Do you think the number 22 helps or hurts suicide awareness in the military community?

Both. On one hand it raises awareness. On the other that is the label we get. I don't know how many times someone has asked me if I was ok and the other questions on the suicide awareness card simply because I was having a bad day. I wish there was a better way to approach this so that people don't label and worry that every last vet is going to opt out.

First, the number 22 is very watered down. Less than half the states report veteran suicide. That said insiders of the health industry say the number is closer to 34 or about every 1.42 minutess. The inside number of suicides in America is about 1 every 1.38 minutes and that too is watered down for political reasons. Edited because cell phone put wrong words here. Sorry for confusion.

It helps me, but I wonder how it can help them.

IMO it hurts the military veteran community more than it helps

Serve your country so people can live safely and free. Then you come back and feel like you don't belong in this world. Negative or positive as long as we keep fighting to get that number to 0 that's all I care about. We have to get this number down. The sad thing is the number has been high for a long time no one just brought it out to the open.

CPT (Join to see) Awareness is always important, but I don't really have an opinion on the 22 number and if it hurts the awareness or not. I know that I'm trying my best to help veterans through Sponsor a Vet Life. Check out our page on here on RP:

https://www.rallypoint.com/organizations/sponsor-a-vet-life-virtual-world-solutions-d-b-a-sponsor-a-vet-life

I think it just brings awareness to the facts of civilian life after the military is not an easy transition.

Giving the public a number to remember keeps it in the memory better than "Some, few, too many". It takes it from a nebulous concept to a hard fact. It helps not only the military community but the civilian community as well.

I think it helps bring awareness to the civilian population, but it puts a bad cloud on a lot of others

Since I had to look up what you meant by the number 22 in relation to suicide awareness, I do not believe it is having as big of an impact as anyone would like. What seems to be a common theme that I have seen when going through most of this forum is that there is little understood about what contributes to suicide and its prevention. In reality, it can be very complex because choosing to suicide is a very personal choice that may have been influenced by a single event, or a long period of many events that have aggregated to this decision. As a suicide intervention skills trainer, trained by LivingWorks to teach the ASIST course, I have heard so many stories of suicide as well as those from participants who felt comfortable enough to share their experience. I can't say that there were any significant commonalities that led to choosing death over life.

One of the biggest issues with suicide awareness, I feel, is that by pouring resources only into prevention, you are not going to make a large impact. Just being aware doesn't promote the ability to talk about it, because not all the stigma will be eliminated. For my workshop's anonymous survey, I still get Soldiers putting tally marks saying they wouldn't tell anyone they were having thoughts. I never pressure to find out who said that, simply explore what might still create that situation. Perhaps it can lead back to having trust in the person they are seeing, which is not limited to only when it comes to vets going to the VA. That to me seems to be the fundamental flaw of prevention, that a person thinking about suicide must self-identify to a caregiver. If this doesn't happen, and the local policy doesn't require the topic to be brought up, then how can one feel like they really matter and not as though they will only get blown off.

I know that I have been trained a certain way, but this last part I really do believe. We not only need to be aware of suicide, but be at a point that we are comfortable enough to talk about it openly. It may be hard to not insert deep rooted feelings about that topic, but for a person with suicidal thoughts, they might find the caring person that they are willing to talk to. So I'm talking about a cultural change, just like with how I treat my Soldiers, where simply joking about suicide is un-tolerated, but that it is ok to bring up as a subject be it that they need help or want to share what they have heard. And if I feel that a person might be at risk, having thoughts of suicide, I will ask them and give an explanation of how I put together the dots. If I'm wrong, I get to hear more about what is going on when my Soldiers are at home, all while still telling them that I care what happens in their lives.