First C&P for PTSD and Tenitus

[DMZmarine]

I am having it at RENO NV on the 19 th.I got a letter from the vet center ya think it will help.GOt any tips for me??```Semper Fi

[Phantom Blooper]

Are you retired or still working?

If you are still working how many jobs have you had in the past and told the management or the public where they can stick it?

Be upfront and honest about your PTSD symptoms to the doc....usally this part of the compensation exam in my experience lasted 5 minutes max after answering a series of dumbazz questions.

The tinnitus exam will be separate by an ENT doc and they will evaluate you for the extent of your ringing and your vertigo...about 15 minutes.

No one will give you an answer that day...the decision will come in the mail and if you don't agree with it you can rebut it and use your own defense or a service organization to help you.

Good luck!:evilgrin:

[Phantom Blooper]

I may have been premature in my above post what I said was the way it was for me in 1986.....this may be the way the VA is doing it now due to the ongoing engagements and wars.:evilgrin:



http://www.veteranprograms.com/index.html

PTSD STRESSOR LETTER: A Stressor Letter is used by Veterans Affairs (VA) raters to identify potential traumatic events that may have invoked Posttraumatic Stressor Disorder (PTSD) symptoms in combat veterans. The Stressor Letter consist of three vital parts: Life before military service; Life during military service (to include traumatic event(s); and Life after traumatic event(s). Following is an example Stressor Letter format that has been used by veterans as supportive evidence for their PTSD claim. It should be modified as needed to your case should you decide to use it:

(Life before Military Service)
I was born on ___ in ___. I am the ___ of __ children born to my biological parents. My childhood seemed normal and carefree to me. In elementary school I performed well academically, joined a few school clubs, and participated in the Boy Scouts. I had a few close friends during that time, and we spent much of our time playing many different sports. I also had a few hobbies during those formative years. For instance, I ___. I was never sick, never had any broken bones, and was pretty much healthy. I remember my mother being very protective of me. She always made sure I was safe and not surrounded by trouble. It all seemed pretty normal to me.


During high school I was actively involved in ___. Football, baseball and basketball consumed a lot of my time. I also discovered girls, and along with my friends we would do a lot in order to impress them. For example, when I got my driver’s license I would borrow my parents car so that I could cruise the neighborhood so that the girls would see me driving. Also, during this time I expressed a lot of interest in the Armed Forces, especially the ___. I loved the uniforms and the girls seemed to like them as well. I was young and impressionable. My thinking was at the time, if I could join the ___ it would be easy to capture girls. They seemed to like the uniform a lot. My senior year in high school I met with a ___ recruiter who pointed out all of the positive aspects of the ___. I was hooked. When I graduated from high school in ___, I joined the ___ two months later.

(Life during Military Service)
In ___, I enlisted in the ___ as a means of seeking gainful employment, fighting for my country, and impressing the girls. I completed boot camp at ___. I thought boot camp was pretty easy. I was always physically fit, did well academically in school, so boot camp was easier than I anticipated. I made squad leader the first week I was there. After boot camp I attended ___. After six weeks of ___ I was a lean mean fighting machine. I was ready for anything. After ___, I got orders to Vietnam. I arrived in Vietnam in ___. When I got there my initial impression was complete shock. The place smelled bad, looked bad, and seemed dirty. After processing in, I was assigned to ___. As soon as I got settled in a grisly old ___ made it a point to tell me I would never see the states again. I didn’t let him know at the time, but that scared the heck out of me. After only two weeks in country I witnessed the horrors of war.

· January 1968, while serving guard duty, my forward base camp was mortared by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Mortars were dropping in everywhere. The sound was loud and the smell was horrible. A machine gunner about 10 yards away from me was hit on the left shoulder. The mortar blew off the entire left side of his body. I tried to administer first aid, but he died almost immediately. After the mortar attack stopped, I remember sitting in the bunker shaking badly for about 30 minutes. I couldn’t get the images out of my head of seeing my comrades killed.· February 1968, during a search and destroy mission in the jungle my unit came across three dead American soldiers. They were nailed to a tree, their ears had been cut off, and all of them had mud stuffed down their throats. The sight was horrible. We took them down and properly bagged them up and sent them to the morgue. The smell of their rotting flesh was awful. I didn’t sleep well for three weeks after that incident.· April 1968, during a search and destroy mission my unit was involved in a very intense firefight. We lost two guys in our unit. I just ended my pointman duties when the firefight started. The guy that replaced me was hit in the face by a few rounds. He died instantly. Another guy was hit in the chest and died as well. Several other members of our unit were wounded pretty bad. I’m not sure how I survived, but I did. In fact, I didn’t get a scratch. But, I was terrified. I had a few horrible dreams about the incident that night and days later. Of course, being the Marine I thought I was, I didn’t tell anyone.· J uly 1968, me and my unit went on night patrol duty near a delta outside of Da Nang. Two hours into our patrol we ran into a huge platoon of NVA troops. A firefight ensued. The fighting was intense. We lost five guys in my unit and several others were injured badly. Again, I escaped with only a bruise on my left thigh. This firefight scared me the most. It was dark, and all you could see were tracers from machine guns. I was sure one of those bullets had my name on it.
After that incident, the remainder of my tour was uneventful. I carried out other seek & destroy missions against enemy troops, but saw no action. During the seek & destroy missions, I enthusiastically carried out my duties as a pointman, and where ever else I was assigned. I served in the Vietnam theatre of operations for ___ months. During my combat duty in Vietnam, I lost many close war buddies, and witnessed many American soldiers die in major firefights with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops. As a result, I struggled daily from survivors’ guilt. My buddies died in combat and I, for the most part, incurred no major injuries. I experienced many life-threatening battle situations, and egregious life-sustaining scenarios while in the combat zone of Vietnam. I think about those events constantly.

(Life since the Traumatic Event(S))
When I left Vietnam and flew back to the states I remember being relieved and at the same time depressed and angry. I was glad to leave combat, where I lost many buddies and saw horrible things that no one should be subjected to. I was extremely sad as well. I was sad that some of my buddies would never be returning to their families, and I was really sad knowing that I was leaving some of my buddies in harms way. When I got back to the states I was ****ed. People called me a baby killer, war monger, and death machine. People who knew nothing about the war thought I was an animal and it made me very angry.



As a result, I found that I could not tolerate being around people, not even my family. Strangers who knew I served my country treated me with disdain. My family treated me like I had a disease. They were afraid to talk to me, and when they did muster up the courage to talk to me they always seemed to say the wrong thing. I go to bed angry and afraid most nights. Angry that my military experience in Vietnam has caused many problems for me --afraid to go to sleep because the nightmares of Vietnam scare me badly. My brain cannot tell fact from fiction and when I have dreams about Vietnam it’s like I am re-living those horrible firefights I used to have in Vietnam. Daily, I find myself checking my windows, my door locks, and checking under my bed for intruders. I learned those skills in the Marine Corps, but my third wife seems to think I have lost my mind. She calls me paranoid.


Also, since I separated from the Marine Corps I have had a very difficult time sustaining employment. I first worked for the police department, but I was let go because my supervisor thought I was “trigger happy.” I later worked for many small security guard firms, but all of them let me go. They said I had a temper that was out of control and that I was going to hurt someone. To earn a living I sold cars for many different dealerships. I was fired from every place I worked. The sales managers would **** me off. On one occasion, a sales manager refused to pay me and the next thing I knew I was being pulled off of the guy. I must have snapped, because I do not remember attacking him. I realized after working for automobile dealerships for more than a decade, I had to find something that I could do on my own. Since I knew the car business pretty well, I decided to open a small note lot. That didn’t last very long. The customers would make so angry that I could not sleep at night. I have been in a downward spiral of despair ever since.


I went to the VA to seek help for my mental anguish. I was informed that I may have PTSD. The psychological impact of multiple war experiences may have led to the many negative psychological issues and cognitive distortions that I have struggled with since departing Vietnam. I currently participate in a combat PTSD group at my local Vet Center, and I take many medications to help with my anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure.

[Source: www.veteranprograms.com/id57.html May 09 ++]

[DMZmarine]

Do you need to point out stressors

[DMZmarine]

do you need to prove stressers..heck out ttacment

[DMZmarine]

check it out

[Phantom Blooper]

Do you need to point out stresses

I have a CAR and the series of questions asked by the doc in Winston-Salem,NC asked about stresses. Hyper-vigilance,anger,isolation ET.

Nice letter from the Vet Center.:evilgrin:

[Petz]

yes... ET will do it every time for me too.... he's so creapy.

[Phantom Blooper]

Go Home!:beer:

:evilgrin:

[DMZmarine]

Thanks for the feed back......whats ET..SEMPER FI

[Petz]

he's a short guy with a long neck and a wide flat head... he crash landed on earth in 1981 and launched drew Barrymore into famedom....

I was cracking a joke at PB for not hitting the 'C' in etc...

I do hope everything works out in hearing or what not for your disability rating.

I'm 70% myself... I'd recommend you go talk to the DAV for representation.

[Phantom Blooper]

Meant to put etc.:evilgrin:

[DMZmarine]

RGR thanks

[Phantom Blooper]

I'd recommend you go talk to the DAV for representation.

You don't need representation for a C&P.

If your claim gets denied after your C&P exam or you don't agree with the decision....in the letter you are sent there will be instructions on a rebuttal....hopefully you will not need this.

If you do rebut,they will tell you where to meet for your hearing and assign you counsel from a service organization...located usually in the Federal Building or where the hearing would be held.

Or you can use your own civilian counsel at your own expense.....or a service officer from a veterans organization that you belong to or are comfortable with.

The letter will not be the next day thing....the doctors findings will have to go to the adjudication people in the VA regional office and there they will make the decision of percentage or denial.Then you have 120 days to rebut or accept the findings.

The VA system is complicated and bureaucratic and sometimes you can get fed up and want to quit.....but persistence is the key...do not call them and ask for the findings but if you are not satisfied keep submitting evidence until you are!

Again good luck to you!:evilgrin:

[Phantom Blooper]

Hey Marine,

How did it go at the C&P exam?:evilgrin:

[DMZmarine]

Thanks for asking..damn waht a night mare actually It seemed to go well.. The fellow i had was head of the mental health for reno va.He said he had been doing it for 29 years.That his father had died in the Va reno hospital.
He wanted one event i gave him seven.I I talked about all thye defernt stressers.We talked for two hours.Then i had to anser questions on a pc about depersseon and another on PTSD had to pick from 4 ansers on each quesions were on severity.
Thanks for your input it helped.Damn next time i will have a script..this time i took notes.
Semper FI

[DMZmarine]

I had my C@P on the 19th.I
The shrink i had said he had been doing C&P's or 29 years...He stared out with the stressers .He asked about one but i gave him seven...then we talked about PTSD symtomns now, then child hood stuff up to nam which was all good.
The guy was trying to be friendly..i got pernoid about that...asked about the giants...if i wached them on tv ...and so on..i was short with him mostly...I have been going to The Vet center and VA ..I start a PTSD 101 class next week at the VA..He asked me to rate the vet center ..I said GOOD...seemed wierd to me.
Any way it took about a hour..then he had me take a pc exam on deperssion and ptsd ..All abcd stating withn some of the time to always mostly.