Is seeing military behavioral health a help or hurt to your career?

I have absolutely zero issue with people going to get help they need...what I do have issue with is when people use it as an excuse or fake it to get out of work for no reason or for more cash out of the VA; is pretty messed up trivializing PTSD by making others wonder if it's real or not.

I'm not telling anybody that needs help to not seek it. But to answer your question yes it hurts your ability to open doors of progression and chance of promotion. I got disqualified from recruiter school for having some anxiety in the past and head aches. I will turn to mentors and great leaders of course off the grid. Translation I'll never trust in the integrity of the medical system when it comes to behavioral health in the army ever again in my career. I'll only go again to retry a mental health eval and once I wait the allotted time and get an approval. After that they will never see me again. I'll make sure of it.

I grew up in the Army that shunned Behavioral/Mental Health. It was very difficult for me to seek care that I needed, even after 3 deployments. My Social Worker and I have talked about this for a long time, it's an outdated judgement. Always on AFN there were generals and SGM/CSMs saying if I got help, you can too. I had to wear down my own resistance to asking or seeking assistance in the mental area of health.