Intervention Tool For Veterans

Hi My name is Tikvah Ivri but my friends call me Hope.  I am a College Student studying for my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I am also an United States Army Veteran.

I am starting a go-fund-me campaign to pay for the development and launch of a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) intervention tool that will be available on devices such as phones and tablets. The tool aims to help Veterans struggling with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My Goal is to raise $50,000 to make it happen. The $50,000 will cover 5 comprehensive intervention phases that are designed to assist individuals during a posttraumatic stress event. Each phase will guide users through a series of activities to help them get reoriented while reducing anxiety levels. Most importantly, I want the tool to be available for free.  Any donations that exceed the amount will go toward maintenance and further development of the tool.  

A little about myself:

First, I think it is important for you to know that I am a Veteran who also suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which makes this intervention device unique. I am intimately familiar with the struggle; I understand how posttraumatic stress negatively affects the quality of life and have implemented every aspect of the intervention tool to ground me and help me make clear decisions. Although there is no statistical data to back up my tool, there is a plethora of research out there to validate the effectiveness of this tool.

So what brought me down this road?

Several years ago, I was working at a dead-end job. I hated my job, myself, and where I was at in my life. During this season of my life, I was struggling with severe insomnia, ongoing nightmares and flashbacks that made me feel like I was living in a perpetual nightmare.  I had a history of homelessness  and was barely functioning in my day-to-day activities.

After I lost this job, I realized that the underlying cause of my problems at work and at home was posttraumatic stress. However, unemployment inevitably caused me to become homeless again. My nightmares, anxiety, insomnia, and my anger were out of control. My world crumbled, and I was imploding, and my fear and desperation caused me to explode. I became a self-destructive ticking time bomb. I wrestled with questions about my personal value, my identity, my faith in God and my faith in self. Although I’ve been homeless before, this time was different for many reasons.

1. As a Veteran, I was in and out of veteran programs getting marginal services available to Veterans like employment services. The more I became familiar with the programs, the more I realized I was another social security number, another checked box, another statistic, and another veteran experiencing homelessness. Simultaneously, I felt overwhelming feelings of intense helplessness, hopelessness, aloneness and isolation that came from having posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

2. I spent a lot of time looking inward, trying to understand what caused my circumstances such as homelessness to be an ongoing cycle. I realized I didn’t have enough information about my circumstances to fight for myself. The war that I was fighting was a different kind of war. I was fighting a war inside my mind. I found my enemy to be powerful, heartless, merciless and unrelenting. I was fighting in a war inside myself, and fighting an enemy I didn’t understand. As the war waged on day after day, night after night, year after year I realized there are no heroes, no rescuers, and I lost faith in God.

3. I wrestled immensely with thoughts of suicide. I started going to the VA for mental health treatment but as I went through therapy, I only got worse. I felt like I was standing at the edge of a cliff with one foot on ground while the other dangling over an abyss. As I contemplated whether I should live or die, I had to ask myself. “Am I worth fighting for?” And although the voices inside me said, “No one will save you and you’re alone.” I had to believe that I had to find a way to save myself. I had to choose to fight for myself. I remember standing in Home Depot looking at paint when I said, “I choose life.” I felt new vigor and determination. I had zeal, passion, and my life had purpose and meaning. 

I went back to school to pursue a Master's in Psychology where I focused my attention on researching and understanding posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its affects. I wanted to find a way to help myself. My journey to find help for myself transformed into a passion to help others like me. Most importantly, I understood that something was missing. Between the onset of posttraumatic stress symptoms and treatment there is a major void. I needed a bridge between the onset of symptoms to carry me to the point where I can get help. 

Another pivotal moment came when I went to the Department of Veterans Affairs to apply for Vocational Rehabilitation to help pay for schooling. I remember I was going through the evaluation process. I was sitting across the table from a man who looked at my file for 3 minutes and determined I was not eligible for the program. However, rather than saying I didn’t meet the criteria, he looked at me and said, “So you think you want to be a psychologist? You have a VA rating for PTSD. This is stupid. You need to quit your degree program. You are too broken to help anyone. Look at you, you have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) you will never help anyone the way you are. I recommend you find something more suitable like a desk job or something else. I will never support you in your endeavor. You have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you will always have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  There is no cure and there is no hope for you in this field. You get a VA check every month, you should be happy with that.” I protested, and of course, I became emotional and started crying. There was nothing I could do to prove I was a good candidate for the program. Everything I did, cry, protest, argue my point, quote research only emphasized his belief I was not suitable for the field. To make matters worse, he notified the staff working with the Vocational Rehabilitation Program that I needed to stop my degree and I need to find something else. As I went through the exiting interview the women in the office told me I needed to stop and I was too broken to help anyone. When I left that day, all I heard was “there is no hope.”

If there is no hope, then what is the point?

This was a horrible experience. But I believe this was my silver lining. While obtaining my Master's degree and during the first year of my Doctoral program, I spent time analyzing my behavior, developing intervention methods, and implementing my research. When I encountered the man at the Department of Veterans Affairs, I understood what I needed. I needed a bridge. Something to intervene when I experienced PTSD triggers (anxiety, fear, flashbacks).

During my education, I spent time watching my response times, my triggers, my bodily responses and conducting research on myself to see what techniques worked and which did not. When I had this encounter, I implemented the techniques I had been researching. And to my surprise, it worked!

This posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) intervention tool will exist because of these experiences. These experiences helped me formulate a tool that will provide a stop-gap intervention method for individuals who don’t have immediate access to support. It is NOT a treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is not intended for therapy, but provide immediate intervention to reduce symptoms at the onset of a posttraumatic stress attack.

By funding this application you are supporting my endeavor to help individuals like myself who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the tool is made by a Veteran for Veterans, the tool can be used across different population groups. The tool is simple so anyone can use it. I want this to be a free resource.


Help me make that possible.