by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
August 17, 2012
If someone decided to give an award for the worst blog, I think I'd win it. THIS BLOG IS DEPRESSING AS HELL!
I try really hard to find at least one post that will be positive. Somedays I'll open my email and start reading, getting all teary eyed and then see something making me all warm and tingly inside, like when my husband surprises me with a rose or my favorite candy (dark chocolate anything) just because he felt like it. Most days it is one bad, sad report after another. Today, is looking like one of those days so far. My mail box is full of reports to read. Most of them look pretty bad right now.
It is 7:45 and I've already answered emails from people looking for help, telling me about their frustrations and sadness. Every time I read one about a suicide, I feel about as helpless as the sender because while I know what needs to be done, it isn't being done and I've run out of excuses for the DOD and the VA. I've run out of ways to give them back some hope.
Oh sure I can get them to understand what PTSD, why it happened to someone they love and reassure them that it isn't their fault they have to go visit a grave now but the only way I have any ability to offer them hope is to tell them what the DOD and the VA are doing to prevent others from suffering the same fate. I used to be able to tell them that this group or that group has stepped up but soon I'd have to tell them that this group or that one is just as lousy as most of the others.
I am a "one woman show" so what you see is what you get. I need psychologists to send them to. I need service groups to help them with their claims. I need organizations I believe in enough to suggest the veteran or family member turn to them for help beyond what I can give. I need Yoga and martial arts instructors to be able to get them to retrain their body to calm down. I need members of the clergy to step up. What I really need the most right now is for other bloggers and Facebook hacks to stop making all of this worse!
If you're a true expert and have all your ducks in a row, send me a link to your site and I'll check it out. If it turns out to be what you claim it is, I'll link it. If I read someone pouring out their heart and I read something stupid in response instead of telling them where they can go for help, I may get frustrated enough to slam the site. These men and women are turning to you for help and if you don't do it for them, then you're doing it for your own glory.
This blog is here because 5 years ago a Marine reading my older blog sent me an email and set me straight with one question. "Are you doing this for us or yourself?" Long story short, he was right. I turned into someone I didn't like very much and justified it with all the time I spent covering PTSD. Take a look at your own site and ask yourself the same question. Once your heart is in the right place again, fix what isn't helping them.
We need all hands on deck yesterday! Your site needs to be as good as it can be or we're going to keep reading reports like this.
This is bad. 38 suspected suicides in July may mark grim record for Army but when you put this report with this one, 8 Marines committed suicide in July it is worse. Bad enough? Nope. Not even close. The Air Force and the Navy are not in these reports. Top that off with the figure of 18 veterans a day committing suicide is only part of the story. They don't publish attempted suicides. What makes all of these numbers worse? The fact that there are only 3.42 million veterans, from all generations, getting VA compensation as of April of 2012. 513,598 veterans are being compensated for PTSD. Bad enough? Nope.
There are 22,234,000 "projected veterans population" but we have only "3.42 million" veterans getting VA compensation? There were over 2 million OEF OIF veterans but less than half seek help from the VA. What makes all of this worse is that if they are no longer on active duty and not in the VA system, no one is tracking them. That means for all the sad numbers we read about every month in the suicide figures, we are not even close to what the reality is. But no one is talking about that!
This is why this blog is depressing as hell.
Grim Record: Soldier Suicides Reach New High
By MARK THOMPSON
August 16, 2012
A record number of soldiers – 38 – are suspected of killing themselves in July, the Pentagon said Thursday. It marks a startling jump in the suicide epidemic that has been frustrating Army leaders for years.
The total included 26 active-duty soldiers – under the Army’s control 24/7 — also an apparent record, and a 117% jump from June’s count of 12 active-duty suicides.
I'll try to find at least one post that is positive today so check back later.
I hope your heart stays strong, Kathie. I love reading your blog even though my heart breaks with every post. I feel so bad that soldiers need help and are not getting it, not to mention the family that struggles with PTSD after their soldier kills themselves. Sometimes I can't breathe when I look at my son's picture. I remember 20 years of things my son did, both good and bad. I remember struggling with him those last weeks before he took his life. I KNEW he was struggling. The Army forced my son to take anti depressants which brought on the crisis. When I cried out for help, they said I was overreacting. I remember his perfectly peaceful body resting in his hospital bed. He looked perfect as if he was sleeping, only there was no brain activity. How I still wish I could hold him and make the bad go away. My baby; cotton top, blue eyed boy, who wanted to save the world. His sister said he tried to save everybody but couldn't save himself. My arms are empty and my heart is broken. Our family WILL NEVER be the same. We share joy, but it is always biter sweet. We pray every day that God comes and makes all things new so we can all be together again. I wish that God would deliver our soldiers from their enemy, PTSD. Without a miracle, I am afraid that no one will stop their deaths and more families will hurt and more soldiers will feel unloved. I know that it's the PTSD that keeps them from feeling safe and loved, but it still breaks our families heart to know we could not reach him. Thanks you for hearing me out. Thanks you for your sacrifice. Thank you for fighting for our heros!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're one of the reasons I do it. Mom's like you are heroes to me. You took your own pain to make sure other Mom's didn't feel as lost and alone as you did.
ReplyDeleteYou could have taken the easy way out, but you didn't because you cared more about other people. How can I complain or quit next to someone like you? I can't.
My sacrifices are nothing compared to you and the other Moms, Dads, spouses, kids, families and friends trying make sense out of all of this when it is too late because no one told them what they needed to know.
God bless you and may the day rush in when you will feel your son's love and not the empty place he left behind.