Why didn't doctors listen when warned about PTSD?

This is infuriating! How could they not know? I'm not even a doctor and I knew! Why did I know? Because I paid attention. This high school graduate with multiple certifications but not one degree, managed to know more than some doctors who spent years going to college and universities! Not knowing what was coming exposes the fact some doctors refused to pay attention when all the data and evidence was there and people like me were screaming about what we were heading into. They are still not listening.

The difference between advocates and doctors is that this is all we do. This is our lives! We've paid attention to all the facts, the data coming out since Vietnam and we saw it all coming. While they were focused on other things, we had a radar lock on PTSD and only PTSD. They may have been dealing with other needs but this was our focus. When you tell a doctor you know more about PTSD than they do, they get offended. Why? They may study it enough so that they can do what we can't, which is diagnose and treat it, but they do not live it. While they are treating an individual, we are finding out what's going on in another state or another nation. While we deal with families who have had a son or daughter commit suicide on one side of the nation, they are still trying to come to terms with the fact they don't even know how many have committed suicide or the fact the VA did not even want to tell them.

While we were trying to tell them they had to get clinics opened because too many are too far away from hospitals, they fought against it. When we said they needed to open veteran's centers because too many wanted nothing to do with the government, they fought against it. They fought against us from the start and now, now they are waking up to the fact they were "unaware" and "unprepared" for what was coming! Good Lord! There is no excuse for any of this. They are still far behind on where we really are. Now they are facing the tsunami trying to hold it off with beach shovel.

July 22, 2008
Scope of PTSD cases becoming clear, psychologist tells Rotary
Doctors and psychologists are slowly coming to grips with the numbers of soldiers coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, local psychologist David Clayman told members of the Rotary Club of Charleston on Monday.
By Rusty Marks
Staff writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Doctors and psychologists are slowly coming to grips with the numbers of soldiers coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, local psychologist David Clayman told members of the Rotary Club of Charleston on Monday.

Initially overwhelmed and unprepared for the numbers of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD, Clayman said, the medical community is beginning to better understand the disorder and its possible treatments.

"The awareness is there," Clayman said following Monday afternoon's meeting. "The biggest thing is not to push it under the rug. This is going to be an ongoing, life-altering change of life for people."
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