How many friends must we bury?

We all have at least one. Someone we knew, maybe with whom we were close, maybe not. And the truth is, we have all had those same thoughts, those same feelings, one time or another. It might not have been the crisis that put us at death’s door, but if we look closely at ourselves, we knew we were in the neighborhood.

Every person who serves knows they are part of a unit, a single entity that collectively succeeds in the mission or fails. And on this, we all know we have failed.

How?

There are lots of reasons. It’s too complex for us to point to any one cause. But we know that there was not one choice, but dozens that led our brothers and sisters to seek relief on the other side. And we say, “if only they could have talked to someone…” But what would someone say?

I have some ideas.

Leaving the military is traumatic.
Trauma: emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may be associated with physical shock and sometimes leads to long-term neurosis.
Note that every veteran describes transition as extremely stressful and emotional, and some may lead to long-term neurosis. That isn’t a given, but it’s definitely not definitively a possibility.

We should be preparing ourselves and our service-siblings for the event, and make the conversation regular. We cannot start at the point of crisis. The first time we talk about mental health cannot be when we talk about suicide. That’s like trying to teach defensive driving on the highway at the point of 70mph impact. We have to start sooner, when we are in service, and we have to talk about very specific things, so we don’t continue to think of mental health of as something that says we are broken. Here are 5 talking points that we need to hammer home, every day, with every one of those with whom we have the great honor and privilege to serve:

1.) The stress of transition is normal. It’s a symptom of your brain reacclimating to a new set of circumstances. The brain literally changes itself to make decisions more efficient according to the assumptions it sees in the world around it. When everything changes, it takes time for the brain to get out of those patterns and habits. It takes time and effort.

2.) At first, the simplest things make the biggest difference. Quit drinking. Get as much sleep as possible. Eat healthily. Exercise. Hydrate. Journal. Go see a therapist to help you through this phase. Any one of those might improve your mood by 15-20%. Combined, I guarantee they will change your outlook on life for the better, and probably for the long run. And don’t be afraid to emphasize these things to everyone you talk to.

3.) Professional help is the best help. Once you’ve “stopped the bleeding” and are practicing the things you know are good for you, you can work through the harder stuff much, much easier. It’s just a question of getting your brain and mind to work for you, and not against you.

4.) You’ll do it over and over. Just when you think that you’ve figured it out in one domain in your life, you’ll find that you still have work to do in others. Keep working on it. The only time we should stop growing and changing is in death, and that should be much, much further down the road.

5.) The only way out is through, but you don’t have to walk this dark path alone. We all can and should continually shine the light and shoulder some of the burden for each other.

We know that we need to talk to each other. We may need some help knowing what to say. But the conversations need to start earlier. And it is our duty, our honor, and our privilege to share every bit of it with each other. For only together will we come out alive.

Eric Burleson is an Army veteran and author of Separating From Service, the Mental Health Handbook for Transitioning Veterans. The book provides veterans and the organizations that serve them a tool to navigate the stress of transition and is available through Amazon or at https://rly.pt/SFS
You can contact Eric at [login to see] . He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and three children.