It is one of the dirty secrets of the military that mental illness is considered a weakness and seeking treatment is difficult if not impossible. Service members are routinely counseled by their chains of command NOT to seek treatment of any suspected mental illness because if they do, they will no longer be fit for duty and their military career will end. My husband was a Marine. When we first married, we had a lot of difficulty and it was pretty clear to me that he was struggling with depression or manic depression or something. It became abusive. His 1st Sgt got involved, and he was removed from the household. The 1st Sgt came to talk to me, said he would handle the situation “in the enlisted ranks”, which I assumed to mean he would take a firm stand with my husband about the abuse and keep him in the barracks if necessary. To me, this sounded like a short-term solution, and I asked about getting him treatment. His 1st Sgt said this was not advisable, because it could ruin his career. I went along, because, well, not really sure why… it seemed this is how it was going to be done I guess. We eventually transferred, and not surprisingly the symptoms of my husband’s mental illness had not gone away. The abuse started again, and also some weight gain (he had a very difficult time getting out of bed). He was eventually removed from the home for abuse, but was never treated for any mental illness–partly because he had no “history” of mental illness (as nothing had ever been officially documented having been handled in the ranks.) Throughout the course of all this, our marriage broke up, the kids and I suffered, my husband’s work performance suffered, he was yelled at, made to do push-ups and field days and a variety of other punishments to get him back on track…. but never sent for a mental health assessment, nor did he ask for one because he had been told over and over it was not an option for a true Marine. At one point, I pushed marriage counseling… we went to the on-base services, who promptly disclosed that there was no confidentiality… anything that was said could be turned over to his command… so that was the end of that. In the end, he was kicked out of the Marine Corps, for being overweight but it was pretty clear it was for all the problems. He did not qualify for any disability benefits because he had no record of mental illness. He has been out of the Marines for two years now, and spends all of his time outside of work laying on his mother’s couch. Its really awful. After seeing how my husband was treated, I really worry for the men and women returning from Iraq. The culture of the military is not at all open to compassion or empathy for those with mental illness… it is considered a weakness and covered up and pushed aside and shamed.
Hello Jill, Though I read in an AP report that the military is planning to hire more psychologists and psychiatrists to meet the increasing demand for mental health services from their members, it would do little good if servicemembers feel they risk their careers in the process. Kat has a good point that the military’s culture needs to be changed before members are willing to utilize those services. One question. Is this “military culture” problem, however, strictly of military origin, one borne out of a larger society which still harshly stigmatizes those who suffer from mental illnesses, or both? If both, how does one go about disentangling the two factors so they could be tackled effectively? I ask as there has been several recent stories related to mental health issues which illustrate the stigma the rest of society assigns to those who suffer mental illnesses. For instance, there were several recent examples of college students who were suspended from school merely for asking for assistance with mental health issues including one case at George Washington University and two in the NYC area. While the military has exhibited an extreme case of stigmatizing servicemembers (confirmed by ex-military cousin) with mental illnesses, how does one go about solving this serious problem when the rest of American society gives mental illness relatively short shrift from harshly stigmatizing victims to providing minimal insurance coverage for critical mental health treatments? Just posing my thoughts as I see this as symptomatic of a larger problem of wide stigmatization of mental illness in American and many other societies. What are all of your thoughts on this?
Readers might be interested in Gary Trudeau’s book of Doonesbury cartoons “The War Within” that puts post combat PTSD in the human context of one of his characters, B.D., who loses a leg in Iraq and has to come home and rebuild his life. Full on stuff for a comic strip, but shows how it’s so often the humourists who take on the job of making the noise that needs to be made. They’re really funny and moving. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780740762024&pwb=1&z=y
Its definitely a complex problem. As a family member, I wanted my husband to be diagnosed and treated. My husband was very disappointed in himself because of his behavior and his inability to manage it on his own. But his worry was that if he had a diagnosis of something would lead his fellow Marines to lose confidence in him… and in the military, the very nature of your job requires that you can count on your fellow Marine. I work in an office… if the person in the next cubicle had the same untreated problem as my husband, it might mean we don’t make a deadline. For my husband, it could mean someone gets killed. As an outsider (non-Marine) what seemed completely ridiculous to me was that in order to maintain his fellow Marines confidence, my husband had to hide his mental illness and not seek treatment… so while they still had confidence in him, they probably shouldn’t have. This puts others at no less risk than if they know about the problem. Either way, its a risk. In the end, he probably would have lost his Marine Corps career either way. Without treatment, he became a “problem” Marine and was eventually cycled out (without benefit of disability pay). Had he sought treatment, he would have likely been discharged (but would probably have gotten disability pay and VA benefits). He would have been a more well person, but the shame would have been horrible for him.
We only support troops as long as they’re fighting and dying in far off places (and only with yellow ribbons and American flags–certainly not with anything useful like body armor). Once they’re safe back here they get to be ignored, particularly if they’re not white.
Since when do we support mental health as a larger society? I mean really support it, with funding and de-stigmatizing…oh right, NEVER.