Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
“There were 154 suicides among active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year, according to a recent report from the Associated Press, a number that is 50 percent higher than the number of U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan over that time period. It is the highest rate in 10 years of war.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/panetta-calls-rise-in-military-suicide-troubling-and-tragic/2012/06/22/gJQAnQSPvV_blog.html
The above quote was taken from an article in yesterday’s Washington Post. The article was about a statement made by Defense Secretary Leo Panetta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Panetta speaking to a Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs annual conference on suicide prevention in the military.
“Panetta called suicide in the military “perhaps the most frustrating challenge” he has faced since becoming secretary of defense last year.
There are no easy answers, but that is no damn reason for not finding the answer to the problem of suicide,” Panetta told attendees at the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs annual conference on suicide prevention in the military.
The conference heard Thursday from a panel of family members who spoke of what they said was the military services’ failure to provide appropriate and timely mental health care to service members who had sought help.”
“The stories told by the family panel members run counter to the prevailing wisdom that the biggest hurdle in trying to prevent suicide in the military is the stigma associated with seeking help, noted Bonnie Carroll, president and founder of Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a military family group that organized the panel.
“We were hearing about folks who said, ‘I want to get help, I want to be better, I have a lot to live for,’ but were not getting that help,” Carroll said.
“In his address Friday morning, Panetta said that it is the responsibility of leaders from non-commissioned officers on up to ensure that troops showing signs of stress be “aggressively” encouraged to seek help. “We have to make clear we will not tolerate actions that belittle, that haze individuals, particularly those who seek help,” he said. Panetta said concerns about access to behavioral health care prompted his decision earlier this month to order a service-wide review of mental health diagnoses. The action followed an Army investigation into concerns that some soldiers had their diagnoses reversed because of the costs of caring for them. “
Let me be fair and say that I have no doubt as to the sincerity of Secretary Panetta in wanting to deal with this issue and I approve of all efforts to get treatment both psychologically and emotionally to provide our troops with all the assistance they need. However, as much effort as is put into solving this problem by the powers that be, the essential issue is that war is horrible and our country has now engaged in two wars that have lasted almost a decade. Beyond that, as these wars have worn on it has become increasingly obvious to all concerned that there was no need to fight them in the first place. Our troops are not stupid and I believe despite the great efforts to indoctrinate them with purpose, they recognize the futility of their efforts. If I’m correct then how does a rational human being connect the constant dangers and bloody revulsion they must feel, with the reality of their service?
My sense is that the connection, as many in our Armed Services have stated repeatedly, is to the other members of their squad. Nothing establishes a bond between human beings as strong as that of shared hardship and danger, save for perhaps sex and as we know that can be temporary at best. If the good of ones immediate comrades then become one’s motivation for survival, how is that individual affected by their injuries and deaths? Concurrently though, if ones immediate comrades bond to form a strong cohesive unit, where in their hierarchy of feelings do they place their spouses, children and other family?
Over and again, in interviews and in literature, the experience of war as related by those involved in its prosecution, is that they have never felt so alive in all their lives. While I’ve thankfully never had the experience of combat, as a human being I think I can understand what that emotion must be like. Most of us can in fact understand that. Think of the times in your life when you have been faced with danger and the heightened feelings that are associated with it as our body produces adrenalin and goes on the alert. Take those times, with for must of us have been relatively brief and imagine spending six month tours of duty, where these experiences are ongoing. What then does someone do when you juxtapose returning home to ones loved ones to that feeling of “aliveness”. My guess is that life must seem almost empty when returning to the safety of their “normal” lives. We humans, due to our self-awareness thrive on “purpose”. Since we are mortal and since we really don’t know if death is an ending or beginning, we all must find a purpose to our existence, or it becomes meaningless.
Our troops, usually at an age where they are just becoming adults, find that purpose in their military service. When sent to combat their purpose narrows into one of survival of themselves and their comrades. Many marry young and begin families, only to be separated for long periods from those families. In relationships, despite the cliché that “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, propinquity is really the glue that holds relationships together. Young children grow quickly and need the presence and constant bonding of parenthood. So too that bonding holds true for the parent. Extended absences loosen that bond. Returning home, as joyous as the initial feelings may be, can also be trying on those reuniting.
This though isn’t really about the specific why of this terribly alarming rate of suicide among our troops. Millions of words, thousands of studies have been completed and yet suicide is still a human behavior that both mystifies us and fills us with disquiet. What I can state definitively is the obvious. Suicide is the act of someone who has found that their life is no longer tolerable and feels that there is no chance of future improvement. There is no one size fits all solutions to why someone kills themselves, because the reasons are unique to the individual. When we talk of our troop’s participation in a never-ending war, in a foreign culture where we are rightly seen as invaders, isn’t the root cause of suicides rather obvious, even if each person’s act is unique to them.
If we were really serious about ending the alarming, increasing suicides among our troops, then perhaps we should end these purposeless wars, that have far outlasted any wars in this nation’s history, save for Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, where fifty thousand died and hundreds of thousands were injured both physically and psychologically, this nation learned the lesson of the destructiveness of a purposeless war of choice. The difference now is that our news media shared the horrors of Viet Nam with us. Now the deaths and the destruction are barely reported upon and no doubt the anonymity of their sacrifices also plays a role in the obvious despair that those led to suicide feel. This doesn’t even begin to take into account those who don’t choose that final option and yet whose lives have been broken by the devastation they’ve experienced.
While we may tepidly applaud the efforts of Defense Department to ameliorate this problem, the fact remains that the most obvious, yet unaired way to stop these suicides is to end the wars immediately and unequivocally. Yet obvious as this may be, we all know that the U.S. engagement in all parts of this world will not end soon under our current national predilection. With the buildup of the U.S. military under the necessity of World War II, those profiting from it and the military itself, found that America as the world military power kept them employed and wealthy. Having a paranoid, psychotic like Stalin, leading the Soviet Union provided an excellent excuse to engage in continuing to build American military strength and proclaiming a Cold War. The collapse of Chiang Kai Shek’s despotic rule of China, succeeded by Mao Tse Tsung’s communist regime, gave the appearance of an epic struggle between the “good” of Capitalism and the “bad” of Communism. To the mutual content of these opposing powers militarist leadership this “War” was fought on a global basis. As the beloved Dwight Eisenhower was retiring from the Presidency, this great former Five Star General was so bothered by the entrenchment of militarism in the U.S. that he cautioned its citizens to “beware of the Military-Industrial Complex”.
Ultimately, my point here is that the suicides of our troops is precisely related to the waging of endless wars, which have no real relationship to issues vital to our country. A person will, given the threat to their family and to their country, be willing to risk their very existence to stave it off. When that “threat” begins to assume a never-ending continuity and ones sacrifices are given lip service for those they purportedly are fighting for, can we doubt the onset of despair?
The ability to express ideas and come to conclusions regarding problems is limited by the language available. The power of our Military Industrial Complex to frame the foreign policy debate has lasted in this country for almost seventy years. With that power has come what I see to be their freedom from restraint by the three branches of our government. http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/#more-46802 It is therefore no surprise that talk as we may about the causes of and the dealing with, our troop’s tragic suicides, the obvious causation is overlooked. Stop the damn wars and bring our troop’s home. Use the positive skills taught them to help rebuild this countries economy and I believe they will flourish, rather than wither. This is easy for me to say, but the reality is that too many of our elite, whether corporations or military leaders, flourish under this mad system for them to relinquish it voluntarily. Until we as a people rise to impose our will upon those who have exploited our fears for their profit, I say please spare me your cant, or your sorrow for those driven to death by their despair in pursuit of your pointless wars, against chimerical foes, for the sole purpose of personal greed and status.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Karl Freidrich I misread your injtention in mentioning Clinton, sry.
He was high in the lottery and lucked out.
same old same old.
are shrinks still getting kick backs from big pharma? does the VA/gov respond with positive change when outted about deliberate or advantageous misdiagnosing? who is most/more incentivized to prescribe meds? Studies show talk therapy is the most effective….it’s not quick though…..
It puts a whole new spin on chemical weapons doesn’t it.
Know your enemy, know yourself…
Hey OS, we have a friend who, IMHO, is seriously personality disorderd, certainly narcissistic, and throw in an NOS just to be safe. Her doctors have apparently given her diagnosis that range from major depression to schizophrenic. And, of course, she loves to groove on how sick she is, and can she act out. Driven her architect hubby to drink, or maybe not, well somewhat, which makes a convenient scapegoat and they had both gone round in these circles for years.
While kicking this around with my wife, I explained that her doctors are giving these big diagnoses, in large part, because most insurance, certainly that I’m familiar with, will not pay much or at all for personality disorder diagnoses. I think it’s potential malpractice not to level with the lady about the nature off her condition. Even if it’s not the only condition — sure you’d get depressed too if your life got so out of control — but a very big factor.
LeeJ: Nowhere did I imply Clinton has anything do do with this and of course PTSD is the primary cause, after the senseless war itself.
Try reading what I actually said, which was that from 1975 until sometime in the 90’s during Clinton’s era, the figure of more Vietnam Vets dead by suicide than killed in the war transpired.
The only connection Clinton had to the Vietnam was was a deferment.
Made this comment earlier, but it got lost in the moderation box. Here we go again:
Lee, I have some first hand knowledge of this. Military doctors are under pressure to give discharges for “personality disorder” rather than PTSD. The latter makes the veteran eligible for service connected disability, and personality disorder does not. In these cases, it is not about caring for the vet, but about the Benjamins.
malisha, I am only a shrink in my own mind. lol. Just have spent a lot of time working with people that suffer from PTSD including myself…
I had a friend that was a little depressed . She went to the doc,and he put her on prozac and within days she had suicide attempt. Of course, she quit the prozac, and got okay. I am sure the military is not monitoring much for side affects. My brother in law was pretty high up in R&D at a major drug company, and he has never had a good thing to say about the SRRI’s. I respect his opinion but at the same time I know some people that say they help.
Karen Bice, Otteray Scribe, Mike Spindell, Swarthmore mom, LeejCaroll, frankly, Shano, etc., thank you, thank you.
I want to keep this up; I have nothing to say right now because the ideas are flying around in my head like a dust storm. I’m trying to catch some of the ideas and make them come into focus, can’t — Swarthmore Mom, I didn’t realize you were a shrink (my memory is rotten, sorry) — there is something trying to “broadcast” on my mental radio station right now (subvocalized monologue at WKP-QTA) — Mike Spindell, especially thank you for writing this.
There was a Craigs List ad a couple of years back. It said FREE, 4 pairs of shoes, right ones worn, left ones brand new; also free Saturday Night Special, used once. [Name omitted] won’t be needing them any more. Craigs List kept taking down the ad. I kept seeing it go back up, come back down. I started to try to correspond with the poster. He said his buddy had finally “gone” after his tour in Iraq, years back.
Just saw OS’s comment and want to again reinforce the notion of close attention to prescribing and monitoring which is likely not happening.
Also, as an retired therapist, I would be remiss not to reinforce the notion that the greatest efficacy of psychotropic meds is seen in conjunction with psychotherapy.
[typo in original comment: “crisis, or suicide . . “.
Bad PR, of course Panetta’s going to get all supportive for treatment, blah blah. But the fact is the military stretches it’s personnel, at least the lower ranks, and tries to minimize the acknowledged size and financial cost of the problem.
Also, along with what shano said, patch ’em up and send ’em back. Many of the drugs used to defer symptoms or put a band aid on crisis are being used off label, one would imagine since off label use is common in civilian medicine. And virtually all of the drugs require careful matching to the individual and careful titration (essentially dosing). Which all means close and continuous supervision which, we can bet, is less than adequate in terms of patient ratios and frequency of monitoring.
Not to mention the documented cases of induced suicidal ideation as a side effect of a number of meds likely being used. And of course the use of stimulants, again off label or a result of so-called paradoxical reaction, i.e., and anti-depressant which functionally causes stimulation, e.g., many of the said seretonin reuptake inhibitors, again per shano’s comment. Keeps those troops focused until another crisis, of suicide, becomes far more likely.
Extend the problem of course to ex-military and the under reporting and treating, as with PTSD.
I just wrote a response that got lost. Oh well, here’s the short version. My son just recently returned from Afghanistan. As far as I know he lost one buddy while there. Once he was in Afghanistan, all the doubts and questions about his military service came to the front. I was afraid that he would die over there and the next time I saw him would be in a box. The 1%, Democrat and Republic, send the sons and daughters of the 99% to fight their bloody, costly, indeterminate wars because they do not have the balls or the honor to send their own kids. And then they can’t fricking figure out why we have so many damn military suicides. It’s a case of “who’s on first”.
An addnote: Psychotropic medications alone are not all that effective. They work best when combined with psychotherapy. Often psychotropic medications help make psychotherapy more effective than just psychotherapy alone.
The VA and other mental health clinics need to make PTSD treatment available with a combination of medications and psychotherapy, as appropriate. Each case is different and trying to treat them all the same is a Procrustean Bed.
Oh how the wingnuts love to squawk “support the troops”. They are happy to send those troops off to kill and maim and extend the American empire. But when the broken damaged troops come home? Well then the are just leeches, takers like St. Ayn warned us about sapping the producers.
War is ugly and it does ugly things to those who do the actual fighting and nobody was willing to discuss this before we did this to our kids and they sure as hell want to pretend it hasn’t happened.
lee, Right…. PTSD left untreated gets worse over time.
shano, when you know what you are talking about, come back and comment. SSRI medications work for certain types of depression. No single medication or type of medication works for everyone.
Antidepressants may not be the best medication for PTSD, which is an anxiety spectrum disorder, not depression. However, it is common for there to be a depressive comorbidity with PTSD. About fifteen percent of depressed patients do not respond to any antidepressant. PTSD is amazingly resistant to a cure, but with psychotherapy (and medication if indicated) it can be controlled. PTSD is like the guest who came to dinner and would not leave. If the PTSD is causing depression, then of course antidepressants may be indicated. There are a lot more types of antidepressants than SSRIs.
This is not about the “feeling alive” rush one gets when being shot at. It is the horrid aftermath of seeing a friend blown in half, with some of his intestines hanging over a tree limb–or worse. Triggers are everywhere, especially smells. Get a whiff of meat burning or decaying flesh and it is all happening again.
Suicidal ideation is not to be taken lightly. Wrong judgement on the part of a caregiver, doctor or friend can result in death. If somebody blows off a comment such as, “I’d be better off dead,” as ‘attention seeking,’ they may end up cleaning up a mess later when the victim takes his or her own life.
Karl, has nothing to do with Clinton but PTSD.
It is my understanding that the military has discharged numbers of enlisted with this and other psych dx saying they entered with personality disorder or other psych issues so they do not pay for thier medical/psych care. (Of course if that case why were they able to enlist? (When I was in my early 20’s I tried to get into air force. My doctor refused to give permission because of a history of blood clot. Sergeant Sanders, still remember his name, said “I will find you a doctor who will say you are okay”. I assume that is how it still works today. They have to fill their enlistment quotas .
I have been saying for a while that if we had the draft everyone in one way or another, because all sons daughters, nephews, nieces, friends would be at risk and the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, etc would be up in arms over it and the congreww would be forced to listen, as they ultimately did with Vietnam.
I am afraid we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what these 2 wars will bring in terms of suicide, homicide, drug abuse, etc..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/military-suicide_b_1602927.html This shrink agrees with you,shano, but actually goes further and thinks the drugs are actually a cause…..Of course, they use them because they are cheaper than talk therapy.
Few realize that at some point in the 90’s under Clinton more Vietnam Vets had committed suicide from ’75 to then than were killed in the entire War.
Mike Spindell, Thank You
One point I think should be addressed is the use of prescription anti-depressants. The so called seratonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac.
This class of drugs does not work better than placebos. They all have horrific side effects, including suicide ideation, anhedonia, lack of interest in sex, etc.
The medical field has been using these drugs as a substitute for talk therapy. When goods nutrition and exercise and some super nutrition dosing of supplements beats ALL these anti depressants, why are they being over used by the military?
Yes, you want to help people suffering, but to prescribe a class of drug that has never been proven to beat a sugar pill, a drug that has a fluoride base with all sorts of terrible side effects, maybe our ‘cure’ is worse than the disease.