I lied to get into the Navy. Completely forgot I had a mental illness. A couple years in I was pretty weird and people thought I needed to see a psychiatrist. I didn’t want to so they struck fear into me. I went running away and latched on to a diagnosis. Been a pitiful mess ever since. The Navy just saw me as trash. The didn’t want to get me in trouble or anything. They didn’t try to fix anything with me. They probably knew I lied and just wanted to get rid of me. I have a lot of delusions about stuff that might have happened in what they could have done. I really don’t think about it much lately.
I met other people who lied to get into the Navy. This one guy would openly tell people he was bi polar before he joined. I never did that. I never once talked about mental health for a couple of years. The slogan for the Navy was accelerate your life at the time I joined. I did the complete opposite.
When I joined the navy the recruiting slogan was…“Navy. It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.” Yeah, an adventure.
Just look at it as a job that wasn’t for you (the navy wasn’t for me, either), so you weren’t running away from anything. It’s over, so we move on with our lives. We’re not “trash.” The military is a very stressful, unsympathetic environment for everyone, especially for people like you and me who have a mental illness.
You’re not a failure, and you’re certainly not trash. You’re a kind and compassionate man who has a mental illness.
