Kent,
You posted, " The military discovered the MH problem while on active duty and after a brief hospitalization and a diagnosis of depression and a personality disorder, she was allowed to complete her enlistment. "
A Personality Disorder will only be service connected if it is the result of something like a documented head injury and the Personality Disorder has been superimposed.
I feel VA will say her depression is a result of her Personality Disorder.
I do not see this claim ever getting granted as service connected, but certainly do wish you
luck.
jmho,
carlie

Do they link both of those conditions together like that?

I think that the stomach condition is a pretty strong case so I am definitely going to challenge that!

I appreciate your response and will let you know what happens!

All MH disorders are lumped together as one and the predominant one is whats rated.
Only 1 rating is permitted for MH disability.
jmho,
carlie

Thank you carlie!

If you have a PD and PTSD, for example, you still have ability to get service connected for PTSD. If you have a head injury and a PD you can get SC'ed for the head injury symptoms because the PD is a constitutional defect like retardation. A retarded soldier who get another mental health injury or illness in service would still be able to get compensation for the depression or PTSD. The medical mental disorder must be superimposed on the PD because the PD is a pre-existing disorder. They tried that with me and it did not fly. The VA and military believe that a PD is something you are either born with or learn at an early age that stays with you forever. It is the biggest scam to ever come down the pike. A PD is not considered a medical mental disorder but a deeply ingrained maladaptive behavior pattern. What they are saying about PD's is that they are just born misfits.

A personality disorder cannot be the result of a head injury. A head injury can cause people to act like sociaopaths but they are not sociopaths. There was an old diagnosis I got called pesudopsychopathic schizophrenia. That means I acted like a psychopath but the cause of my weird and slightly anti-social behavior was schizophrenia. The priciple is still the same.

A Personality Disorder most certainly can be a partial result of head injury.

§ 4.122 Psychomotor epilepsy.
The term psychomotor epilepsy refers to a condition that is characterized by seizures and not uncommonly by a chronic psychiatric disturbance as well.

(a) Psychomotor seizures consist of episodic alterations in conscious control that may be associated with automatic states, generalized convulsions, random motor movements (chewing, lip smacking, fumbling), hallucinatory phenomena (involving taste, smell, sound, vision), perceptual illusions (deja vu, feelings of loneliness, strangeness, macropsia, micropsia, dreamy states), alterations in thinking (not open to reason), alterations in memory, abnormalities of mood or affect (fear, alarm, terror, anger, dread, well-being), and autonomic disturbances (sweating, pallor, flushing of the face, visceral phenomena such as nausea, vomiting, defecation, a rising feeling of warmth in the abdomen). Automatic states or automatisms are characterized by episodes of irrational, irrelevant, disjointed, unconventional, asocial, purposeless though seemingly coordinated and purposeful, confused or inappropriate activity of one to several minutes (or, infrequently, hours) duration with subsequent amnesia for the seizure. Examples: A person of high social standing remained seated, muttered angrily, and rubbed the arms of his chair while the National Anthem was being played; an apparently normal person suddenly disrobed in public; a man traded an expensive automobile for an antiquated automobile in poor mechanical condition and after regaining conscious control, discovered that he had signed an agreement to pay an additional sum of money in the trade. The seizure manifestations of psychomotor epilepsy vary from patient to patient and in the same patient from seizure to seizure.

(b) A chronic mental disorder is not uncommon as an interseizure manifestation of psychomotor epilepsy and may include psychiatric disturbances extending from minimal anxiety to severe personality disorder (as distinguished from developmental) or almost complete personality disintegration (psychosis). The manifestations of a chronic mental disorder associated with psychomotor epilepsy, like those of the seizures, are protean in character.


38 CFR - Schedule for Rating Disabilities
Mental Disorders in Epilepsies: A nonpsychotic organic brain syndrome will be rated separately under the appropriate diagnostic code (e.g., 9304 or 9326). In the absence of a diagnosis of non-psychotic organic psychiatric disturbance (psychotic, psychoneurotic or personality disorder) if diagnosed and shown to be secondary to or directly associated with epilepsy will be rated separately. The psychotic or psychroneurotic disorder will be rated under the appropriate diagnostic code. The personality disorder will be rated as a dementia (e.g., diagnostic code 9304 or 9326).

jmho,
carlie

The main thing is that the vet has to establish that the personality disorder is not developmental. If the VA or Army can say the person suffers from a constitutional PD then unless he also suffers from a defined mental disorder due to service he is not going to get compensation. My father-in-law got brain damaged in the service and started doing criminal things but it was due to the brain damage and not a sociopathic personality disorder he brought with him into the Marine Core.
When the Army or VA start talking personality disorder they mean no compensation that is why I recoil from that diagnosis.

If a person has another condition, such as a stomach disorder like IBS, couldn't depression be just as likely the result of this condition rather than related to the PD? Depression can be the result of many things such as being unemployable because of the chronic effects of the stomach along with the side-effects of the medication. Could this argument be used to refute a negative decision based on a PD?

If your medications are for service connected condition I think you could base a depression claim on that. If you take opioids or a drug like valium then I think you could have a claim. Just being in constant pain can cause depression. What you need is a doctor to say your depression is due to a service connected condition. I have chronic pain disorder and take opioids and it depresses me and ruins my sleep.