I was diagnosed in 06, in 07 I applied for the Fire Dept and fought with 1800+ other candidates for the 36 available positions. I studied my ass off, I worked like hell, passed two written exams with 98% +5% for VA pref, passed the CPAT physical exam with the fastest time out of the remaining 380 candidates, drug test no prob, background and lie detector were scary but passed through, made it to the chief and he gave me the thumbs up.

It's been 11 months since I started now, I moved 4k because I couldn't afford to fly down every month and I speak to the psychologist... o joy... There are now 32 people left in the running, everyone else has been cut. The interview is going fine than she ask if I was ever treated for a mental illness and I said "Yes, I was treated for PTSD after I returned from Iraq" she bitch immediately stopped and looked at me and said "Why were you treated for PTSD?" I told her "It was a rough year and I needed some help to get me through everything that happened but I'm better now" than the bitch has the audacity to say "So you couldn't handle it by yourself?" and I replied "If you have to watch your best friends blown to piece than pick up their body part, I think you might have a hard time coping as well."

Needless to say, I was dropped from the program. 1 more year of my life was wasted. It's been about 8 months since then and I've been on a steady spiral downwards. I honestly do believe that I would have been a good FF and that it would have helped me to get into that kind of Para Military routine again but because a psychologist can't understand why someone would ever need to be treated for PTSD, we'll never know.