Military suicides unbearable for some families

Military suicides unbearable for some families
by Chaplain Kathie
Pointman of Winter Park
Wounded Times Blog
December 22, 2012

This is from my book, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle about my husband's nephew "Andy" who committed suicide.

All the people in his life loved him and looked past the problems he had. Still it was not enough. Nothing was enough to erase what he saw as a personal assault from the government. He felt he had been thrown out like a piece of garbage just like the records of his unit. It meant to him that it was all a waste. The lives lost were a waste. It was all for nothing.

Andy checked himself into a motel and used every lock on the door. The demons were screaming in his ear while visions of Vietnam invaded the room. He knew he lost the war he had been fighting. He surrendered. He put the heroin into a needle and it was the last night he would have to fight off the demons. His life ended. His brother got a phone call from the police.

Andy's real name was Stephen. When I published the book in 2002, no one was talking about PTSD and even less were talking about suicides. We thought we had to feel ashamed of what war does to humans.

Reporters were not interested in any of it. Not the backlog and denials of righteous claims that should have been approved. Not the self-medicating, the reason behind most of the arrests, divorces, secondary stressors or even secondary PTSD caused from living with PTSD combat veterans. They sure weren't interested in military suicides. I had to change the names in the book because while the names really didn't matter, our lives should have. It was happening to too many families across the country. Two reports put the veterans suicides between 150,000 and 200,000. I still grieve thinking about all the family members blaming themselves the way I did and sometimes, still do.

Five Stages of Grief

Denial, numbness, and shock: Numbness is a normal reaction to a death or loss and should never be confused with "not caring." This stage of grief helps protect the individual from experiencing the intensity of the loss. It can actually be useful when the grieving person has to take some action such as planning a funeral, notifying relatives, or reviewing important papers. As the individual moves through the experience and slowly acknowledges its impact, the initial denial and disbelief will diminish.

Bargaining: This stage of grief may be marked by persistent thoughts about what "could have been done" to prevent the death or loss. Some people become obsessed with thinking about specific ways things could have been done differently to save the person's life or prevent the loss. If this stage of grief is not dealt with and resolved, the individual may live with intense feelings of guilt or anger that can interfere with the healing process.

Depression: In this stage of grief, people begin to realize and feel the true extent of the death or loss. Common signs of depression in this stage include difficulty sleeping, poor appetite, fatigue, lack of energy, and crying spells. The individual may also experience self-pity and feel lonely, isolated, empty, lost, and anxious.

Anger: This stage of grief is common. It usually occurs when an individual feels helpless and powerless. Anger can stem from a feeling of abandonment because of a death or loss. Sometimes the individual is angry at a higher power, at the doctors who cared for the loved one, or toward life in general.

Acceptance: In time, an individual can move into this stage of grief and come to terms with all the emotions and feelings that were experienced when the death or loss occurred. Healing can begin once the loss becomes integrated into the individual's set of life experiences.

We don't talk about how combat deaths effect families left behind, but we should. This is from the Wall Street Journal.

War Tragedies Strike Families Twice

One night in March 2008, William and Christine Koch opened their front door to see two soldiers in green dress uniforms bearing news that their son, Army Cpl. Steven Koch, had been killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Two years later, Mr. and Mrs. Koch opened the door to see two police officers in blue. This time, they learned their daughter, Lynne, brokenhearted over her brother’s death, had killed herself with an overdose of prescription drugs.

“She is a casualty of this war, and I don’t care what anybody says,” Mrs. Koch said.

“If my son was not killed, my daughter would be here.”

We don't talk about what war does to families because we don't really talk about what war does to the war fighters. Considering veterans are less than 8% of the population and those serving today are less than 1%, too many don't think of them at all.

We talk even less about families when the death is by the service members' own hands.

I am contacted by a lot of family members after someone they love committed suicide, mostly Moms. They blame themselves. I tell them about "Andy" and then explain that I knew what PTSD was, what it did and what could be done to help, but still couldn't get through to Andy. Then I remind them they didn't know anything about PTSD, so there is nothing they could have done differently and even if they did, the suicide may still have happened.

It is then my job to help them to forgive the one person they have the hardest time forgiving. Themselves.