User FUTW — a Seabee in the Navy's construction battalion who was deployed for two years — also thought he was fine.

He was flagged by "big Navy" as a potential PTSD case due to a traumatic experience during his service and was referred to vet centers, but concern over jeopardizing his job kept him away.

"I ignored the symptoms," he said. "Or at least I thought I had ignored them."

"[I]t was an extremely angry and verbally violent outburst on a stranger," he said, that finally convinced him he had a problem that wasn't going to resolve itself.

"The problem is for me I feel as if I'm still overseas with a bunch of military men being antagonized by the enemy who wants me dead," he explained. "And I can't decipher between that and a civilian trying to act 'tough.'"

"I feel as if I need to put the threat down before they do the same to me," he said.

When asked to explain what he means by "put the threat down," FUTW didn't mince words: "I mean kill that person. I don't feel I could stop myself in a fight."

When FUTW finally sought help last June, he was abruptly turned away from Veterans Affairs and told to make an appointment. Rather than wait three months for his turn, he decided to visit the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with depression in lieu of PTSD because, in his words, "during that period they didn't want to diagnose PTSD."

He was handed a month's supply of medicine, which he was quickly forced to stop taking. "They told me if I stayed on mood elevators I would get kicked out, so I stopped," he said. "And that's when things really fell apart."

FUTW began to "self-medicate" with alcohol and became increasing isolated. After spiraling downward for six months and flunking out of classes he had been attending, he was eventually able to "get back to the VA," but said the process remains "much too slow."

"The backlog for disability claims once you put one in [is] at least a year after a very long bureaucratic process," he said.