Pain so deep you want to die

Suicide of National Guardsman was posted this morning on Wounded Times. If you look back over the last two years, there have been many more suicides of Guardsmen and regular military. None of them had to happen.


If you read my book For the Love of Jack, (link on the sidebar) you'll find the part after our daughter was born. I was in the hospital with an infection that took over my body and almost died. The truth was, I had gotten to such a dark place I wanted to die. My family said it was just the fever making me feel that way, but I knew what I was carrying was much deeper than that. I feared losing God. I thought that my emotional pain would become so great that I would end up blaming God instead of running to Him. I was losing hope of my life getting better.

Our daughter was 8 months old but I was in the hospital praying to die. I thought about her and how much I loved her and that's when I decided to fight to get well. There were times in my life before that day and times after, but never as deeply imbedded in darkness.

If you think there is no hope left of tomorrow being any better, or fear it being worse, then what reason do you have to get up in the morning? Hope is what keeps us all alive if we are honest. Some say it's love, but feeling loved when PTSD has taken away almost every good feeling, does not cut it. You not only have a hard time feeling love for someone but added onto that is the sense you no longer deserve to be loved.

Hope has to be restored before there can be healing. In my case, it was my husband's PTSD that consumed me, love caused me to fight. Fight for him and our daughter. It was hope that had finally found it's way into his mind that caused him to fight to heal himself.

There was pain that deep in my family but we survived. We've been married 25 years now. While PTSD is still in this house, it no longer rules our house. Love does. Hope does. Faith does.

We need to make sure that we give hope back to every veteran and survivor of trauma that better days are ahead of them and not behind them. They can come out stronger on the other side.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Guardsmen’s PTSD issues are raised for health caregivers
NASHUA – On the eve of the largest deployment ever of New Hampshire National Guard personnel, the city hosted a conference to train mental illness caregivers on how to identify issues the guardsmen may face when they return home: Post traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury.

One of the biggest obstacles, professionals say, is getting veterans to admit they need help.

“Stigma is not something that happens to people in uniform. Stigma is a norm in American society,” said Dr. Matthew Friedman, a national expert on PTSD and one of the speakers at the conference Tuesday at Nashua Country Club.

People will go on talk shows to discuss their heart attacks but shy away from talking about depression, said Friedman, executive director of the National Center for PTSD at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

That’s particularly true for veterans who equate acknowledging stress to acknowledging weakness, Friedman told a roomful of therapists, case managers, counselors and nurse practitioners.
read more here
Guardsmens PTSD issues are raised for health caregivers