I was sent to the COPIN House, from the VA hospital in Buffalo, for in-house recovery treatment and counseling for PTSD. That was in 1995. I had heard good reports about the place but it must have changed. When I was there some of the patients were belligerent and ugly an uncooperative. Every day there were conflicts about doing the daily clean-up chores. I tried to tolerate their behavior. I did my share and more. But since then- after years of therapy for PTSD in VA hospitals in other parts of the country and years spent in other recovery groups like ACOA, AA, and in metaphysical churches, I have learned some things about treatment for war-trauma. The director then, Sharon, had the wrong approach. She used to complain and curse in filthy language, insult and degrade us all. That was the best she could come up with to deal with a dysfunctional system. Scolding us like we were bad children in a dysfunctional family. We were in fact trained killers, combat veterans, angry, maladjusted, hyper-sensitive, with sleep disorders and - in many cases - in my case - with bad startle-response. It was a job that all of the staff hated to go to every day because of the harsh, abusive language from Sharon and constant threats of punishments - which consisted of her yelling more and adding more clean-up jobs - to the burden of clean-up work - which some guys would ignore and some of us would just do more to make up for it. It was something like jail and Sharon tried to act like she was a jailer at her wit's end dealing with prisoners who just did not get it. Like we Vietnam veterans were criminals and had no right to be treated with respect. It was explosive. I managed to not explode during my time there. I got out with the help of one of the counselors, who managed to act decently in an indecent environment. She went to the trouble to make the application for me to go to the VA's PTSD program in Palo Alto/Menlo Park. There I learned a lot about recovery from trauma. But the abuse heaped on us at the COPIN House just added to the trauma damage that we Vietnam veterans already carried.
I was sent to the COPIN House, from the VA hospital in Buffalo, for in-house recovery treatment and counseling for PTSD. That was in 1995. I had heard good reports about the place but it must have changed. When I was there some of the patients were belligerent and ugly an uncooperative. Every day there were conflicts about doing the daily clean-up chores. I tried to tolerate their behavior. I did my share and more. But since then- after years of therapy for PTSD in VA hospitals in other parts of the country and years spent in other recovery groups like ACOA, AA, and in metaphysical churches, I have learned some things about treatment for war-trauma.
The director then, Sharon, had the wrong approach. She used to complain and curse in filthy language, insult and degrade us all. That was the best she could come up with to deal with a dysfunctional system. Scolding us like we were bad children in a dysfunctional family. We were in fact trained killers, combat veterans, angry, maladjusted, hyper-sensitive, with sleep disorders and - in many cases - in my case - with bad startle-response.
It was a job that all of the staff hated to go to every day because of the harsh, abusive language from Sharon and constant threats of punishments - which consisted of her yelling more and adding more clean-up jobs - to the burden of clean-up work - which some guys would ignore and some of us would just do more to make up for it.
It was something like jail and Sharon tried to act like she was a jailer at her wit's end dealing with prisoners who just did not get it. Like we Vietnam veterans were criminals and had no right to be treated with respect. It was explosive.
I managed to not explode during my time there. I got out with the help of one of the counselors, who managed to act decently in an indecent environment. She went to the trouble to make the application for me to go to the VA's PTSD program in Palo Alto/Menlo Park. There I learned a lot about recovery from trauma.
But the abuse heaped on us at the COPIN House just added to the trauma damage that we Vietnam veterans already carried.
I was at copin house twice. Terrible staff . Lying cheating stealing and arguing. It stinks there