Alright so I’m hoping someone here could shed some light on how I should handle this situation. Somewhat recently I was discharged from service after about two months active duty. My entire time was spent in reception. I have hypothyroidism and got a waiver to join, my levels were normal about a week before I left. Now once I got to reception it was a few days of no sleep and little food before they tested my levels at medical and saw they were high. I didn’t get in front of the doctor until about a week later and they explained I’d be getting discharged. Now my medication should’ve been changed that same day if not sooner to a corrected dose but it wasn’t and I went about another 10 days before I had a psychotic break and was hospitalized. From there it was a couple more days before I had a corrected dose and I even missed a few doses. To not go into too much detail this whole experience was really distressing I had delusions, stared at the sun, bit myself. Shaved off all of the hair on my face and head including my eyebrows. And during hospitalization I was restrained and injected with antipsychotics and I assume a sedative which caused dystonia pinning my head to my neck painfully for hours. Following this I’ve been completely unemployed and had very bad anxiety, depression, and SI, sometimes even HI. I have trouble trusting my mind and deciding the true nature of situations now. My question is with only an ELS and uncharacterized discharge how do I go about receiving VA healthcare and potentially getting this service connected. I’m pretty sure being in service exacerbated and caused this as I have never experienced anything like it before. I get violent nightmares very often usually taking place in a hospital or military setting. I’ve even been paranoid attending doctor’s appointments that I’ll be committed to a psych ward again.
TL;DR:
I joined the Army with a waiver for hypothyroidism and normal levels before shipping. At reception, lack of sleep/food and delayed medical care led to my thyroid levels spiking. My medication wasn’t adjusted in time, and I went about 10+ days untreated, which led to a psychotic break and hospitalization. During that time I was restrained and given meds that caused painful side effects. I was then discharged after ~2 months with an entry-level, uncharacterized discharge (JFW).
Since then, I’ve had severe anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and violent nightmares, and I don’t trust my thinking like I used to. I believe my condition was caused or worsened by service and poor treatment.
Main questions:
How do I get VA healthcare with an ELS/uncharacterized discharge?
Can this be considered service-connected given what happened?