OASIS, one more reason military suicides are up

After reading this it becomes more and more clear they just don't get it. Last month 4 Marines took their own lives and there were 17 reported attempted suicides. The Army lost 32 to suicide. With over 40 years of research devoted to defeating PTSD, there are higher numbers of losses in the military and with veterans long after they would be counted as a casualty of war.

I am sure this person means well but he's part of the problem when they keep talking about being resilient. This sends a message to the troops if they end up with PTSD they are weak and it is their fault.

PTSD Patients Build Resiliency at Navy Medicine’s OASIS
Filed under DOD NEWS

By Lt. Cmdr. (Dr.) Paul Sargent, Division Officer and founding Program Director for Overcoming Adversity and Stress Injury Support (OASIS)


As the founding director of the Overcoming Adversity and Stress Injury Support (OASIS) program, I have been thinking a lot about individual resilience lately. Last week, OASIS celebrated one year of treating patients and I couldn’t be more proud of the work we have done so far and what we continue to do, but the concept of resiliency still remains at the forefront of my mind daily.

It is a commonly discussed term but not well defined, and many experts will disagree on exactly how to measure it. For me it is simply the ability to pick oneself up and keep going after taking a hit.

I take care of a lot of service members who define resilience as “strength” which is true, but it is also an elastic strength, not a rigid one. Sometimes in the military we are told that there is one right way to do things, but when people later find that the “one way” doesn’t work for all situations, they feel trapped and unable to develop a new approach and adapt to an unexpected problem. Coping with and recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be like that. People can get “stuck.”

Resilience is thought by many to be a “trait,” that is, it is something you are born with, sort of like curly hair, or eye color. Experts have spent many years pondering what makes one individual break under stress while another thrives. They do research into what makes a good Marine tick, or what kind of personality makes for a good aviator.
read more here

He's reading the wrong experts. The fact is the more a person cares, they more they are able to feel. PTSD hits them hard. It is caused from an outside force and not something they can train their brains to deal with. I am so tried of talking to a veteran after they have heard the messages from the DOD telling them they ended up with PTSD because they were not "resilient" enough or didn't train properly. We're going to keep reading about more and more suicides as long as the DOD keeps repeating the same "programs" that don't work. Spiritual healing works because it address the place where PTSD lives, the soul. They are already tough, courageous and willing to die for the men they are with. Until the DOD gets the fact they don't "break under stress" until their brothers are out of danger, they will never be able to help them heal. How many times do we have to read about what Medal of Honor heroes have to say about PTSD before the DOD pays attention to them. You can't get braver or tougher than what these heros did.