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REACHING OUT TO WOMEN VETERANS -- "We are
finding
that a lot of female veterans are not coming
forward to
get services so we are having the conference to
make
sure they know what's out there, to make sure
they get what they are entitled to."
Story here...
http://www.free
newmexican.com/news/62966.html
Story below:
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Reaching out to women in uniform
By NATALIE STOREY | The New Mexican
Female veterans develop PTSD at higher rates than men, but many are
loath to seek help
Three times a week, Robbie Christian makes the drive from Rio Rancho to
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs complex in Albuquerque. The
drive holds potential triggers for her post-traumatic stress disorder.
Crowds of people, aggressive drivers or debris in the road make the
blond veteran of the Iraq war uneasy.
Christian goes to the VA for group therapy. When she gets there, she
often sits in her car in the parking lot. She smokes and thinks up
excuses for why she shouldn’t go inside.
Inside is a group program only for women.
In theory, it’s a great idea, Christian thinks. But it took a long time
before she would consider going to a therapy session. She sometimes
finds it hard to relate to the other women, many of whom were nurses who
were raped while serving in Vietnam. She still worries that others might
see her PTSD as a defect.
“People will probably just say it’s because I’m a woman,” she says. “But
I’ve never been a weakling. I’ve always been very independent. I’m not
sure of myself now like I used to be. I don’t like people seeing me weak
because that’s not me; that’s not who I am.”
Christian is one of 15,000 female military veterans in New Mexico.
Females in uniform and veterans, and the special set of issues they
face, are just beginning to receive national attention from media and
lawmakers in Washington, D.C. In New Mexico, a dedicated group of
advocates already has been at work.
This week, at the second Statewide Women Veterans Conference, they will
present much of what they have learned and provide information about
services available to women who have served in the military.
The conference, set for Wednesday in Albuquerque, will feature speakers
from the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services, the VA, and Women
Veterans of New Mexico, the newly created advocacy group for New
Mexico’s female vets. The conference is an effort to get the word out to
a population of veterans who advocates say are especially difficult to
reach.
“We are finding that a lot of female veterans are not coming forward to
get services so we are having the conference to make sure they know
what’s out there, to make sure they get what they are entitled to,” says
Christian McKinley, president of Women Veterans of New Mexico.
Diane Castillo, director of the VA clinic that treats women for PTSD,
agrees. “I think that getting women to come in for services has been an
obstacle all along,” she says. “Most people see the VA as for men. One
of the reasons for doing the conference is to get the word out to female
veterans that the VA is for you, too.”
Female veterans are more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD than males.
Studies done by the VA indicate 8 percent of male soldiers will develop
PTSD, while as much as 20 percent of women soldiers will develop the
condition.
Many women have been sexually harassed or raped while in the military.
Castillo says between 80 and 90 percent of her patients have experienced
sexual trauma.
When female veterans come home, many isolate themselves. They often feel
pressure to fit into familial roles — mother and wife — that they filled
before they went to war but find they no longer can fill.
Shortly after Christian came home, she split up with her fiancé. In
Iraq, Christian slept with her gun. When she got home, it was hard for
her to adjust to sleeping next to a man, she says.
“My whole life has changed since I got back,” she says. “My friends, my
family, people who were close to me have noticed differences in me. I’m
more withdrawn. I can’t be what I used to be. A lot of times, I like to
just stay (at home). Sometimes I just stay in bed.”
Christian joined the Air Force as a mechanic when she was 22 years old.
She later moved to New Mexico and joined the National Guard. She has
been in the military for a good part of her life but was not deployed
until 2003, when she was 49 years old. When she left for Iraq, her
16-year-old son, who was living with her at the time, had to sleep on
couches in the homes of friends and family members.
Christian says she experienced what could be called mild sexual
harassment while in the military.
Some female veterans in New Mexico, however, say they suffered rape.
McKinley has gone public with the assault she suffered at the hands of a
superior officer while she was in the Air Force in 1990. McKinley, who
says being in the military was the best experience of her life, began
talking publicly about her experience so the next generation of women
who serve don’t have to suffer as she did.
McKinley did not report the rape because she was worried it would damage
her relationship with other soldiers, and she feared she would not be
believed. She says she believes the military needs to do more work to
prevent assaults against women.
“It’s one of those things we call a dirty little secret,” she says. “But
it has to come forward, and we have to do something about it. Women
aren’t going away in the military, and we need to make sure they are
safe.”
Castillo says women in the military are four times more likely to
develop PTSD than civilian women. She says the difference might be
explained by the fact that military women are often forced to deal with
the source of their trauma over and over again. Castillo says one woman
in her program reported the intimidation she faced after she was
assaulted and the skeptism about whether she was telling the truth were
worse than the actual rape.
“Why does this happen? We think it’s because when you are in the
military and you are raped by a superior officer, you can’t get yourself
out of that situation so easily,” she says. “You may have to face your
perpetrator every day after it happens.”
Castillo’s program added three full-time staff members two years ago and
now has more than 200 women who regularly attend. Therapy is conducted
in a number of different groups, which focus on re-programming the mind
to deal with trauma, life skills, problems with intimacy, nightmare
therapy and other issues, and it is segregated from other parts of the
VA.
Thirty of the women who regularly attend the groups are veterans of Iraq
or Afghanistan, only 14 percent of total patients.
Part of the obstacle to getting women in for treatment is geographic;
Castillo’s clinic offers services only in Albuquerque, yet veterans are
spread throughout the state. Castillo says the symptoms of PTSD,
including feeling a need to isolate oneself and becoming numb to the
trauma, also can be obstacles that keep women from seeking treatment.
Barbara Goldman, director of the Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trauma
Treatment Center, said more options are needed for female veterans,
especially those who might not feel comfortable going to the VA.
Goldman’s center currently offers free counseling to female veterans,
but it, too, has had trouble reaching them.
Although the center has seen a handful of male veterans from the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars, no women have come through the doors. The center
got $375,000 from the New Mexico Legislature to start an outreach
program, but another proposal for funding for a study of women veterans
was shot down. Goldman says funding has been the major obstacle for the
center, and it will seek more funds at the next legislative session.
“For us,” she says, “it’s a lot about not having the money to get out
and do what we need to do.”
McKinley’s group, started in 2006, now has 100 members.
“Women, when they come back from service, blend back into the woodwork,”
she says. “They go back to families, to work. They put it in the back of
their mind to deal with it later. Some of them don’t even think of
themselves as veterans.
“That’s why groups like this are important — to make sure they get the
services and support they need.”
Contact Natalie Storey at 986-3026 or
nstorey@sfnewmexican.com.
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Larry Scott --
