How I Found Hope After Attempting Suicide | GX Online

http://www.gxonline.com/features/how-i-found-hope-after-attempting-suicide

RP Members and Connections Please take the time to read this entire Article - I posted the beginning of it for you here. CW4 (Join to see) is part of our RallyPoint family and he is on a mission to save lives! I'm proud to post this article for Bill this morning as part of my mission with Sponsor a Vet Life (SAVL). Let's save some lives!

For any Soldier thinking about taking their life, there’s a way back. I know, because I survived rock bottom.

by CW4 Clifford Bauman

CW4 Clifford Bauman, a Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and today an aviation logistics officer for the National Guard Bureau, was one of the Guard Soldiers who gave his all responding to 9/11, searching through the rubble at the Pentagon after the crash of Flight 77, hoping to find life. That devotion nearly cost him his own, as the memories and guilt he experienced led him to attempt suicide 15 months later. But for any Soldier who believes that it’s pointless to go on, Bauman is living proof there is hope.

The latest stats say 20 Veterans a day take their life, and Bauman, like so many others across the Guard and DoD, is working to bring that number down.

September is Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month in the Army, but Bauman, now 46, makes this a personal mission year-round. Here, Soldier to Soldier, he opens up about two defining moments of his life—and the day-to-day challenge of riding the ups and downs that service members face.

My path to suicide started on the night of Sept. 12, 2001. After searching for survivors in the Pentagon for over 18 hours, and finding none, I returned home to remove my soiled uniform and placed my hardhat, gloves and boots in a box. Tucking the box in the closet, as if the memories would remain trapped inside, I spoke about the events to no one. At that time, I had no idea I was on a path to self-destruction or how much my life would change over the coming year.

Days turned into nights, nights turned into weeks and then weeks into months, until a year had passed since 9/11. In retrospect, I was in denial. Like most who are dealing with any situation, denial is always there as hope fades away. On the 9/11 anniversary, as I aimlessly jumped through the headlines of The Washington Post, my eyes froze upon three words I couldn’t ignore: “One Year Later.”

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