A Mounting Suicide Rate Prompts an Army Response

A Mounting Suicide Rate Prompts an Army Response
Click on this title to go to the Time magazine article.

This will be a tough problem to treat. Men don't want to reveal their mental problems, for reasons Leif wrote about and I've posted here. They often confide, if they do at all, only in their wives, girlfriends or their best friends, to a lesser extent. They don't want to be seen as weak or "broken." Asking for help is anathema to many.

A contributing factor to some of these suicides, not mentioned in this article, is the breakup of relationships, the end of marriages, or the inability to relate to their wives as they did before. Both husbands and wives are changed by deployment, separation and war. Leif came home from service in Bosnia to find that his marriage was over. He nearly committed suicide then but somehow pulled himself together. He didn't tell us about his planned suicide until years later, although we could tell he was severely depressed, and when he did talk about it, he blamed it on the army, not on his marriage breakup. He never asked for help. He also drank too much after his marriage ended, and I will always believe that had he not been drinking heavily the night he died, he might still be here. Guns, alcohol and depression are a bad combination.

This is sad, tragic way to end service to one's country, a service these soldiers embarked upon with hope and a desire to serve, not realizing or believing what it could do to them.

Please, if you are suffering from PTSD, depression from a failed relationship, or substance abuse, get help, and don't minimize or pass off your depression or symptoms. You life is worth fighting for, even if you don't feel like it right now.

The Ingredients of Happiness

Some time ago I picked up an old copy of Time magazine, from January 17, 2005, that focused on what researchers were learning about happiness. I had it lying around the house and read a bit here and there, but I hadn't finished it before Leif died.

The articles were interesting, about psychologists who thought that studying depression didn't tell us much about happiness, only about depression, and they aren't just opposites. And that many of the "things" people think may make them happy, don't.

I remember having a long phone conversation with my brother about a month after Leif died, and telling him that I felt that in order to be happy and feel worthwhile, a man needed three things; someone to love, meaningful work, and a sense of purpose, and that Leif lacked all those things. He was lonely, found his job unsatisfying, and although there were times he felt a sense of purpose, it became destroyed.

Several weeks after he died, I read the rest of the Time issue, and the end of the article concerning happiness and money ("The Real Truth About Money" by Gregg Easterbrook) contained a sentence that capsulized exactly what I was trying to say. From page A34, "Love, friendship, family, respect, a place in the community, the belief that your life has purpose - those are the essentials of human fulfillment, and they cannot be purchased with cash."

How true that is.

Leif identified himself as an existentialist, and that fit him in the bleakest sense. I used to tell him that it is up to us to find or make our purpose in life . . . but that is not a simple thing, and is all the harder when one is depressed and lonely. Then, the very things that will help are the hardest to do.

I miss him. I cry for him every day. Sometimes many times a day.

Do I have the essentials for happiness? I did. And yes, I still do, though one of the pillars of my family, one of the pillars of that happiness, is gone.