As I said, my physical injuries were never a problem to deal with. As a patient you have your ups and downs. In my view, with a lot of the mental stuff, the patient has to be as honest with themselves as they are with who they are dealing with. The biggest step we've made in the last 10 years or so is making it okay for people to seek that treatment.
Personally, how I dodged the PTSD bullet is I started talking about what happened to me pretty quickly. I don't know if you remember, but CBC had that show Dispatches, with Rick MacInnes-Rae. I think that's his name. He was in my hospital room within a week. I said okay, because even at that time I thought, who knows what's going to happen to this new Veterans Charter thing.
I remember as a kid hearing about the merchant marines getting their pensions or something in the 1980s, I think. I said, “I don't want to be like those guys, so let's make our stories known.” When I see a lot of the other.... Alannah's thing was that she had a tough time admitting it to herself and everybody. My medical stuff, my physical stuff, was dealt with pretty easily. It's pretty straightforward, right? Then it's the mental stuff.
There are a lot of staff issues. You go to see a psychologist one day, and then you go back for your next appointment. If you're lucky it's a month later, but it's someone new, so you have to start all over again. I saw a psychiatrist briefly in Toronto. I had six sessions, and they changed. At the fourth session I ended up with a different person. They read the notes, but still, when you're in that state, you're wary of new people.
I think the biggest issue they have is people. In Petawawa, I guess, keeping a psychiatrist there...they can't do it.