Thank you very much for this opportunity to bring that up.
I do need to say one thing first, if I may, and it is that there was a prime example of exactly how women veterans are dealt with on a daily basis, an hourly basis, in what we saw here earlier today. I got up from the table on purpose. I didn't get up because I hurt. I didn't get up because I was triggered. I got up because I was being ignored; I was being treated with disrespect; my story was not acknowledged, and someone was using me as their platform. That is part of the problem here.
I am not someone else's platform. I am not someone else's cash cow. I am not someone else's product. I am a human being; I am a veteran, and I am strong in that.
I was very upset. It hurt, and I felt diminished. I felt so many of these negative emotions that I did almost walk out the door. The only reason I stayed here, the only reason I did not walk out the door, was that I had a couple of people get up, come over to me and say, “We still want to hear you.” To that, I honour.
Now, in response to “I was promised”, and in response to the “security of truth”, one of the biggest things I have discovered is that with Veterans Affairs we are promised certain things. I had to go to my case manager and I had to negotiate what I was going to do for any type of training and any type of care. When I say “negotiate”, that is exactly the correct term: It's a negotiation.
Veterans Affairs has this habit of changing case managers very quickly. They also have a habit of passing us over to contractors. Every single time we have a promise in hand—we have already negotiated what we need—we get passed over to somebody else, and then we have to renegotiate. We have to restart from the beginning. In a six-month period, I had to tell my horror story, my rape story, three times. That was in six months. That was suicide attempt number one, by the way.
I don't think there's a single person who can actually understand the trauma that someone goes through. When I said earlier that Veterans Affairs has created more trauma for me than the military did, I am really not exaggerating. Why would I have to share my experience three times to three different types of experts to prove my truth so that they can change the negotiated process that I've already started? That is part of that promise. It keeps being renegotiated. It keeps being cancelled. Every time I turn around, that happens. Not only am I being negated, but it's almost worse: I'm used. In the military, I wasn't used. As a veteran, I am.