This is a very disturbing and sad article from AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/68713/, War on Iraq section, posted November 26, 2007, about the number of American veterans who have committed suicide. The woman who wrote the article, and who has also written a book about war, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide, is also a widow of a Vietnam veteran who died by committing suicide.
120 WAR VETS COMMIT SUICIDE EACH WEEK ON AVERAGE
by Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted November 26, 2007. The military refuses to come clean, insisting the high rates are due to "personal problems," not experience in combat.
Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day.
As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers.
Since these new wars began, and in spite of a continuous flood of alarming reports, the Department of Defense has managed to keep what has clearly become an epidemic of death beneath the radar of public awareness by systematically concealing statistics about soldier suicides. They have done everything from burying them on official casualty lists in a category they call "accidental noncombat deaths" to outright lying to the parents of dead soldiers. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has rubber-stamped their disinformation, continuing to insist that their studies indicate that soldiers are killing themselves, not because of their combat experiences, but because they have "personal problems."
Active-duty soldiers, however, are only part of the story. One of the well-known characteristics of post-traumatic stress injuries is that the onset of symptoms is often delayed, sometimes for decades. Veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam are still taking their own lives because new PTSD symptoms have been triggered, or old ones retriggered, by stories and images from these new wars. Their deaths, like the deaths of more recent veterans, are written up in hometown newspapers; they are locally mourned, but officially ignored. The VA doesn't track or count them. It never has. Both the VA and the Pentagon deny that the problem exists and sanctimoniously point to a lack of evidence they have refused to gather.
They have managed this smoke and mirrors trick for decades in large part because suicide makes people so uncomfortable. It has often been called "that most secret death" because no one wants to talk about it. Over time, in different parts of the world, attitudes have fluctuated between the belief that the act is a sin, a right, a crime, a romantic gesture, an act of consummate bravery or a symptom of mental illness. It has never, however, been an emotionally neutral issue. In the United States, the rationalism of our legal system has acknowledged for 300 years that the act is almost always symptomatic of a mental illness. For those same 300 years, organized religions have stubbornly maintained that it's a sin. In fact, the very worst sin. The one that is never forgiven because it's too late to say you're sorry.
The contradiction between religious doctrine and secular law has left suicide in some kind of nether space in which the fundamentals of our systems of justice and belief are disrupted. A terrible crime has been committed, a murder, and yet there can be no restitution, no punishment. As sin or as mental illness, the origins of suicide live in the mind, illusive, invisible, associated with the mysterious, the secretive and the undisciplined, a kind of omnipresent Orange Alert. Beware the abnormal. Beware the Other.
For years now, this administration has been blasting us with high-decibel, righteous posturing about suicide bombers, those subhuman dastards who do the unthinkable, using their own bodies as lethal weapons. "Those people, they aren't like us; they don't value life the way we do," runs the familiar xenophobic subtext: And sometimes the text isn't even sub-: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania," proclaimed W, glibly conflating Sept. 11, the invasion of Iraq, Islam, fanatic fundamentalism and human bombs.
Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty. The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn't the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives.
Consider the 25 percent of enlistees and the 50 percent of reservists who have come back from the war with serious mental health issues. Despair seems an entirely appropriate response to the realization that the nightmares and flashbacks may never go away, that your ability to function in society and to manage relationships, work schedules or crowds will never be reliable. How not to despair if your prognosis is: Suck it up, soldier. This may never stop!
Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about what needs to be done are only just now beginning.
Poverty? The symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries or traumatic brain injuries often make getting and keeping a job an insurmountable challenge. The New York Times reported last week that though veterans make up only 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless. If that doesn't translate into despair, neglect and poverty, well, I'm not sure the distinction is one worth quibbling about.
There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don't enlist in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don't sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood that they sentence themselves to death.
There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That's a ratio of 50-to-1.
. So who is it that is most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty that drive people to such acts, then isn't it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job?
*I say "about" because in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, it is often very difficult for observers to determine how many individual bodies have been blown to pieces.
Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day, 2006. Her blog is Flashback.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Understanding and Dealing With Stress
From the Canadian Mental Health Association website, a piece about understanding, coping with and preventing stress, http://www.cmha.ca/bins/content_page.asp?cid=2-28&lang=1.
Stress
We all talk about stress, but we are not always clear about what it is. This is because stress comes from both the good and the bad things that happen to us. If we did not feel any stress, we would not be alive! Stress becomes a problem when we are not sure how to handle an event or a situation. Then worry sets in, and we feel "stressed."
The things that cause stress for you may not be a problem for your neighbour, and things that bring stress to your neighbour's life may not worry you at all. It is how you think about and react to certain events that determine whether you find them stressful or fairly easy to deal with. Your reaction to stress can affect your mental and physical health; so it is important for you to learn how to deal effectively with stress as it occurs.
Understanding stress
Your feelings about the events in your life are very important. By understanding yourself and your reactions to stressful events, you can learn to handle stress effectively. The best place to start is by figuring out what produces stress in you, such as:
Major events in your life: getting married, changing jobs, moving your home, getting divorced, or coping with the death of a loved one,
Long-term worries: concern about your children's future, financial or economic problems, or an ongoing illness,
Daily hassles: traffic jams, rude people, or machines that just don't work when you want them to.
The stress response
When you find an event stressful, your body undergoes a series of changes, called the stress response. There are three stages to this response. They are:
Stage 1 - Mobilizing Energy
At first, your body releases adrenaline, your heart beats faster, and you start to breathe more quickly. Both good and bad events can start this reaction: the night before your wedding or the day you lose your job.
Stage 2 - Consuming Energy Stores
If, for some reason, you do not escape from the first stage, your body begins to release stored sugars and fats from its resources. At this stage, you will feel driven, pressured and tired. You may drink more coffee, smoke more, and drink more alcohol than is good for you. You may also experience anxiety, memory loss, catch colds or get the flu more often than normal.
Stage 3 - Draining Energy Stores
If you do not resolve your stress problems, the body's need for energy will become greater than its ability to produce it, and you will become chronically stressed. At this stage, you may experience insomnia, errors in judgement, and personality changes. You may also develop a serious sickness, such as heart disease, ulcers or mental illness.
Coping with stress
Because each of us is different, there is no one "correct" way to cope with stress. However, there are a number of different things that can be done, and it is helpful to look at both short and long-term solutions to reducing stress.
Identify your problems. Is your job, your relationship with someone, or money worries causing you stress? Are unimportant, surface problems masking real, deeper ones? Once you are fairly sure you know what the problem is, you can do something about it.
Solve your problems. Start thinking about solutions. What can you do, and what will be the consequences? Should you be looking for a less stressful job? Do you need marriage counselling? Should you talk to a financial expert about money management? What will happen if you do nothing? If you follow this problem-solving strategy, you should be able to make some changes to take the pressure off yourself. This long-term way of reducing stress in your life is something everyone, sooner or later, will need to do.
Talk about your problems. You may find it helpful to talk about your stress. Friends and family members may not realize that you are having a hard time. Once they understand, they may be helpful in two ways: first, by just listening to you vent your feelings and second, by suggesting solutions to your problems. If you need to talk with someone outside your own circle of friends and relatives, your family doctor may be able to refer you to a mental health counsellor.
Learn about stress management. There are many helpful books, films, videos and courses to help you cope with stress. There are also counsellors who specialize in stress; ask your family doctor for a referral to one. There may also be community college courses and stress management workshops available in your community.
Reduce tension. Physical activity can be a great stress reducer. Go for a walk, take up a sport, dig in the garden, clean the house. You may find it helpful to learn some relaxation exercises. These can be as simple as deep breathing - slowing inhale through your nose until you cannot take in any more air, and then exhale through your mouth. Another simple exercise is stretching - stretch and relax each part of your body, starting from your neck and working downward; exhale as you stretch, and inhale as you release the tension. If you make a habit of taking pressure off yourself by getting rid of your tension, you will find yourself less stressed and more able to solve the problems that caused your stress in the first place.
Take your mind off your problems. You may be able to get rid of stressful feelings temporarily by getting busy. If you get involved in hobbies, sports or work, you can give yourself a "mental holiday" from your stress. Not thinking about your problems for a while can give you a little mental distance from them and make them easier to solve later on.
Preventing stress
Once you have lowered your stress level, it is wise to look for ways to prevent excessive stress from building up again. The best way to cope with stress is to prevent it. Some good ways to do this are:
Make decisions. Not making them causes worry and, therefore, stress.
Avoid putting things off. Make a weekly schedule, including leisure activities as well as chores.
Delegate. Get others to do tasks that they can handle so that you are not trying to do everything by yourself.
Remember, it is impossible to have a completely stress-free life. Your goal should be to avoid getting to the third stage of stress where your energy stores are drained. As long as you do not get stuck in the third stage of the stress response, you will avoid becoming chronically stressed.
Do you need more help?
If you or someone you know is feeling too much stress and you need more information about resources in your area, contact a community organization, such as the Canadian Mental Health Association, which can help you find additional support.
Learn more about stress and how to cope with it at the mini-site "Coping With Stress."
Stress
We all talk about stress, but we are not always clear about what it is. This is because stress comes from both the good and the bad things that happen to us. If we did not feel any stress, we would not be alive! Stress becomes a problem when we are not sure how to handle an event or a situation. Then worry sets in, and we feel "stressed."
The things that cause stress for you may not be a problem for your neighbour, and things that bring stress to your neighbour's life may not worry you at all. It is how you think about and react to certain events that determine whether you find them stressful or fairly easy to deal with. Your reaction to stress can affect your mental and physical health; so it is important for you to learn how to deal effectively with stress as it occurs.
Understanding stress
Your feelings about the events in your life are very important. By understanding yourself and your reactions to stressful events, you can learn to handle stress effectively. The best place to start is by figuring out what produces stress in you, such as:
Major events in your life: getting married, changing jobs, moving your home, getting divorced, or coping with the death of a loved one,
Long-term worries: concern about your children's future, financial or economic problems, or an ongoing illness,
Daily hassles: traffic jams, rude people, or machines that just don't work when you want them to.
The stress response
When you find an event stressful, your body undergoes a series of changes, called the stress response. There are three stages to this response. They are:
Stage 1 - Mobilizing Energy
At first, your body releases adrenaline, your heart beats faster, and you start to breathe more quickly. Both good and bad events can start this reaction: the night before your wedding or the day you lose your job.
Stage 2 - Consuming Energy Stores
If, for some reason, you do not escape from the first stage, your body begins to release stored sugars and fats from its resources. At this stage, you will feel driven, pressured and tired. You may drink more coffee, smoke more, and drink more alcohol than is good for you. You may also experience anxiety, memory loss, catch colds or get the flu more often than normal.
Stage 3 - Draining Energy Stores
If you do not resolve your stress problems, the body's need for energy will become greater than its ability to produce it, and you will become chronically stressed. At this stage, you may experience insomnia, errors in judgement, and personality changes. You may also develop a serious sickness, such as heart disease, ulcers or mental illness.
Coping with stress
Because each of us is different, there is no one "correct" way to cope with stress. However, there are a number of different things that can be done, and it is helpful to look at both short and long-term solutions to reducing stress.
Identify your problems. Is your job, your relationship with someone, or money worries causing you stress? Are unimportant, surface problems masking real, deeper ones? Once you are fairly sure you know what the problem is, you can do something about it.
Solve your problems. Start thinking about solutions. What can you do, and what will be the consequences? Should you be looking for a less stressful job? Do you need marriage counselling? Should you talk to a financial expert about money management? What will happen if you do nothing? If you follow this problem-solving strategy, you should be able to make some changes to take the pressure off yourself. This long-term way of reducing stress in your life is something everyone, sooner or later, will need to do.
Talk about your problems. You may find it helpful to talk about your stress. Friends and family members may not realize that you are having a hard time. Once they understand, they may be helpful in two ways: first, by just listening to you vent your feelings and second, by suggesting solutions to your problems. If you need to talk with someone outside your own circle of friends and relatives, your family doctor may be able to refer you to a mental health counsellor.
Learn about stress management. There are many helpful books, films, videos and courses to help you cope with stress. There are also counsellors who specialize in stress; ask your family doctor for a referral to one. There may also be community college courses and stress management workshops available in your community.
Reduce tension. Physical activity can be a great stress reducer. Go for a walk, take up a sport, dig in the garden, clean the house. You may find it helpful to learn some relaxation exercises. These can be as simple as deep breathing - slowing inhale through your nose until you cannot take in any more air, and then exhale through your mouth. Another simple exercise is stretching - stretch and relax each part of your body, starting from your neck and working downward; exhale as you stretch, and inhale as you release the tension. If you make a habit of taking pressure off yourself by getting rid of your tension, you will find yourself less stressed and more able to solve the problems that caused your stress in the first place.
Take your mind off your problems. You may be able to get rid of stressful feelings temporarily by getting busy. If you get involved in hobbies, sports or work, you can give yourself a "mental holiday" from your stress. Not thinking about your problems for a while can give you a little mental distance from them and make them easier to solve later on.
Preventing stress
Once you have lowered your stress level, it is wise to look for ways to prevent excessive stress from building up again. The best way to cope with stress is to prevent it. Some good ways to do this are:
Make decisions. Not making them causes worry and, therefore, stress.
Avoid putting things off. Make a weekly schedule, including leisure activities as well as chores.
Delegate. Get others to do tasks that they can handle so that you are not trying to do everything by yourself.
Remember, it is impossible to have a completely stress-free life. Your goal should be to avoid getting to the third stage of stress where your energy stores are drained. As long as you do not get stuck in the third stage of the stress response, you will avoid becoming chronically stressed.
Do you need more help?
If you or someone you know is feeling too much stress and you need more information about resources in your area, contact a community organization, such as the Canadian Mental Health Association, which can help you find additional support.
Learn more about stress and how to cope with it at the mini-site "Coping With Stress."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Post-War Mental Health Issues
I saw an interview yesterday on TV with a soldier back from Afghanistan who is suffering terribly from post-traumatic stress syndrome and his mother who was trying to get his commanding officer to understand her son needed mental health care. I don't know whether there are adequate resources in the armed forces to deal with post-war mental health issues, but from the interview, I understand that there is still room for improvement where understanding among some commanding officers is involved.
There is still a stigma with mental illness in society, let alone the military where part of the traditional image of a soldier is not to show weakness or emotion.
From the Wednesday, October 17, 2007, Comment section, page AA6, is an edited version of an editorial that originally appeared in The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada:
Worth Repeating
HELPING SOLDIERS COPE WITH WAR
After World War II, medical professionals and others began to understand fully, for the first time, the toll that combat takes on soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Comprehensive statistics and a better understanding of mental-health issues brought out, in the post-war years, a reality that had been only poorly understood after World War I: Prolonged exposure to the risks and realities of organized bloodshed can cause psychological problems that can linger for a lifetime, just like the loss of a limb.
Many Canadians never came home from World War II, and some came home injured. But many others strode off the troopships healthy in body but damaged or vulnerable psychologically. Post-war, a disproportionate number of veterans - and their families - suffered from alcoholism, depression and the like, or committed suicide.
Now we are reminded that while much has changed in our society since then, the stress of warfare has not. New Canadian Forces statistics suggest that many of our Afghanistan veterans say they are enduring depression, the package of symptoms known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems.
The survey was conducted among some 4,700 Canadian Forces personnel who have served in the Kandahar area, polled between three and six months after coming home.
The findings were distressing: Of the 2,500 who responded, 15 per cent indicated they had to deal with one or more problems such as PTSD and depression; some reported panic attacks and suicidal tendencies.
The government has a responsibility to make sure that veterans can get the medical help they need to cope with their invisible wounds.
Fortunately, that does not seem to be happening. The defence department boasts of "robust measures" to help veterans, including pre-deployment preparation, in-theatre access to chaplains, psychiatrists and social workers, and attentive monitoring once vets get home.
That's all good. The costs of war are more than deaths and wounds and money; war is hard on all those who fight it.
As long as there are worse things than war, however, we must sometimes be prepared as a country to pay the price. But where money and attentive care can reduce the human toll, we owe it to our soldiers to do all we can.
This is an edited version of an editorial in The Gazette, Montreal, yesterday.
There is still a stigma with mental illness in society, let alone the military where part of the traditional image of a soldier is not to show weakness or emotion.
From the Wednesday, October 17, 2007, Comment section, page AA6, is an edited version of an editorial that originally appeared in The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada:
Worth Repeating
HELPING SOLDIERS COPE WITH WAR
After World War II, medical professionals and others began to understand fully, for the first time, the toll that combat takes on soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Comprehensive statistics and a better understanding of mental-health issues brought out, in the post-war years, a reality that had been only poorly understood after World War I: Prolonged exposure to the risks and realities of organized bloodshed can cause psychological problems that can linger for a lifetime, just like the loss of a limb.
Many Canadians never came home from World War II, and some came home injured. But many others strode off the troopships healthy in body but damaged or vulnerable psychologically. Post-war, a disproportionate number of veterans - and their families - suffered from alcoholism, depression and the like, or committed suicide.
Now we are reminded that while much has changed in our society since then, the stress of warfare has not. New Canadian Forces statistics suggest that many of our Afghanistan veterans say they are enduring depression, the package of symptoms known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems.
The survey was conducted among some 4,700 Canadian Forces personnel who have served in the Kandahar area, polled between three and six months after coming home.
The findings were distressing: Of the 2,500 who responded, 15 per cent indicated they had to deal with one or more problems such as PTSD and depression; some reported panic attacks and suicidal tendencies.
The government has a responsibility to make sure that veterans can get the medical help they need to cope with their invisible wounds.
Fortunately, that does not seem to be happening. The defence department boasts of "robust measures" to help veterans, including pre-deployment preparation, in-theatre access to chaplains, psychiatrists and social workers, and attentive monitoring once vets get home.
That's all good. The costs of war are more than deaths and wounds and money; war is hard on all those who fight it.
As long as there are worse things than war, however, we must sometimes be prepared as a country to pay the price. But where money and attentive care can reduce the human toll, we owe it to our soldiers to do all we can.
This is an edited version of an editorial in The Gazette, Montreal, yesterday.
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