Posted on 09/19/2009 10:20:07 PM PDT by B-Chan
OK: here's why I got kicked out of the U.S. Navy, short version.
Autumn, 1984: I was a 4.0 (top-performing) sailor, a petty officer (NCO) right out of "A" School (Navy vocational training school), and was on the fast track to a great career as a naval nuclear power worker -- until I lost my marbles.
Summer, 1985: It happened while I was in Nuke School (Naval Nuclear Power School, then located in Orlando, Florida): the stress levels, lack of sleep, and physical environment of Rickover City triggered in me a full-on case of clinical depression, complete with physical symptoms (shingles, among others), psychotic episodes, the works. I called it "the Fog". I was bad off, doing all kinds of crazy stuff -- and no one noticed. Instead, they waited until my grades dropped below the requisite levels, then flunked me out and sent me to the Fleet.
Autumn, 1985: I reported for duty aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65). Aboard ship, I started off doing well -- but soon enough the Fog began creeping in again. As any sailor knows, the danger of having someone with a severe untreated psychiatric condition aboard ship is extreme -- although I wasn't capable of deliberate violence against others, my inability to focus on (or often even understand) what was going on around me, combined with periodic out-of-my-freaking-mind episodes, could have gotten me and many others killed out there. I thank God that my guardian angel was on the job! Toward the end I was doing some truly strange things -- a licensed psychiatrist would have diagnosed me correctly in about ten seconds. I was, frankly, nuts.
Yet no one noticed.
January-February 1986: The ship departed the Golden Gate for her yearly western Pacific deployment, which soon became a round-the-world cruise due to a sudden flare-up of violence in the Mediterranean Sea. We made port at Pearl Harbor, then crossed the ocean to Subic Bay in the Philippines. My brief visit to Olangapo City, one of the world's most famous liberty ports, was an introduction to the sad (and sordid) realities of Real Life, but I left the P.I. with no harm done save to my moral state. We spent a few weeks dodging Russian recon planes in the South Pacific, then headed west towards the Straits of Malacca on our way to the Indian Ocean.
By the time we reached Singapore, however, the Fog had gotten too thick for me to see through; I was no longer capable of standing watches (working my normal hours) or dealing with the day-to-day routines of shipboard life. Instead, I would hide in the #4 shaft alley (ship's propeller shaft area) for hours on end out of fear. Finally, my LPO (job supervisor) sent me to sickbay (the ship's medical facility) for an evaluation. The Navy M.D. aboard ship classified me as a malingerer (a person who feigns illness in order to escape work) with an attitude problem. He also found a bad epidermal "fungal infection" (in reality, severe eczema) and assigned me to light duty in the ship's library. By then I was barely rational and totally out of control. On the advice of my shipmates in the library (who were more than understanding, God bless them), I filed a lengthy medical discharge request, which when read today is obviously the product of a deeply troubled person.
Denied, of course!
March-May 1985: The cruise continued; I carried on as best I could...
I’m going to read it. They’re better be fighting and the hero better get the girl and ride into the sunset at the end though.
I only wish the KOS kiddies and HuffPo readers who seize upon your tale, will tell those of their friends who need help, about the moral, rather than taking cheap shots at the military and/or FR on your account.
Cheers!
Yes, on both counts.
Less than honorable discharge for missing the boat? I mean ship.
I don’t care if people take cheap shots at me. My ego has been crushed so many times over the years that it no longer feels pain.
I do hope that my story provokes a greater awareness of depression among its readers, however. If my case had been diagnosed and treated earlier, it would have saved my loved ones from shedding countless tears.
Hideous treatment by the Navy.
I wonder if you could get that redressed . . . some of your stuff might be documented in your record.
BTW, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been demonstrated in replicated research to be over all, better than, meds. But it does take some dogged persistence in learning to change one’s thought habits.
Scripturally, TAKING EACH THOUGHT captive is a similar principle. I was probably clinically depressed most of the first 30 years of my life.
Great to be free of it.
Your warning is a very worthy one.
Congrats on your courage in sharing.
I’m not sure where in the story you could expect anyone to diagnose clinical depression. None of them were psychiatrists were they?
I wonder if they’ve gotten any better at having officers and such who can notice things that might be missed in the past?
I swear the military has a full time person in the Pentagon somewhere coming up with these. The Office of Euphemisms and Acronyms or something.
Missing Movement is extremely serious
Been a fan of yours for years B. Thanks of sharing.
Former Nuke MM/ELT type here. (Sub guy tho)
Yes of course its serious. They ain’t going to turn the aircraft carrier around to come and fetch you. Bringing the whole fleet back with it.
They probably assumed he was out partying at a brothel or something.
I know my wife is, in my life, an absolute angel sent from God in Heaven to help me over the last 32 years see me for who I am and overcome myself through my Savior.
Whatever highway, lane, or trail we trod, once we come unto Him, we enter into the same path...His path for us.
Not as far as I know. In my personal experience, the Navy medical and leadership establishment do not consider depression and other forms of psychiatric illness to be so much a matter of health care as a matter of personal weakness on the part of the sufferer. In other words, only homosexuals, crybabies, and Air Force pukes get depressed; everyone else is faking it to get out of work.
This attitude is common in civilian life, too, although far less common. One can sue a civilian employer for being terminated because of a disability, after all, but sue the Navy on the same grounds and watch what happens. The JAGs would never stop laughing!
I wonder if they’ve gotten any better at having officers and such who can notice things that might be missed in the past?
I am sure there is some kind of ping list or two for a great post like this one.
Every time i’ve seen some one miss movement it’s not them at a brothel, something else is usually going on. Command recognized that and often those guys were referred places.
Granted, it was a different Navy in my time (96-02) than B’s.
Do you know if they ever sent a plane/copter back to pick them up?
Gotta love the FTN site.
My favorite was the SNOB (Short Nuke On Board) belt buckle everyone passed down on my boat. On the back was electric penciled in FTN :p
I thoroughly endorse this post. Thankyou for articulating this issue so clearly.
If I had a dollar for every time some well-meaning soul advised me to “snap out of it...”
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