Tay Ho Trish

I’m really struggling with my infection. I have no energy and I’m not sleeping. My mental state isn’t doing so great. I feel so very alone. I have borderline personality disorder and some of the traits are so correct about me except for the negative self. I am pretty positive about myself, but my emotions are a roller coaster. My loneliness is to the core. So happy that I met some awesome people here in Portland and look forward to hanging out with them some more. I can’t explain the amount of despair and sadness I feel when I start thinking about certain things. I feel stuck between two worlds. I am always worried I am making someone feel uncomfortable that is up until the time they become rude or insulting. Pride month is coming up. I’ve had overwhelming positivity and support and I love you guys so much. I’m finding myself rebuilding my base. I have to understand that some people are fickle and believe anything they read. Luckily, a lot of my supporters understand. I got my subutex shot this week. I’m so happy to have met childofthemosthigh in real life. They are an awesome friend. I look forward to making more videos with them and just hang out and talk. I can’t believe they actually understand what I’m saying most of the time. I’m so lucky and I have thank you everyone that had my back. I love you and appreciate you so much.

How do you like my black and white look today? 🖤🤍

I hope everybody had a great weekend. I’m optimistic and hopeful for a better week next week. I hope I start getting the mental health help I need I just went to my three AA Sunday night meetings with my 530 women’s meeting being my favorite at 9:30+ I hope everyone else is doing well in their recovery. be kind to each other and love yourself

I’m getting into the Christmas spirit . Almost everybody Loved my outfit today. I am dealing with one particularly hateful, ignorant, small, minded person. They are such a hypocrite, thinking that their freedom of speech is infringe upon because they’re not allowed to use hate speech on me hate speech, because of my freedom of expression with this kind of thing all the time. But people forgot there are certain members of the Afghanistan Taliban that are no longer around because of things. I have done so members of the American Taliban think they can intimidate me. I feel a rush of energy. case people haven’t noticed. I’m not about to back down because people want to make me scared scaring me doesn’t work so well I’ve been putting in the hospital twice since returning to the United States and it hasn’t deterred me in the least. This is my country too, and I love this country people that want to turn into a theocracy based on warped teachings of Christianity have another thing coming. Too many of my best friends made an ultimate sacrifice for this country for me to let that sacrifice be in vain by living in fear, created by intolerance homophobes and transphobes. Once you have those two combinations 99.9% of the time you’re a racist too.

I am trying to stay positive with my strawberry shortcake vibe. Unfortunately, there are a small number of very intolerant people I’m in rehab with. I could clearly see their hate today. It’s more of a projection of their insecurity with their sexuality. Then they’re being a problem with who I am. I scare a lot of people because they see what it’s like to live as your true self when they are living a lie and they’re near me it makes them very uncomfortable, I am so lucky and so blessed to be the person I am. I truly feel bad for people that are just scared children in adult bodies.

I am looking beautiful today, but I am stressed out of my mind. I am really been pushed to the brink of my limits. So much of my heart comes from the years lost with my kids that is blamed on me, but I’ve been an enabler. I’ve given whenever I’ve been asked, but was never allowed to have any sort of relationship so I am done giving and giving and giving with nothing in return. I’m trying to get better. Yet I’m extremely uncomfortable in my living situation. I don’t have the meds I need. I’m trying to be patient because I know I just started this program, but it makes me so angry to keep focusing on basic sobriety. I want to adjust my mental health being completely clean and sober is not my goal maybe will be later. I have a greed to be clean and sober while I’m in a program but today we touched on anger and I remember just how angry I am it’s justified angered my opinion my triggers are very real. I have never been called a f@g, and then handed a bouquet of flowers. I have had a very real and violence confrontations with people in my own country that wish extreme harm and violence towards me. In my opinion, so many people got to leave the war overseas and come home. I came home to a different type of war . A battle I’m still fighting. Not my battle with addiction, which is a battle, but fighting for my existence to live in a country or so many don’t tolerate my existence.. I am looked at as the one out of place, and so many people that I’ve been different from Main stream have always been looked at. I want to go back to using so bad I am struggling so bad it’s a constant fight with so many strong willed personalities inside of me constant nightmares that I can’t remember from my childhood. I am starting to see things in here things that I don’t think are really there, I don’t know what to do.

I got to go back to three meetings at my 930+ AA group in Montavilla . I was happy to see people that I remember there. The topic was relapse for most of them, and I was reminded of just how common relapses in that room I saw people that had far more time than me when I went into rehab have less time than me going back . Relapse is always on my mind. It was a real battle tonight within myself because I wanted to walk down to 82nd St. where I know I could get my DOC but there’s a part of me that really wants to stay clean and sober despite the parts of me that wants nothing to do a sobriety. I had every excuse in the world in my mind to use tonight. I really don’t like I don’t have all my man’s. I really don’t like my living situation. I don’t really like how some people are treating me but I do have one friend in the program I’m at that reminded me why I can’t use I need to hold myself to a higher standard than those that I use anything I do as an excuse to put me down as I’ve said many times how I dress as my uniform in the country I see is an occupied one drop behind enemy lines. Someone else deployed I wouldn’t use, so why would I use now? So many times I hear people talk about their PTSD from what they did on deployment, I feel I never got to put down my weapon. I’m still on a deployment. I’m still on constant God because there are people that literally want to unalive me in my own country. We just finished transgender awareness week without anyone making any awareness of it anywhere I could see. I definitely saw the gate. I definitely heard the hate. And I constantly keep hearing from people. When do they get their week and I want to tell them you’ve had the whole millennia.

I went to the Portland VA today to get my suboxen shot. I’m supposed to get 300 mg but they only gave me 100 mg the doctor forgot I’m on Tegretol I need the higher dose or I can use on the shot. In fact I relapsed because the shot has an always worked successfully. It Hass to build up people ask why I take instead of the pills or strips each day because if I had to decide every day, I would probably stop taking them like I have many times. I can abuse them by going a week without them for one day of euphoria when I take the shot I only have to be a sound mind for one day a month I’m starting to work some things out about my mental health. It’s scary but I’ve had issues my whole life and I’m finally trying to straighten them out. I don’t blame my time in the military.

Every day is a struggle between trying to survive one more day and one more day fighting for services from the Portland veterans health administration, and then there’s always struggling to survive on the street while not receiving the benefits I’m entitled to from the Veterans Health Administration. I am not looking for service connection. I suffered a combat injury with TBI in Afghanistan. I retired from the Army 100% service connected. I don’t understand how I can be rated so high for PTSD but not be able to get into PTSD program. Have a TBI, but unable to go to a TBI clinic. cognitive disorder and the loss of fine motor skills in my hands and arms but no occupational therapist . I arrived in Portland April 14 and I am still waiting for my August 30 endocrinologist appointment to go back on HRT. If it wasn’t for the hard work of my social worker at 5C and Vancouver in coordination with staff at 5C/SRTP I would’ve lost my mental health. I would’ve lost my dental . I would’ve had nothing !While it is something , it’s a drop in the bucket I see some people served such a short amount of time in peacetime have so many more services. They deserve the services tgey get hands down , but I would also deserve them. If not more depending on a case by case? The same way I feel there’s a lot of veterans that suffer far greater than I do and deserve far more resources, but I wonder if they’re actually getting any. so every day I continue to fight so that hopefully next time the next veteran in my situation don’t go through this BS . And if we all rise up and demand improvement at the VA perhaps the next generation won’t have to fight tooth now just to not be put to the street and become a forgotten homeless veteran. Veterans that served honorably , what could they possibly have done to deserve the street. It’s so sad the other forgotten veterans I meet on the street. All of our stories are very similar. We were trying to get help from the VA, without that help our behaviors got us in trouble in society, and by the time we got help it was so little so late we ended up in trouble in the program, and once we got in trouble, we were denied the rest of the services we needed and blacklisted from trying other programs. That’s the boat I’m in right now so it’s not that I’m saying I played no wrong I’m saying the role I played was who I become. Stop coming in and telling veterans that there’s not a stigma in mental health when you stigmatizes us! Stop saying PTSD is a real diamonds in severely affected lives, , when it affects us you punish us. Stop saying substance abuse is a disease and then treating us like criminals! Stop saying not every program is for every veteran when we only have one chance and please stop saying relapse is a part of recovery when it’s held against us and we end up on the street. my goal is to work towards a Veterans administration that functions better than the one today. No veteran that served with honor ends up getting thrown out like garbage homeless on the street as I have been and so many other veterans have been. I have now been in detox for one week. Today I have seven days, clean and sober. It has been so difficult detoxing off of opiates and stimulants. I don’t know why I keep putting myself through this hell it’s not like I know how to control my triggers, literally my triggers, being sexually assaulted, the last time I was raped was in Vancouver this year after being thrown off of a VA program with absolutely no support. I just couldn’t believe how cold hearted Vancouver VA was to accuse me of something I didn’t do and then do it on a Friday afternoon and then give absolutely no support knowing what the hell my life was gonna become I went there for help. I didn’t receive any help just made my life hours but I can’t keep complaining. I need to move on regain my strength and learn goes to live and love life again if I can do that I’m ahead of the game.

So today is the day I’ve been dreading. I did not hear any news on Thursday or Friday. I will either be sent to the street, a shelter, or be allowed to stabilize until I can get residential help. I was thrown out of the Vancouver RRTP for my own actions. But it’s kind of like picking up a rabbit dog , then blaming the dog for biting you. I suffered a debilitating combat injury in Afghanistan, I was sexually assaulted in Bath NY VA RRTP and because I was heavily medicated and could not fight back or yell for help federal prosecutor of western NY could not make a case, then returning to the USA in mid April of this year many medications where stopped, my family and I where severely discriminated against by the ”south” Vietnamese-Americans and then recently I was involved in more traumatic events after purposely being kicked out of the Vancouver VA program on a Friday with out medications or resources knowing no one would be around over the weekend. I was not eating correctly there so I ate so much candy I believe my urine fermented. I was accused of drinking and called a liar. After all the times I feel I was blamed and not believed over sexual trauma I absolutely list it and developed a severe case of the F🤬ck it’s. I then absolutely did relapse and take full responsibility for what I did next. The Vancouver VA is riddled with drugs and surrounded by houseless camps. And campers that sell every narcotic imaginable (blues, clear, fentanyl, coke,meth, etc) and it’s openly used in cars and on campus. It was not an environment to recover in, and there was no recovery support. I was fed narcotics for years by the Army then the VA. I went through detox at tge Portland VA then just expected to be cured of my addiction. Well I was not even given the resources or support to attempt sobriety. What’s really the point of even going on. That’s not how I usually think, but I can’t go through what I went through last week on the street. I’m truly terrified I might just take too much of what has been killing over 150 people a day over 100k a year. I’m trying to hold out hope, but I’ve been hanging on to threads for so long I’m giving up on the chance of getting help.

July 14th 2023

Welcome to beautiful Vietnam high up in the mountains, watching the plum blossoms and down in the lower elevations of the valley they fall off and plums are starting to grow They’ve already falling off the trees and began to grow plums. After Tết . it’s a tradition for us to come visit the Plum Orchards of Mộc Châu, Vietnam. It was so cold this morning it was 2°C and I have drove the motorbike for about 20 km maybe only 14 but with the roads here that takes over an hour my eyes were soaked with water coming down. my nose was dripping my hands were freezing cold back in Hanoi. It’s 30°C and then all of a sudden drop from it being extremely hot to be in just above freezing incredibly difficult and where we’re staying one of the windows is just a screen there’s no way to cover it so literally at night when it’s 0°C out there’s no way to plug this window and we try and stay as warm as we can with the heater, but hopefully tonight if we keep the door to the room with the windows is shot, maybe will stay a little bit warmer. But trying to take a shower or do anything in the bathroom in the morning is absolutely impossible with how cold it is but the plum orchards were absolutely beautiful. It was so nice and how many people recognized me and asked to have their pictures taken with their families with the beautiful blooming plum trees. In this area it seems people are so much kinder. Sometimes they may be a little bit confused, but I don’t get hate. I don’t get the wrong pronouns. Used a second time maybe in the beginning they might and then if I just say no and give them the cracked one and they use the cracked ones, no questions asked, why is it that America is so hateful compared to the many places in the world? it’s been incredibly hard on me as my migraines have been getting incredibly bad and I’m still being ignored by my senators and veterans administration so I don’t know how much longer I can hold out .