As a reservist, I was not really able to access the military medical system. With the back injury, going through my GP, he's the one who turned around and sent me up to Sunnybrook to an orthopaedic specialist who took one look at me walking in the door and said I had done something to my back. She could tell just from looking at the way I was walking. She worked everything up. Again, because all that came from the civilian sector, the military was saying that I had a back injury, they didn't really know what to do with me, so I was put on light duties.
That's the official stuff that exists in my military medical records, which of course was then sent over to VAC. They then said that it all came from a civilian doctor. The military doctors weren't saying that it's due to military service. They were making no mention of it at all other than acknowledging that there is some physical limitation. It gets screwed up.
The psychiatric part ended up going through my GP. He made the referral to CAMH because here in Toronto it's pretty much the only way of getting a psychiatrist. I ended up waiting a period of time, but a few people who I knew were in slightly higher positions of power pulled some strings and got me fast-tracked into CAMH.
Again, because I wasn't being seen by a military doctor, all the reports coming out were asking what this really meant on top of that. In an effort to protect me from the system itself, the military, those who were aware were trying to hide my diagnosis for me, so that if I was not immediately ejected...That's why, even though my demons started surfacing in 2005-06, I managed to stay on until 2010. The moment that things shifted and people became aware that I had these diagnoses, my days were numbered.
The moment of people finding out, certain people at the higher level finding out that I had depression, had PTSD, the PCat system was initiated and very shortly after that my medical release notification came in, even though I was finding a way of functioning.
Having said all that, there's also this weird disconnect that's occurring with Veterans Affairs where when we're being medically released, it states in our medical releases the nature and the reasons why we're being released. Yet, we're still having to fight with Veterans Affairs frequently after our release to get those benefits, to get claims done.
Especially with the OSIs, those can be so discombobulating that sometimes when you end up full on facing your demons, you don't know what day it is. Trying to figure out that you should apply to VAC before you're released, sometimes that's not happening. VAC is not simply taking those release documents and saying that there is obviously something there. If the military is releasing them for injuries, they should be given the benefit of the doubt, they should be put into the program, given the care they need, and then they can start questioning once people have stabilized, and then ask, especially on the OSIs, where the actual source of it is.
I've got other issues with how psychiatry even tries to figure out causation. That's actually the topic of my Ph.D. thesis, so we may not have time to go into that.