Posted on Nov 30, 2016
Family, friends hope veteran's suicide leads to change
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This is the third story I have seen this week about a veteran taking their life. When this happens everyone puts blame on the VA. I get it, I have not had such great service from the VA. But I know what to expect from the VA as well. Its not like I am paying a $2000 dollar premium every month for their services.
I guess I have more questions than answers when this happens. Questions like how much did alcohol or drugs play into the suicide? What support system did they have at home? What was their cause of PTSD? if PTSD was even the root of the problem. Was there a history of mental illness? I never hear in these stories that these vets where working or going to school and being productive. How much responsibility is put on the family for support?
Don't hang me out to dry, these are just questions.
I guess I have more questions than answers when this happens. Questions like how much did alcohol or drugs play into the suicide? What support system did they have at home? What was their cause of PTSD? if PTSD was even the root of the problem. Was there a history of mental illness? I never hear in these stories that these vets where working or going to school and being productive. How much responsibility is put on the family for support?
Don't hang me out to dry, these are just questions.
Family, friends hope veteran's suicide leads to change
Posted from wsmv.com
Suicide
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
PTSD
Edited 8 y ago
Posted 8 y ago
Responses: 9
6
6
0
GySgt Bill Smith This remains an important topic, now more than ever. With the instability here at home and what we have done in service to ensure our countries principles and human rights are safeguarded, it makes for an unstable perch at best. I worked in this area for years, both military and civilan. In one month, 2 members of my family hung themselves. I cared for those who attempted SIGSW. And just about every other thing you could possibly dream up. This is not a challenge. The challenge is finding a way in the darkness. Staying connected with at least one other human being. When we feel alone and abandoned, plans made in the dark are jumpstarted by anxiety and impulsivity. These can be further complicated by TBI large or small, and some illnesses such as Graves' disease which has been linked to schizophrenia and bipolar illness. As winter sets in and the daylight diminishes, our brains no longer get the stimulation necessary to make natural hormones that help. There is a product on the market that I use for seasonal affective disorder. The mammal in me wants to hibernate until spring returns. A doctor who no longer works at my VA got me a "Happylight" made by veralux through prosthetics. It is a prosthetic for my injured brain and simulates the light speculum and intensity of the sun. The light from computers can also mess with those receptors in the back of our eyes and affect our sleep/wake hormones. I have had to turn off my devices or put the light quite dim before bed. I had to change light bulbs to lower wattage. It may seem like I have diverted from your point but these things that I mention are factors that most don't realize affect our emotions and thought processes.
Perhaps I should have just submitted an essay but stay with me.
The lack of care for mental illness is a national crisis. Only those known and willing to state they feel like they are a danger to themselves or others are being hospitalized. And then often for an insufficient time to allow medication to work, clearer thought and resources identification. It has been said that anyone has a right to "be crazy" as long as they are not in imminent danger of killing someone. To be released from the hospital one need only deny feeling this way. The logic is missing.
To those who are following this topic or know someone in distress, reach out. They may be frozen, unable to decide fight or flight, incapable of making a phone call. You can be their light, a life preserver to delay the impulse or find a solution that they can LIVE with. I charge you each with that responsibility. You do not have to save the world to help, you need only start with one. That one might even be you.
SSG (Join to see) it has been a while since we shared a soapbox. You are a brilliant and impassioned writer. What do you think? ( no deduction for typos or grammar)
COL Mikel J. Burroughs you have been talking with various people with ideas and knowledge today. Thoughts?
Capt Tom Brown, SSG Shavonde Chase Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM. Maj Marty Hogan LTC Stephen C. SrA Edward Vong
Perhaps I should have just submitted an essay but stay with me.
The lack of care for mental illness is a national crisis. Only those known and willing to state they feel like they are a danger to themselves or others are being hospitalized. And then often for an insufficient time to allow medication to work, clearer thought and resources identification. It has been said that anyone has a right to "be crazy" as long as they are not in imminent danger of killing someone. To be released from the hospital one need only deny feeling this way. The logic is missing.
To those who are following this topic or know someone in distress, reach out. They may be frozen, unable to decide fight or flight, incapable of making a phone call. You can be their light, a life preserver to delay the impulse or find a solution that they can LIVE with. I charge you each with that responsibility. You do not have to save the world to help, you need only start with one. That one might even be you.
SSG (Join to see) it has been a while since we shared a soapbox. You are a brilliant and impassioned writer. What do you think? ( no deduction for typos or grammar)
COL Mikel J. Burroughs you have been talking with various people with ideas and knowledge today. Thoughts?
Capt Tom Brown, SSG Shavonde Chase Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM. Maj Marty Hogan LTC Stephen C. SrA Edward Vong
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SSG (Join to see)
I’ve been somewhat absent from Rally Point for a while due to a lot of the political infighting/instigating which I, frankly, was getting sick of. However, this question is a good one.
A lot of what I have to say may come across as… erhm… edgy. For good reason – the problem of mental illness and suicide is a multifaceted problem which will only get worse if we as a society, not as a nation, work to improve our cultural definitions of happiness.
A quick look at the top three nations with the highest suicide rates per 100,000 people per year (2012).
Guyana 46.5%
Lithuania 29.7%
Sri Lanka 29.6%
Bottom three:
Kuwait: 0.9%
Syria: 0.5%
Saudi Arabia: 0.4%
The U.S. ranks somewhere in the middle to low at 2.6%
(Source: http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/mental_health/suicide_rates/atlas.html)
Jason,
I understand your frustration. According to the dry statistics, we’re really not that bad off, but we could be much better. You hit the nail on the head, though – “third story this week about a veteran taking their life.” You are also correct in the whole “blame the VA” bandwagon that everyone seems to love to jump on, lately. I have yet to experience anything bad from the VA, but then again, I have also been procrastinating on going in to see why different aches have become more than noticeable. Much like politics, the trend for following the angry herd seems to short-circuit the more rational and logical parts of the general public’s collective brain.
Unfortunately, though, we all are very aware of the disproportion when it comes to how many Americans choose to serve in the armed services, therefore our population seems to take a larger hit when it comes to suicides than any other field or industry. I would love to sit down and come up with a comparison of how many non-serving folks it would equal when one of our brothers/sisters-in-arms decides to take their own life… however, I will refrain from that bleak research for the sake of our own sanity.
Your questions, likewise, are fairly accurate in pondering the motives, but there’s several aspects I think would be worthy of being added on. Toxicity in leadership, work environment would be first off, followed by professional problems other than leadership, and most importantly, the level of suicide prevention training that individual received over the last year. This last one may seem odd, but if you ever have been around kids, you know that they usually end up doing the one thing you told them *not* to do… So, in this sense, annual training serves to show if there was contributing trigger because of the “mandatory annual suicide prevention PowerPoint presentation” or if it even works.
This is starting to run long, but bear with me…
In discussing the horrors of wars past and the how people could “go back and build a life in peacetime after,” I touched on some of the same ideas:
“I often ask myself the same thing.
In our present day and age of feelings more fragile than cheap Christmas ornaments, I have a very difficult time correlating that only a couple of generations separate then "then" from the ‘now’... the only thing I can really try to remind myself is that *they* were much different people back then and were brought up to be resilient, whereas now... not so much. The fathers of the people who fought at Kursk were the product of *their* wars (First and the Russian Revolution/Civil War), and their struggles as parents probably fostered a toughness in their kids that we can only imagine.
“Today, we are soft... the products of a generation that, for the most part, went soft as well. We were given the opportunities that they never had, and never were forced to struggle as they or their parents did. Now, we are seeing even more apathetic kids in their teens behaving even worse that we did at that age because our society has insulated them from early on from challenge, rejection, and accountability... (I am being general - there are LOTS of exceptions to this broad classification... but I should emphasize one word: ‘exceptions’)
“Looping back to your original question: they just did, for the most part. That was what was expected of you, and that was what people did. They never spoke of it, and kept it buried under an odd blanket of hatreds and duty to move on. They were never given the ‘outs’ or ‘help’ that we are afforded and either dealt with it or cracked up and were placed in an asylum. Different times, back then, and different expectations.”
I honestly don’t think it is an official “national crisis” like a lot of folks think it is. I think it is more of a “societal emptiness” we seem to have found ourselves mired in. We forgot how to be resilient and how to have purpose. I would love to be able to make sense out of the statistics for the top three and carefully explain the various reasons as to why their rates are so much higher, but Lithuania makes no sense. I would also like to be able to reinforce my idea that more societal struggle in the bottom three makes for more emotional and mental resiliency, but Saudi Arabia doesn’t quite fit in that logic, either. People much smarter and better educated than I can’t even accurately explain the numbers, but it doesn’t soothe the heart any when it strikes close to home and it takes someone we could have been sitting in front of at the DFAC the other day… Perhaps that is why vets stand out in this discussion – there was a way lost at some point and they suffered silently out of pride, shame, or stubborn denial… and when it that mental point is reached, there is little which can alter the unfortunate course of action.
Is the VA to blame? I’m not sure – my exposure is limited. Is there anything that friends and family can do? Yep, careful words and unquestionable love is a start. However, the most important thing is to create relationships and a society where struggle, failure, and depression are learning points to move forward and stronger from.
A lot of what I have to say may come across as… erhm… edgy. For good reason – the problem of mental illness and suicide is a multifaceted problem which will only get worse if we as a society, not as a nation, work to improve our cultural definitions of happiness.
A quick look at the top three nations with the highest suicide rates per 100,000 people per year (2012).
Guyana 46.5%
Lithuania 29.7%
Sri Lanka 29.6%
Bottom three:
Kuwait: 0.9%
Syria: 0.5%
Saudi Arabia: 0.4%
The U.S. ranks somewhere in the middle to low at 2.6%
(Source: http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/mental_health/suicide_rates/atlas.html)
Jason,
I understand your frustration. According to the dry statistics, we’re really not that bad off, but we could be much better. You hit the nail on the head, though – “third story this week about a veteran taking their life.” You are also correct in the whole “blame the VA” bandwagon that everyone seems to love to jump on, lately. I have yet to experience anything bad from the VA, but then again, I have also been procrastinating on going in to see why different aches have become more than noticeable. Much like politics, the trend for following the angry herd seems to short-circuit the more rational and logical parts of the general public’s collective brain.
Unfortunately, though, we all are very aware of the disproportion when it comes to how many Americans choose to serve in the armed services, therefore our population seems to take a larger hit when it comes to suicides than any other field or industry. I would love to sit down and come up with a comparison of how many non-serving folks it would equal when one of our brothers/sisters-in-arms decides to take their own life… however, I will refrain from that bleak research for the sake of our own sanity.
Your questions, likewise, are fairly accurate in pondering the motives, but there’s several aspects I think would be worthy of being added on. Toxicity in leadership, work environment would be first off, followed by professional problems other than leadership, and most importantly, the level of suicide prevention training that individual received over the last year. This last one may seem odd, but if you ever have been around kids, you know that they usually end up doing the one thing you told them *not* to do… So, in this sense, annual training serves to show if there was contributing trigger because of the “mandatory annual suicide prevention PowerPoint presentation” or if it even works.
This is starting to run long, but bear with me…
In discussing the horrors of wars past and the how people could “go back and build a life in peacetime after,” I touched on some of the same ideas:
“I often ask myself the same thing.
In our present day and age of feelings more fragile than cheap Christmas ornaments, I have a very difficult time correlating that only a couple of generations separate then "then" from the ‘now’... the only thing I can really try to remind myself is that *they* were much different people back then and were brought up to be resilient, whereas now... not so much. The fathers of the people who fought at Kursk were the product of *their* wars (First and the Russian Revolution/Civil War), and their struggles as parents probably fostered a toughness in their kids that we can only imagine.
“Today, we are soft... the products of a generation that, for the most part, went soft as well. We were given the opportunities that they never had, and never were forced to struggle as they or their parents did. Now, we are seeing even more apathetic kids in their teens behaving even worse that we did at that age because our society has insulated them from early on from challenge, rejection, and accountability... (I am being general - there are LOTS of exceptions to this broad classification... but I should emphasize one word: ‘exceptions’)
“Looping back to your original question: they just did, for the most part. That was what was expected of you, and that was what people did. They never spoke of it, and kept it buried under an odd blanket of hatreds and duty to move on. They were never given the ‘outs’ or ‘help’ that we are afforded and either dealt with it or cracked up and were placed in an asylum. Different times, back then, and different expectations.”
I honestly don’t think it is an official “national crisis” like a lot of folks think it is. I think it is more of a “societal emptiness” we seem to have found ourselves mired in. We forgot how to be resilient and how to have purpose. I would love to be able to make sense out of the statistics for the top three and carefully explain the various reasons as to why their rates are so much higher, but Lithuania makes no sense. I would also like to be able to reinforce my idea that more societal struggle in the bottom three makes for more emotional and mental resiliency, but Saudi Arabia doesn’t quite fit in that logic, either. People much smarter and better educated than I can’t even accurately explain the numbers, but it doesn’t soothe the heart any when it strikes close to home and it takes someone we could have been sitting in front of at the DFAC the other day… Perhaps that is why vets stand out in this discussion – there was a way lost at some point and they suffered silently out of pride, shame, or stubborn denial… and when it that mental point is reached, there is little which can alter the unfortunate course of action.
Is the VA to blame? I’m not sure – my exposure is limited. Is there anything that friends and family can do? Yep, careful words and unquestionable love is a start. However, the most important thing is to create relationships and a society where struggle, failure, and depression are learning points to move forward and stronger from.
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Maj Kim Patterson
SSG (Join to see) Thank you for the time it took to write such an amazing (and documented) response. You added much to this discussion in ideas, relativity, possible factors that hadn't been mentioned previously and I could not agree more on your take and summation. Your perspective has added much to this thread, and I, for one, am glad you came back. If I were grading, I'd need something higher and more meaningful than A+.
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I think it is important to hold the VA accountable at some level for these things. I'm not saying they should take all the blame, but time after time, we have seen cases were a Veteran turns to doing such an event because of failures within the VAHS. Sure, you aren't paying that $2000 premium, but you paid in other ways. You were asked to go places where nightmares happen and do things no human is used to doing. You did those things because you wanted to and told the VAHS will be there to take care of you. Yet, you come home, you try to sign up, wait to get an appointment only to be handed a bunch of pills rather than having the actual causes dealt with. Sure the pills help, you can sleep again, function again, almost be what others think is "normal" but for us our "normal" has changed. For us, the things that are so ingrained into us that kept us and our battle buddies alive are seen as weird and as a "disorder". Yes, most of us find ways to deal with it but a lot of struggle and the lack of assistance from the VAHS only leads to make it worse.
Another result of the VAHS' poor track record is other Veterans hear this stuff and refuse to go and get help. I was one of them. When I got out in 2008 I moved to Pittsburgh. I was told I have PTSD after my first trip to Iraq and when I got out, I figured it had been a few years, I can deal with it myself. I avoided the VA for 2 years. The results, I self-medicated myself with alcohol. Thankfully, I was able to find my way out of that dark space and started going to the VA and re-connecting with my community and fellow Veterans but some are not that lucky.
Another result of the VAHS' poor track record is other Veterans hear this stuff and refuse to go and get help. I was one of them. When I got out in 2008 I moved to Pittsburgh. I was told I have PTSD after my first trip to Iraq and when I got out, I figured it had been a few years, I can deal with it myself. I avoided the VA for 2 years. The results, I self-medicated myself with alcohol. Thankfully, I was able to find my way out of that dark space and started going to the VA and re-connecting with my community and fellow Veterans but some are not that lucky.
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GySgt Bill Smith
I don't think there is a magic pill to fix any of the problems with the VAHS. But that is what people expect and that is the wrong way to look at it. We need to start solving this at the micro level, friends, family, community, employment, school. Pushing the message of finding a new purpose after getting out and moving on.
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Yes very important questions indeed. I think in general that mental health care in America is really lacking. It depends a great deal on self reporting by the individual and to seek help before things get to out of control. From my own personal experiences in helping a friend - you really need to be in crisis for a hospital to take you in. Not surprisingly however when someone is in a full blown crisis the last thing on their mind is getting help from a mental health care professional. As to your comments of family support I feel the external support network is crucial for individuals with a mental health care issue as family can come off as either not understanding or judging the individual's bad behavior or self medicating. This gets a bit tricky though as some individuals can lash out and be off putting to ever one including the spouse. These individuals really need to have a good friend or two that are willing to take one on the chin and still want to fight and wait it out with them. Sadly though in some cases even with the best efforts and support in place the pain is still to overwhelming. Very sad to the this happen.
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