It must be difficult dealing with angry veterans who are mentally ill and exasperating it with substance abuse issues while refusing to take their medications. I have come to drop the resentments I have towards the VA with age. It is not their fault that I didn’t become a lawyer or college professor. It is not their fault that I didn’t succeed in life. Honestly I’m lucky to have everything and one that I have. Dissonant to this though is the integrity that I need to maintain understanding that things are complex in my history with the VA. For example, the paper I wrote in college critical of torture that began to circulate in my community led to some mistreatment, especially by other veterans inpatient. Forcibly injecting me with Haldol until I was pissing myself and unable to talk was a little out of line. Having a mental break down, while going through withdraw and dealing with social aggression from the other patients returning from Iraq and Afghanistan while being unable to advocate for myself most certainly did do some harm to my recovery. Still, I didn’t need to get out and go back to drinking and eventually pot use though. I didn’t have to have the occasional periods where I refused all medication.
Once I gave the VA time to forget me as they conceived me, I got off of alcohol and pot completely. At that point, they did start to wean back on my medication, albeit reluctantly and thanks to some advocacy from a doctor from Pakistan. Before then though, I got jacked up back onto Haldol and was peeing myself and unable to talk. This had happened a couple times in my life. I spoke out as best I could though, and really was quite brave for being scared, and then drugged, out of my mind. I had no choice and never knew any better. For one, I never fully grasped the level of danger I was in, whether it was as a peace keeper or under the care of a hospital tied in to the military I was critiquing the behavior of. I wish they would have actually read that paper though.
I ultimately never declared our actions illegal, but recommended a half baked proposal that we update the laws of warfare with our enemies. I’m now thinking that is a bit far fetched, but my paper preceded that rather idealistic proposal by quoting a Bush advisor stating that it was okay to torture children to elicit information; nothing was illegal and thus moral anarchy was implied, albeit inverting the foundational relationship of law and morality. In the end, I’m not sure it matters as I watch us march towards a complete disregard for any formal or informal limitations on war. Even in the paper, I indicated “boots on the ground need to do what they do” or something to that effect. My criticism was of the decisions and actions of people removed from the battle field. I was arrogant none-the-less. I really was. I was in a manic state of bipolar type one under the influence of recreational drugs while refusing to take my medications. I still stand by my statement.
There are limits, or at least should be, to warfare especially of those removed from the actual battle field. Torturing children is one of them, and the ‘ticking nuke’ thought experiment is just a dark red herring for ethicists who should hold firm that at the very least there should be limits. Burn everything down, even when suffering loss, is just not excusable. When we need to win at the cost of humanity, we’ve basically put country before God. It’s not even that I believe in any deity, but patriotism over the survival of greater life is insane and so is rationalizing why it is okay to torture the children of our enemy. We are already bombing them and we recruit legal teenagers who can’t drink or smoke. Maybe we aren’t that great of a nation; though I blame the limits of our species.
I really was arrogant though. My present state is my fault. I never made it in life. I don’t blame the VA. I could have recovered. I chose alcohol, pot, tobacco and coffee instead. I still vape synthetic nicotine, and have been unable to resolve this despite ongoing pledges to stop. I can’t even imagine quitting coffee voluntarily. It’s not on any higher power to bring control over my decisions. The onus for my behavior is on me; bipolar or not. The presence of physiological reasons as to my behavior, really does ignore that the separation between mind and body doesn’t negate that they are completely entangled beyond different dimensional views of the same processes unfolding. The language used to describe them is the main difference. Language can confuse our identity. It can dehumanize us and turn us into a machine. I feel. I am aware. I choose.
I function better on medication. I quit using with the right mental health support, which I cyclically got as I started to quit using and the VA silently and reluctantly realized it wasn’t all my mistake. There were a few ways I was right. The intelligence sectors removed from front line warfare was taking shit too far. (I have no credible opinion about those embedded in forward positions or on the frontline.) I was probably right in an area of medical ethics as progress is now showing a gradual move towards not routinely circumcising infants. DLA had some incompetency going on and rushed systems that not only weren’t ready, but mismanaged in security. I pointed out the problem of internet newsgroups falling off the radar due to their archaic nature, and they got shut down. I was right at times. I was also out of my mind psychotically wrong about a whole bunch of shit. There were moments Alex Jones made sense to me. I had issues.
Getting back to the original point, I’ve nothing against the VA anymore and apologize for my arrogant attitude in regards to wreckage on my side of the street. I am glad to get services and see them of utmost importance to veterans. My biggest regret is how long it took me to get to this point, and that I still have fleeting temptations to relapse or rationalize selfish pleasure seeking at the expense of others. I’ll always be rather arrogant and self centered. It’s that fact that I choose to struggle against my nature that is honorable as I’ve always been a sucker for a story of redemption by the antihero that progressively overcame his/her deficits (mostly.) It’s so much better than Superman being good and doing good, because he’s just a good guy. Give me a full palette of progressive personality any day. I can relate to that. I don’t doubt psychiatrists and other gods of medicine can grasp that. Increasingly I have hope for tomorrow, as imperfect as it will be.
Joker's Wild 