Stephanie Cavinder@Kuriositykills
I’m a 100% disabled vet…while I served it was common knowledge within my career field that you answer “no” to every question on the mental health screenings (do you know how much of the military apparently has never had alcohol or smoked according to documentation💀) you didn’t seek help because if you did, you couldn’t do your job anymore…(even temporarily) if you couldn’t do your job you were useless…trash…. couldn’t hack it…better off just not being here….(insert massive and growing active duty suicide number here) and yeah that might sound like overkill…when you see someone actually try to get help and then you’re sitting in the room listening to the way leadership refers to them after…it’s no exaggeration. You decide it’s best not to take that route and just gut it.
So i compartmentalized and pushed it all aside….i stood over DOAs (dead on arrival) and contemplated lunch/dinner with my coworkers….i wiped human remains off of the bottoms of my shoes and out of the floorboards of my car…i cut down the dead bodies…collected body parts….I carried the bodies of my fiends. Of peoples Children. Fathers. Mothers. I performed CPR on people who would never make it but at least it showed the family that I did EVERYTHING I COULD…I could at least do that much for them….I told families their loved ones were never coming home….
This isn’t even half of it…
I didn’t lie on my claim, everything has been documented and diagnosed by medical professionals. It was a long, painstaking, and mentally draining process (a process I’ve gone through twice)….heavy on the mentally draining because breaking the habit of just saying “I’m ok, I’m fine” is something I still struggle with to this day.
You see on social media what I allow you to see. I’m not going to show you my worst days I’m not even going to show you my mildly bad days.
Is there fraud? Definitely. I’ve seen some people I personally thought were undeserving gain ratings far beyond what they experienced and brag about it…but that was extremely rare…. it’s not some rampant scam….you see me and I look physically fine, normal even? Why? because I’m not missing limbs? I have no scars? I have plenty of friends that are in that position, I can point you in their direction. That doesn’t mean I’m not missing parts of myself…that I don’t have scars…it’s just not as obvious.
I’ll never get back the girl who proudly got a cool backpack (I never even used that thing my mom stole it I think) and saw a future for herself when she signed a couple documents and raised her right hand. I would also never take back doing so. If you weren’t willing to raise your hand….learn to shut your mouth.
