Battling the Storm Within Blog

As the Author of the #1 Amazon National-International Best Seller War Memoir “Battling the Storm Within” about living 20 years undiagnosed with PTSD, MST and the GWI. My mission is to empower others to address their own personal traumas, be healed, restored and live again. I believe in telling the truth, living the truth and being the truth. I will share the truth for it sets you free. I have battled my storm that was within me and won, so can you! Peace and blessings Sgt. Stephanie J. Shannon

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Military sexual assault claims: 1 in 20 lead to jail time- VIDEO

Last year, 6,131 service members reported a sexual assault.But only about 317 service members were court-martialed and sentenced to confinement as a result of a reported sexual assault.

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http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/crime/2015/05/13/sex-assault-numbers/26723265/

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How to File a Well-Prepared MST Claim

Elements of Your Claim

Military sexual trauma (MST) is sexual harassment that is threatening or physical assault of a sexual nature. Both men and women serving in the military can suffer from MST. MST is an experience, not a diagnosis. MST may cause disabling conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and sexual arousal disorder. Your claim for VA Disability Compensation (“VA benefits”) must identify at least one “disabling condition.” The VA addresses MST differently than other issues because of its severity and complexity.

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http://statesidelegal.org/how-file-well-prepared-mst-claim

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5 Things Every TBI Survivor Wants You to Understand

1. Our brains no longer work the same. We have cognitive deficiencies that don’t make sense, even to us. Some of us struggle to find the right word, while others can’t remember what they ate for breakfast. People who don’t understand, including some close to us, get annoyed with us and think we’re being “flaky” or not paying attention. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, we have to try even harder to pay attention to things because we know we have deficiencies.

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http://medicaltreatmentguidance.net/5-things-every-tbi-survivor-wants-you-to-understand/

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The Mistreatment Of Female Veterans Is Not Just A Women’s Issue

Women face numerous military transition challenges on top of the misconceptions closely tied to being a female veteran.

In 1966, at 26 years old, decorated nurse and Vietnam veteran Sarah Blum joined the U.S. Army, drawn to serve by the daily news reports on the radio.

The Atlantic City, New Jersey, native joined as an operating room nurse and was eventually assigned to the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Củ Chi, a district outside Ho Chi Minh City — the location of several military campaigns, and most notably, the base of operations for the Viet Cong’s violent Tét Offensive in 1968.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Women veterans want to be heard

Despite serving oversees with honor and courage, women veterans continue to face challenges such as health care, unemployment, lack of financial stability, housing and sexual trauma during service and in transitioning to life after the military.

The Disabled American Veterans in a new report “Women Veterans: The Long Journey Home,” documenting the challenges women face in the military, further underscores the need to address issues women veterans are dealing with.

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http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2015/10/14/thompson-women-veterans-want-heard/73960100/

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Sunday, October 11, 2015

Citing suicides, VA sets outreach to female vets

WASHINGTON - Women veterans who try to take their own lives are often successful at a far higher rate than their female non-veteran counterparts because of one reason: They use guns.Female veterans die by suicide at nearly six times the rate of female civilians, such an alarming number that mental-health experts at the Department of Veterans Affairs say the agency is reaching out to former servicewomen to talk about gun safety.Their suicide rate is also surprising because men generally are far more likely than women to die by suicide.

Military Sexual Assault Reports Increased 11 Percent Last Year

Sexual assaults reported by military personnel rose by 11 percent last year but the overall trend on assaults and unwanted sexual contacts decreased, Pentagon officials said Friday.
In addition, "men are less likely to report and more likely to experience" sexual assault, and men were also more likely to view the assault as hazing rather than a crime, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said.

Carter spoke at a Pentagon briefing for the release of the Defense Department's annual Sexual Assault and Response Program Office (SAPRO) report to Congress which showed that in Fiscal Year 2014 the military received a total of 6,131 reports of sexual assault.

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/05/01/military-sexual-assault-reports-increased-11-percent-last-year.html

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Understanding of Resilience and Spirituality with Trauma

This review article will investigate the issue of resiliency and spirituality in relation to trauma in particular Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder based on current and available literature. With the epidemic suicide rates of veterans, we cannot just look at one aspect or side and expect an answer on how to treat the injuries from war. People are unique as individuals, and thus there is no one size fits all treatment or answer for helping our military and veterans. This paper will discuss multiple components such as PTSD, symptoms, and the neural circuits in PTSD. These resilience programs, the Army in particular, are said to make a military member more resilient. What the military considers components of a resilient warrior, and “Bounce.” This paper will also look at the studies on military resilience and the expected outcomes of these programs. And also discuss treatments, both spiritually and professionally and how they help to build resiliency and encourage Post Traumatic Growth.

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http://www.militarywithptsd.org/understanding-of-resilience-and-spirituality-with-trauma/

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Sunday, October 4, 2015

Veteran Suicide: Winning the Other Half of the War

The tragic act of taking one’s own life happens too often among every group of people, young and old, sick and healthy, religious or non-religious, eastern, western, northern or southern — all parts of humanity feel the pain of this type of irreversible loss. In the United States, however, it seems military veterans take their own lives at a much more alarming rate than any other demographic. We can perhaps learn part of the reason for this from a very famous American war veteran and suicide victim, Ernest Hemingway, who confessed to F. Scott Fitzgerald that war was his favorite subject to write about: “It groups the maximum of material and speeds up the action and brings out all sorts of stuff that normally you have to wait a lifetime to get.” It seems life brings all kinds of people to such extreme grief that they contemplate ending theirs unnaturally, but war or even just being trained for war brings people there much faster.

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http://warontherocks.com/2015/09/veteran-suicide-winning-the-other-half-of-the-war/

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Insomnia 'Extremely' Common in Female US Veterans

MINNEAPOLIS — The prevalence of insomnia is "extremely" high in female veterans in the United States, according to a new national survey that confirms and extends a prior study from a single Veterans Affairs (VA) center.

"Studies are needed to identify best practice models of care for this considerable segment of the women veteran population with insomnia disorders," the authors say.

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http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/826639

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High Suicide Rate Among Women Veterans Needs to be Addressed

As National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month draws to a close, it’s worth repeating that every month should be a suicide awareness month—but especially for women veterans, who experience a suicide rate fast approaching their male counterparts.
The latest statistics on women veteran suicide from the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs are quite sobering:

For women ages 18 to 29, veterans kill themselves at nearly 12 times the rate of non-veterans
40% of women veterans who committed suicide used guns, compared with 34% of other women
In every other age group, including women who served as far back as the 1950s, the veteran rates are between four and eight times higher, indicating that the causes extend far beyond the psychological effects of the recent wars