Marine suicide rate up again

Here's a thought, how about we stop treating them like victims and start regarding them the way they really are, as survivors? Do you think that would finally open the door to getting them help to heal? Do you think that would get rid of the damn stigma standing in their way, keeping them from asking for help? How about we finally manage once and for all to actually have the right things in place for them instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again? WTF is it going to take to stop losing them? (Yes a chaplain swore but considering this story and how long the military has had to get this right, it's appropriate.)

The Army reported an increase in suicide deaths last month. Wonder if this month they'll say it went up again? Considering how much effort the military has put in to saving their lives, do you think they will finally get the fact they are jumping up and down on the edge of a cliff patting themselves on the back?

We can count the numbers all we want but the truth is, we will never know exactly how many commit suicide or how many reach the point of desperation when it seems to be their only solution to ending their pain. We can talk all we want about this being a wound because trauma is Greek for wound, but we can't get it into their brains that this was not caused by anything they did wrong or any flaw within them. They won't get that message as long as they keep getting the wrong messages drilled into their brains.

This isn't rocket science if someone like me can figure this out. This is about human nature and common sense.

Hopes just crashed to the ground. I was wrong to think they finally got it last month,,,,,,

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Marine Corps sees big drop in monthly suicide statistics
Please, please tell me it is because they get it and are going for help instead. Tell me they are getting the support they need from their CO and their buddies. Tell me they are getting support from their families and friends back home. Tell me that they are finally, once and for all, hearing what they need to know to heal and live. Above all, tell me that this is not just a fluke and the numbers will stay down.

MILITARY: Marine suicide pace picks up in July
After falling to only one in June, six suspected self-inflicted deaths reported last month

By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com

One of the latest suspected suicides occurred last month at Camp Pendleton, where 18-year-old Pfc. Derek Capulong was found hanging from a rifle range observation tower.

Capulong's family in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., had called base officials the night before saying he was despondent and that they were worried about his safety, according to published reports in Detroit-area newspapers.

The U.S. Marine Corps is reporting six suspected suicides and seven attempts in July, returning to a near-record pace of self-inflicted deaths.

Officials were cautiously optimistic that outreach efforts were working after only one Marine committed suicide in June.

So far this year, 28 Marines have killed themselves. A record 52 Marines took their lives in 2009.

The Marine Corps' suicide rate of 24 per 100,000 is the highest among all branches of the military and higher than the civilian rate of 20 per 100,000.

This year's suicides include 13 troops with no deployment history and 10 who had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Five Marines killed themselves while on deployment to a war zone. Eleven Marines killed themselves while assigned to a war front last year, according to service statistics.
read more here
Marine suicide pace picks up in July

also on this
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Camp Pendelton investigates apparent suicide of 18 year old Marine

I can keep screaming about what they need to do but no one with the power has listened. After all, I'm not in the military and I'm not a veteran, so all the meetings I've had with members of the military and VA employees has done no good at all. Sure they listen and are very polite but the end result is they stop answering my emails and phone calls. They have already decided there is nothing they need to hear from me.

I keep saying that the best therapists either have PTSD or live with someone with it for the simple reason they see all that comes with PTSD first hand. Reading it in a book or seeing someone once every couple of months does not give therapists any kind of understanding of what life is really like for them. If therapists don't ask what they were like before military life, they won't know how much they've changed, what is behind the changes and then they'll never know how to get them back on their feet.

Here's some of my thoughts;

First, get rid of the stigma of PTSD by providing real education on PTSD at their level and stop the psychological language they don't understand. Talk to them like humans on a human level. What good will your ego being fed do them? If they don't already respect you with your degree hanging on the wall, psycho talk won't gain you anything other than a patient thinking about how long he/she has to sit there listening to you.

You are not the only answer to the veteran's problem. Get the families involved so you can really find out what's going on in their lives and then work with the families so they understand what PTSD is and what they can do to help instead of unknowingly feeding into the problem. They are very important in this. No matter how hard you try to help them heal if you do not enlist the families the next time the vet comes into your office you may find the family has broken up and they are spending their nights on the couch of a friend.

If therapists keep doing the same thing over and over again that have not worked, they will never do more good than harm.