I've had four case managers since I started at VAC in 2020. It was a battle with one case manager. It was like butting heads on just about everything that was awarded or overturned. It started with the critical injury benefit and then with SISIP. It was like a fight, a personal fight. I don't understand how it became personal.
There was no trauma-informed.... This woman sent somebody to the house to tell me that I'm choosing to be a victim over being a survivor. That was while I was holding my one-year-old son. I couldn't understand how a woman could look me in the eye and say that.
It's because they don't understand where I come from. They can't possibly believe this happened. They think it must be fabricated, because it couldn't happen on Canadian soil. This is something you hear about in a third world country. This couldn't possibly happen here, as if I must be blowing it out of proportion; I must be making it bigger than it is.
None of these people have lived the experience that I've lived. None of them have been through what I've been through in my circumstance. They have their own, but at the same time, I believe that veterans trigger Veterans Affairs employees, and this triggering leads to a battle of wits. I feel like I was doing more of the job of case manager than my own case manager. What made them mad is that I was doing more of the work—by reading the policies and applying for things—than they were doing for me.
They even tried to get me barred from SISIP, saying there was no way that I was totally disabled from the time of my injury. They tried to get them to overturn the decision, to the point that, while acknowledging that I was not receiving my benefits, they were trying to take away potential future or past benefits because they didn't believe that I was totally disabled, even though every other doctor and provider believed that I was totally disabled.
Why is the case manager determining medical conditions, ignoring providers in the community and going against what's best for a veteran? Those at VAC say they depend on things, but they don't depend on them for medical treatments. They allow the case manager to decide who is eligible for them. That's just absurd to me, because if any other insurance policy did this, they'd be charged. That's just my opinion.