I totally understand and respect the military in its right to use discretion when accepting potentially dangerous applicants. But from what I know, the military revise their regulations periodically, and the leniency regarding specific medical issues vary, like granting more waivers to applicants with ADHD and depression in recent years. I heard from a psychiatrist who said he's worked with many Bipolar patients at Walter Reed who served in the military. So my guess is that at one point, the military did not consider BiPolar to be a serious/dangerous illness enough to be PDQ'd without a waiver, or that those people simply lied about their medical history at MEPS.
I mean can totally see why Schizophrenia, depression, and panic disorder be a problem int he military, but Bipolar? Most people I know who were diagnosed with Bipolar are hardworking and headstrong, if not annoying at times
. Most of them don't hallucinate, and who cares about Bipolar when the individual does his job well? But is there something about Bipolar particularly in its relationship with the military that I don't know? Do you guys happen to know anybody in the military or SF community who has Bipolar?
Also about the psychotic symptoms (aka. hallucinations and delusions) that arise from lack of sleep. I hear stories all the time that in Ranger school candidates would mistake tress for vending machines and see women offering ice cream in the middle of nowhere when they don't sleep for 2 days. Do sleep deprivation in the Special Forces induce hallucinations/delusions like Ranger school does? Can sleep deprivation cause symptoms that can be mistaken for actual disorders like Bipolar and psychosis?
I don't routinely sleep-deprive myself to prepare myself for Special Forces or just for the sake of it, I did it on a one-time basis to see if I have the mental capacity to push myself. I have never hallucinated or had delusions in my non-sleep deprived state, how is it different than the Rangers that went nuts in Ranger training, other than the fact that my sleep-deprivation is self-induced?