Soldier finds mental health stigma still alive in Guard

Soldier finds mental health stigma still alive in Guard
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 15, 2011 18:01:39 EST
First Lt. Steve Philpot received the phone call every married soldier dreads on deployment.

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sit by the phone and hope you’re alive. When you get home, get your stuff and get out,” the 28-year-old National Guardsmen heard his ex-wife tell him on the phone in Afghanistan.

Philpot hoped when he came home for his mid-deployment rest and recuperation leave in January 2010 that she would change her mind once she saw him.

She didn’t.

This was a miserable deja vu for Philpot, whose first wife cheated on him while he was away at Officer Training School in 2008. He had yet to turn 27, and the Oklahoma National Guardsman was already twice divorced. This one hurt more, though.

“I couldn’t believe I was going through this again. I hit rock bottom and I knew I needed help,” Philpot said.

The soldier contacted his unit’s rear detachment, which sent a chaplain to his home.

Thus began the long road from soldier needing counseling to Army outcast. Philpot still can’t believe that reaching out for help has further complicated his life.

Philpot is frustrated with the Guard. So frustrated, he regrets asking for help.

“Since I’ve asked the Army for help, I’ve been treated like garbage, like a third-rate soldier,” he said. “I got help at Fort Sill, but coming back to the National Guard it has been nothing but ‘you are a piece of garbage,’” Philpot said.

The Army has gone to great lengths to try to remove the stigma that comes with reporting depression and suicidal thoughts. But Philpot and other soldiers said that while the Army has stood up a suicide prevention task force and instituted programs to deal with depression, more work needs to be done when the soldier leaves a hospital or counselor’s office.
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Soldier finds mental health stigma still alive in Guard