Suicide Solution*

This is not a very uplifting post to start the day. However, in light of this article I believe that it deserves mention. Apparently, they fear that soldier suicide rates could surpass those of last year. We like to refer to the "casualties" of war, but would most people include these soldiers in that category? Having lived in an area with A LOT of military and military dependents (many of my students at said place) there was a lot of talk about depression, especially among the military wives. Why? Because the military husbands would only talk about the issues sometimes with their wives, or other females they trusted....the guy who left to smoke a cigarette and his group was hit by a roadside bomb....or one of the survivors of the Khobar Towers, reliving the day over and over.

One of the great travesties (not that there aren't 1 million to choose from) of this administration has been their lack of care for VAs. This is not the first article that I have read in the last year about soldier suicides, yet many of the mental health services are still not covered. I have even read where some argue that PTSD is not a "real" condition and that some soldiers were using the diagnosis to avoid a second tour. Really? Why the fuck would that want to do that?! Could it be that this really did fuck them up and they would rather fake a mental illness (which stigmatizes them in the military BTW) than go back to that hellhole?!

You, military (or Bush government), are part of the problem here. You do not provide adequate health services overall but mental health ususually draws the short straw. After all, you must deal with the visual casualties, those that have lost limbs, lest some independent media source grabs a camera and visits your fine hospital and exposes the pile of shit services you offer.

Now, full disclosure no. 568, I have been a victim of suicide. When I say victim, I mean that a close family member committed suicide, and the victims are those left behind. We are the ones left to deal with the pain, feel guilt about what we did or did not do, and forever wonder how life might have been different if that person were still alive. Of course, losing a close family member is always sad, but with suicide, there is more of a need to understand/explain it. Natural deaths have tidy explanations. Suicides typically do not. In fact, one misconception is that most people leave notes. The actual number of suicides where a note was left is about 10% on average, a very small number.

One problem is that a lot of times, suicide is an impulsive decision. Especially, with teenagers. Teenagers are still learning how to manage their emotions, while being impulsive because of their level of cognitive and emotional development. So, sometimes an impulsive act, committed during a temporary period of depression, results. Now, I am excluding individuals who suffer from serious depression for obvious reasons. But I even considered suicide as a teenager. I was not severely depressed but I did give it a lot of thought. I never made any serious attempts. Instead, I simply drowned the pain with alcohol. I also knew that when I became an adult I would have more control over my life; thus, I had a future with hope. That was what sustained me through that period of time.

I always feel the sadness when I hear about the suicide of a college student, as I imagine that if only the person had hung in a while longer, everything would be alright. Then I read articles like this one and feel that we should be doing more to prevent suicide. Yes, we go to the trainings and learn how to identify distressed students. But sometimes, the ones in danger are the ones not showing up to class. You may not even know who they are because they haven't attended. Suicide prevention even becomes problematic because there is a well-known copycat effect (Kurt Cobain) and you do not want to feel like you are giving anyone ideas.

For the soldiers, their trauma is real and you need to treat it as such assholes. I feel strongly that we should mandate psychotherapy upon return from any tour. Yes, this might be expensive but if you are going to keep sending them over then you need to be prepared to deal with the consequences. Also, mandatory psychotherapy would reduce the stigma attached to seeking out mental health services by soldiers (the 'ol suck it up and deal with it because a soldier cannot show any weaknesses).

In the meantime, I will remain vigilant about students who may be in distress.


*The name of a song by Ozzy Osborne. Made national news when the parents of a teenager who committed suicide cited this song as the catalyst.