PTSD Soldiers Abandoned: Discharged With Adjustment Disorder

When The Army Pushes A Soldier Out, His Mental Health Struggles Are Left To Others
Colorado Public Radio
Michael de Yoanna
NOV 25, 2015

Costabile was discharged from the Army on March 27, 2012, and soon he was homeless. His wife was living with her parents, and he wasn’t welcome there. So he went to a shelter and filed for unemployment.

Frank Costabile, a former Fort Carson Army private first class, was discharged with an "adjustment disorder" after serving in the war in Afghanistan. (Michael de Yoanna/CPR News)

Frank Costabile was broke and paranoid after the Army forced him out in 2012. The former private first class was so jittery from his time in a war zone he says he couldn’t walk down the street without looking over his shoulder.

Finally one day, after his wife left to drop their daughter off at school, Costabile went into the bathroom and swallowed 57 pills from the bottles of anti-depressants and sedatives that military doctors had given him.

Then, he settled down in the bathtub to die.

“I didn't want to fall and hit my head on anything severe, and cause blood all over the place,” Costabile said. “I figured I ought to sit down and take these things and everything would be alright.”

“My depression is under control,” he said. “I mean it's still a constant struggle. I'm never going to be off medication for it. Also my PTSD, it's never going to be cured, but I have tools now that I know how to cope with certain things and I still have nightmares but not as intense as they used to be.”
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