When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway

Right after 9-11 I contacted Jonathan Shay, well known author and working with veterans for the VA in Boston. He was trying to help me get my book, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle by Kathie Costos published without much luck. I wrote it during a time when my husband still thought he had anything to be ashamed of. I called Jonathan because I saw what was coming in our veterans, especially Vietnam veterans. The secondary stressor that would send mild PTSD into full-blown PTSD. Jonathan saw it coming too and that is when we discussed self-publishing my book to get it out there before too many would find their lives changed without knowing what hit them.

This powerful piece by Lily Casura on Healing Combat Trauma is about this very fact I feared the most.

PTSD Enters

At about the 12 year point in our relationship, a new entity/force entered the picture. This was an uninvited presence, unrecognized at first – but the behaviors it produced and the unwanted consequences it set in motion seemed to have a life of their own.

On September 11, 2001, when the planes crashed into the towers in New York, and the war ensued with Iraq – for Denny, this was the final unleashing of his own, internal war. He had been battling this war privately for years, but now, his inner battles consumed him. At this time, “our” war with PTSD began in earnest. PTSD was the new entity in our marriage, and 9/11 was the trigger.

Within two weeks after 9/11, Denny was in a mental hospital due to suicidal ideations. I had never even heard that term, “suicidal ideations,” before, but my vocabulary education was just beginning.

Too many gone too soon because of the enemy within them but taking pieces of their families with them.

Intimate Survival: When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway
by
Lily Casura
Healing Combat Trauma

Today is the 12th annual "National Survivors of Suicide Day." It's also a day of healing for survivors of suicide loss around the world.

Every day 18 veterans take their own lives; every 36 hours, an active duty soldier does. The pain is immeasurable, not only for the one who cannot bear it anymore and takes his or her own life, but also, importantly, for the ones they leave behind. They wait for time to heal those wounds; but it's almost impossible for time to do that; the loss is so great, particularly where there was also great love.

Because of how many veterans die each year at their own hand, affecting so many others in suicide's wake, we wanted to honor these relationships by asking a wonderful woman to tell the deeply true and deeply painful story of her own loss of her love to suicide. By telling the truth about these stories, and bringing this sadness into the light that truly so many share, we can embrace one another in the courage and compassion it takes to carry on. Marilyn has graciously shared her story, below. We are blessed to have her presence here.

"The Language of Suffering and Healing: Lessons Learned from Loss and Life with a PTSD Vet"

Suffering has its own language. Old words take on new powerful meanings, and some words that formerly brought up feelings of joy now are redefined with fear and terror.

When you live with and love someone with combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, you develop a new vocabulary related to the disorder/the suffering. The word “anniversary” used to be one associated with dressing up, going out to dinner, exchanging cards and gifts of love. Then it came to be associated with the anniversary dates of horrible, tragic events from the war -- i.e. the day a buddy was blown out of the air in his helicopter during a mission. The word “trigger” has a common definition referring to a part of a gun -- now it referred to a smell, a sound, a sight, a verbal exchange, a situation that could set off rage, depression, anger, or isolating.

My late Vietnam vet husband, Denny, suffered with severe combat-related PTSD. Truthfully, we both suffered from his PTSD. Even though technically I wasn’t a soldier in Vietnam, it seems for a time, during the final ten years of our marriage, I became a prisoner of that war.

Please read more here
When the Veteran You Love Commits Suicide Anyway