we forgo our dependency on the GI bill to get through college. Then having the satisfaction of knowing that when we graduated that “WE DID IT OUR WAY”. Is this something you tell every veteran that walks in the front door of the VSO office. Or, is this just a special treat for hadit. Is there a big copy of the above statement framed and hanging on the wall in the lobby of your VSO office. If so, post a picture for us to see.
“One thing I believe in is individual differences. One person's catastrophe is another's challenge to be overcome. Psychologists call it compensation. Fred's a good example of the latter.”
Don, you are beginning to sound like you have inklings to be a self help guru. Sometimes your expressions and use of generalizations make it hard for me to decipher your thoughts. “totally schizo” Talking about choices and peoples responses to challenges and people picking themselves up from the boot straps.
I was beginning to wonder if you were trying to make a point about a schizophrenic picking himself up by the boot straps, or making choices that led to recovery. I have been around “psychotics” with various levels of functioning for a long time. I have read lots of discharge notes. I also have had reoccurring psychotic episodes. I have been treated and or studied psychology since the age of 21. I studied psychology in the UC system and was known to get “A’s” in my upper division core classes. In between psychotic episodes and the various careers, I wound up in an inpatient rehab program at the VA. I eventually went on to an excellent civil service position as a result of the three weeks of training provided to me by the VA. Three weeks does not sound like much. However, without that training I would not have passed the civil service exam I had to take for the position. Two years later the VA hunted me down and asked me if they could make a film about my success in the program to show at VA hospitals all over the USA. I gladly did the filmed interviews. Maybe they showed the film in your town. A couple years after that the labor law lawyers found out I did not tell the city I had chronic angioedema before they hired me. The lawyers went nuts and ran me out of town.
I do have a website. However, none of this is on my website. I have always thought that people who have recovered from drug dependency or life styles of habitual criminality would be a much better example of inspiration to the common man than we who were inflicted with “psychotic” disorders.
The idea that a schizophrenic did things to “significantly advance themselves and rise to a challenge to escape out of the throws of this disease does sound rather romantic and foreign to me. In school I was taught that schizophrenics had swings in their ability to function. Schizophrenics functioned better at times than others. Functioning psychotics who had required hospitalization were given a safe place to stay. Good diet and sometimes medications. Discharge notes did not say things like “he met the challenges of this disease, picked his self up by the bootstraps and walked out of the hospital”. Actually, “Responded well to medications” and “Spontaneous recovery” are the types of explanations that I have seen on discharge notes.
I went to Fred’s site to see what he had to see about his recovery. What I found is pretty much what I expected. Below is a paragraph I cut and pasted. I made the section about the medications bold. Fred does not talk like somebody who feels he cured himself or made significant advances by his decisions. It appears to me that the less severe features of his disease, the spontaneous remissions and medications allow him to function.
Pasted from Fred’s site.
“People who are physically disabled can be helped by artificial supports such as seeing eye dogs, hearing aids, or crutches. Schizophrenia requires the chemical “crutch” of neuroleptic medication. Without it, I would not be able to function as I do today. True, some medications have serious side effects, but new drugs are constantly being developed, and many of them are more effective with fewer side effects. “
Fred is an interesting person and a good example of a functioning schizophrenic. Fred just sounds glad the disease has not been any more severe and that he has medication available to him. I could post comparative symptoms of different individual schizophrenics and specifics as to the types of treatment that have been successful for many mental disorders. However, it would take to long.
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Hoppy
I do not see the relationship between seeking compensation from the VA and the need to free oneself from the dependence of the govt. This thought contradicts the entire purpose of compensation. An individual can get compensation and work at the same time. I know several people who have plenty of money to support themselves and still pursue their VA compensation.
If you want to have wars or make widgets you better have enough money in the budget to pay your employees and warriors a salary that will allow them to get medical insurance that covers them that while doing their job or pay for it from your own budget. This is the law of our great land. People who want to circumvent this law will find themselves standing in front of a judge. Insurance investigators bust these guys all the time.
This proposal that one should free themselves from dependence on the govt. sounds similar to the type of guilt trip laid on a retiree who I recently met. He said that will being processed out they found that he had a loss in range of motion in his shoulder and the doctor wanted to get a rating assigned. He said he also ran into individuals who were telling him that he was a “woos” for trying to get disability and do the manly thing and just take his retirement. Talk about low self esteem. Only a person with low self esteem would give up something rightfully theirs because some clowns laid a guilt trip on him.
“wouldn't you feel better if you could bootstrap yourself into some meaningful occupation and get rid of your dependence on VA?”
In the above generalization, are we talking about all disabilities are just psychiatric disabilities. Should we forgo our dependency on the GI bill to get through college. Then having the satisfaction of knowing that when we graduated that “WE DID IT OUR WAY”. Is this something you tell every veteran that walks in the front door of the VSO office. Or, is this just a special treat for hadit. Is there a big copy of the above statement framed and hanging on the wall in the lobby of your VSO office. If so, post a picture for us to see.
“One thing I believe in is individual differences. One person's catastrophe is another's challenge to be overcome. Psychologists call it compensation. Fred's a good example of the latter.”
Don, you are beginning to sound like you have inklings to be a self help guru. Sometimes your expressions and use of generalizations make it hard for me to decipher your thoughts. “totally schizo” Talking about choices and peoples responses to challenges and people picking themselves up from the boot straps.
I was beginning to wonder if you were trying to make a point about a schizophrenic picking himself up by the boot straps, or making choices that led to recovery. I have been around “psychotics” with various levels of functioning for a long time. I have read lots of discharge notes. I also have had reoccurring psychotic episodes. I have been treated and or studied psychology since the age of 21. I studied psychology in the UC system and was known to get “A’s” in my upper division core classes. In between psychotic episodes and the various careers, I wound up in an inpatient rehab program at the VA. I eventually went on to an excellent civil service position as a result of the three weeks of training provided to me by the VA. Three weeks does not sound like much. However, without that training I would not have passed the civil service exam I had to take for the position. Two years later the VA hunted me down and asked me if they could make a film about my success in the program to show at VA hospitals all over the USA. I gladly did the filmed interviews. Maybe they showed the film in your town. A couple years after that the labor law lawyers found out I did not tell the city I had chronic angioedema before they hired me. The lawyers went nuts and ran me out of town.
I do have a website. However, none of this is on my website. I have always thought that people who have recovered from drug dependency or life styles of habitual criminality would be a much better example of inspiration to the common man than we who were inflicted with “psychotic” disorders.
The idea that a schizophrenic did things to “significantly advance themselves and rise to a challenge to escape out of the throws of this disease does sound rather romantic and foreign to me. In school I was taught that schizophrenics had swings in their ability to function. Schizophrenics functioned better at times than others. Functioning psychotics who had required hospitalization were given a safe place to stay. Good diet and sometimes medications. Discharge notes did not say things like “he met the challenges of this disease, picked his self up by the bootstraps and walked out of the hospital”. Actually, “Responded well to medications” and “Spontaneous recovery” are the types of explanations that I have seen on discharge notes.
I went to Fred’s site to see what he had to see about his recovery. What I found is pretty much what I expected. Below is a paragraph I cut and pasted. I made the section about the medications bold. Fred does not talk like somebody who feels he cured himself or made significant advances by his decisions. It appears to me that the less severe features of his disease, the spontaneous remissions and medications allow him to function.
Pasted from Fred’s site.
“People who are physically disabled can be helped by artificial supports such as seeing eye dogs, hearing aids, or crutches. Schizophrenia requires the chemical “crutch” of neuroleptic medication. Without it, I would not be able to function as I do today. True, some medications have serious side effects, but new drugs are constantly being developed, and many of them are more effective with fewer side effects. “
Fred is an interesting person and a good example of a functioning schizophrenic. Fred just sounds glad the disease has not been any more severe and that he has medication available to him. I could post comparative symptoms of different individual schizophrenics and specifics as to the types of treatment that have been successful for many mental disorders. However, it would take to long.
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