Suicide Survivors Find Comfort With TAPS

Suicide Survivors Find Comfort With TAPS

By Elaine Wilson
American Forces Press Service
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 12, 2010 – Miranda Kruse sits in a hotel lobby here, sharing her story as dozens of her friends pass by. She waves at some and jumps up to warmly hug others, carefully guarding a plate of sandwiches for her three children, who are off playing with friends.


It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, Kruse could barely leave her house, gripped by a loneliness and depression triggered by her husband’s suicide that nearly swallowed her in darkness.

“Loneliness is so horrible after a suicide,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “There’s such a stigma and everyone wants to point a finger.”

It wasn’t until she attended her first Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors seminar that she truly emerged from the darkness, she said. TAPS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the survivors of fallen military loved ones.

“TAPS got me back on my feet,” she said. “They understand what you’re going through. We may cry and get emotional, but they understand.”

Kruse is among the more than 200 family members who traveled here from across the nation last weekend to attend the 2nd Annual TAPS Suicide Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp. Participants range from parent to spouse, sibling to battle buddy, but all lost a military loved one to suicide, some as recently as a week ago.

It has been nearly five years since Kruse’s loss, but the emotion still seems raw for her as she recalled her husband’s decline. It was only about a year into their relationship that Kruse first recognized something was very wrong with her future husband, Navy Chief Petty Officer Jerald Kruse.

It began with his severe insomnia, then progressed into nervous rocking and incessant nail biting. One night she heard him yelling and cursing at someone in the bathroom. But when she opened the door, he was alone.

Kruse urged him to get counseling, but he hesitated, afraid of the stigma of seeking military mental health care. He eventually agreed, although reluctantly, and was told to cut back on caffeine. They switched to another counselor, who said it might be attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a diagnosis they dismissed after some research.

They went to one last counseling visit on Aug. 5, 2005, and Kruse begged him to reveal the true depth of his troubles as he went in to talk to the counselor alone. After the appointment, he broke down in tears.

“What happened?” she asked him. “They don’t have answers,” he replied. “I’m done with this.”
Five months later, on New Year’s Day in 2006, Kruse went out in the evening for a while. When she returned, she found her husband in the backyard. He had shot himself.
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Suicide Survivors Find Comfort With TAPS