Vets' growing suicide rate worries officials

link to article in today's (Monday, May 12, 2008) Chronicle

Vets' growing suicide rate worries officials

from the article:</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
To reach the veteran suicide hot line, call (800) 273-8255 and press 1. The line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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the number given is the national (USA) suicide prevention hot line for anyone. so to find out how it is specifically for vets onto the US VA site...

the VA Mental Health website says: </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention hotline and indicate you are a veteran. You'll be immediately connected to VA suicide prevention and mental health professionals. We can help-- If you feel you are in Crisis--Call the Suicide hotline (1-800-273-TALK), your local VA Medical Center or Vet Center today!

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help IS available. you are NOT alone.

Thanks so much for posting this information. I can tell you for a fact that vets feel very lonely, whether they continue on active duty or return to civilian life. Some people just cannot tell their experiences. We don't know how ppl will react, or we get the inappropriate reaction and it just closes the door on future attempts.

Finding PC and some other survivor sites has been a huge blessing for me. And even here I find that some things are such that i cannot post them. A couple things I've been able to PM to someone after we developed a level of trust, but even there i felt like they would hate me when they found out what kinds of experiences I've had or what secrets I've kept.

They did not hate me. They were understanding and supportive. What a relief it was.

Some of these experiences are so terrible and we see no way out except to hasten an end to all the pain and turmoil. I was not suicidal when i found PC, but i was desperate to get an understanding of why I was acting the way I was...whether there was any connection with the past.

and now it is clear that there was a connection, and I'm making progress, thanks to ppl here.

Troy

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Troy: Finding PC and some other survivor sites has been a huge blessing for me.

Some people find it very helpful to talk their experience through, but they need to talk it through for a very long time. This is how they process the traumatic memory. The difficulty is finding others who can both listen and understand. Of course, no one will ever understand your experience exactly as you do because no one else can ever be you, but people can discover their common ground and help each other through the darkest moments.

The internet can be especially helpful in this regard, all the more so for those who may be living in isolated communities or do not have access to professional caregivers.

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__zh: help IS available. you are NOT alone.

See also: If you're thinking about suicide ... read this first

Music of the Hour:

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“Is the fact that we’re stopping [suicides] good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we’ve ever seen before? It might be something we drop into a general release about our suicide prevention efforts, which (as you know far better than I) prominently include training employees to recognize the warning signs of suicide,” Chasen wrote Katz in an email titled "Not for CBS News Interview Request."

Katz’s response is startling. He said the VA has identified nearly 1,000 suicide attempts per month among war veterans treated by the VA. His response to Chasen indicates that he did not want the VA to immediately release any statistical data confirming that number, but rather suggested that the agency quietly slip the information into a news release.

“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?”

The February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz's email was disclosed in court, he denied a "cover-up" and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.

In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.

The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.

Read the full article here: Veterans Administration Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows



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it happens at alarming rates! living with a combat vet I know he tried many times. I know others that tried numerous times. one of the biggest issues that I saw was they guys didn't feel like anyone understood what they were going thru and therefor did not talk about things they went thru in combat. the other thing was that they were not treated properly in alot of cases. medical/psychological. there is a great need to find just the right combination of medications that will work and a great need for the veterans to communicate thing that happened.
the more you talk about it sometimes the better off you are.

*tears

Can you imagine their desperation?

T.

yes hon I can. I lived it for many years with my guy and some more that lived near me. I have seen men collapse in tears in my own living room with such desperation that most can only imagine.

glad to have helped. happened to have read the article the day after this forum was created and it seemed timely. moreso now after the leaked memo from the VA over not diagnosing PTSD in vets. ugh!

hopefully this forum can grow to become another online useful resource for our veterans to find whatever they need for their healing process.

not all vets are suicidal of course but for those that are it can be so lonely and isolating.

While recovering from combat wounds I passed through that shadow. Fortunately had good support from family and got through it.

I think good family support is the best you can have.