The application process can be quite daunting. It's very intimate in what you submit because, of course, you're telling a stranger or a medical professional you've never met why you think you deserve this, and that can be hard for someone to express. It's like somebody asking you what you do in your job. You just do it. You don't think about the exact duties in what you do.
In filling out the application, I had to ask my husband some very interesting questions, and I found out some scary answers. For example, he had to hang upside down just to fix machines and things like that, and he injured himself doing this or that and I never heard about it. It was pretty scary to me.
These applications can be quite intense for some members, especially, I think, for those suffering from psychological afflictions. It can be hard to relive those on paper and try to express what happened without it triggering something.
In the case of my husband, just filling this out made me very upset and sad, and I felt really bad for what he had to go through. We, as a family, don't know what our spouses do in their positions. My biggest fear when he was at sea was what would happen if there was a fire. That was my biggest worry while he was away, but then to hear the other things while filling out this application was pretty shocking to me.
I'm sorry. I've gone off a bit.
The applications can be quite complicated and they take time.