Suicide has become personal to my family. It has touched us personally. Two family members took their own lives in 2013 leaving behind shattered lives and heaps of sorrow. They are at peace now, but their peace came at a terrible price for everyone else.
Our society is currently enduring an epidemic of suicide, with more than 22 veterans a day taking their own life, combined with people from other walks of life, the exact figure unknown. Each one of those deaths represents far more than just the loss of that one life. Now the loss of that one life is terrible, it is unacceptable, it is heartbreaking, but add to it all the sorrow that it leaves in its wake, and the domino effect that it creates and it is simply incomprehensible.
I have contemplated suicide. I am now 53 years of age, but once, long ago, when I was about 17, I could see no good reason for my continued existence. I felt lost and alone. All that I had attempted in my life, to be accepted, to find love, to have hope, had turned to dust. I wanted to die. And yet today I look back on that time and it is as if it were someone else. I have experienced so much, seen so much, been blessed with so much over the years, and none of it would have been had I taken my life. There were a lot of hard times between then and now, but looking back, they were more than worth it. Life is worth it, if not today, then hold on for tomorrow, hold on for next week, hold on for next year. In the end it will be worth it.
Let's consider the debris left in the wake of your suicide. Someone will find you, once you have completed your task. It might be your mom, your dad, a sister or a brother, perhaps your wife, God forbid it be one of your children, but whomever, it will be a living breathing soul who comes across your body. They will take that memory to their grave. Perhaps you will be one of those who makes a point to do it somewhere so that a stranger finds you. Even that stranger is a living breathing soul, they too will suffer from the experience.
Then comes the time when the family must inform everyone. Consider your mother, she will drop to her knees as if someone slugged her right in the gut. Your dad will try to be strong for everyone else, he wishes with all his heart that he could drop to his knees and scream at the heavens....but he must be strong for the others. Consider your siblings, life is already tough for them, but now they will carry your death with them. Consider your spouse? Did they do enough? Did you know how much they loved you? Did they do something wrong, say something wrong? Why? Why? Why? Everyone will ask themselves this question over and over and over again.....to their very graves.
Each conversation had with you will be replayed, over and over, by everyone who loved you. It is a broken record that we cannot turn off. Some will deal with it better than others, but it plays for them all. Those left behind will always ask why? Why did you do this? Why did you choose this path? The pain is gut wrenching, and for the survivors of suicide, those left behind after you have gone, there really are no good answers. You just try and live with the pain, you just try to silence the questions.
Consider your children. I wonder if you have ever heard the screams of a little boy when he is told that his father is gone? Ever watched his face as he attempts to make some sense of the thing that makes no sense at all? It is not a pretty sight, and that scene too will live in the minds of everyone until their grave.
Think of all the family gatherings and memorial times, from this very moment until the very last one of your surviving family and friends have passed on. Not one will ever be the same. You will not be there, and everyone will feel that, each time they gather.
Your death also can cause a domino effect. Especially if you are a veteran and suffer from PTSD. When you go down it will hit your fellow warfighters hard.....real hard, especially if they actually served with you, but even those who never met you, but served themselves will feel the pain of your passing. It will drive home their own struggles, it will knock them off whatever rung of the ladder they have managed to climb to, and it will set them back. For some, it will enable them to pick up the gun, pick up the bottle and follow you into the night.
Warfighter suicides also hit the families of those who have a loved one battling PTSD or TBI. What those families need most is HOPE! Hope that this demon can be defeated, that life can return to some semblance of normal, and your death sends the opposite message. Each one will cry for you, even the strangers. They will wonder in their hearts......how long do we have, when will this happen to us? What can we do? It strikes fear into their hearts.
I have seen with my own eyes, the terrible pain that suicide leaves behind. I have felt it. My own heart has been ripped from my chest and stomped into the ground by it. I have sat with the mother whose child chose to leave. Seen the pain on the faces of the family, sat with the wife whose husband is gone, sat with the husband whose wife has gone, seen the faces of the little boys, and seen my own face in the mirror. I have questioned myself, and continue to do so to this day. I play out the "I should have said", "I should have done", and the "Oh God why" over and over again.
Perhaps you are one of those who will take great care in writing out a letter to them, where you will tell them how much you loved them, how none of this is their fault, how it was all you........it does not help. Sure, receiving a letter instead of not receiving one is better, at least they have something to help them process the wrongness of all this, but it will not give them peace, it will not remove their pain, it will not stop the endless questioning.......nothing can remove that pain, the only thing that can make it stop is death...more death. Perhaps your loved ones will seek assistance to quiet their pain, some with prescribed pills, others with self medication. Pain heaped upon pain.
For all the warfighters that are contemplating suicide. Please stop and think about your brothers and sisters. PTSD and TBI are terrible things, but they are to be fought against, not succumbed to. People are banding together, warfighters are banding together, holding each other up, struggling through the darkness together, AND IT IS WORKING! But every loss wipes out ten success stories. Every loss screams to the wounded, it's not working, its not worth it, just give up. That is the message your death sends to struggling fellow warfighters.
My words might seem harsh, they are not intended to be. I have a great love for our warfighter community. I have met so many of you, one of you is my own dear son. I have never met a stronger bunch, you are some of the most tenacious, gutsy people I have ever had the honor of knowing. I love you all. These words are not meant to be harsh.
This morning I sat in my bed, coffee in hand, dog at my side, giving thanks that it is Friday and I was browsing my Facebook news feed. I came across a song posted, and I clicked on the link and listened to a sad haunting melody. I then began to browse the comments and saw a post from a warfighter, asking for an ear. He said he could not go on anymore, that he was thinking always of suicide and of ending his pain. I do not know this man, but in an instant the tears were falling down my cheeks, and my heart was filled with love for him. My prayers began to raise to the heavens for this man, somewhere in America, sitting at his computer last night at around 10pm, telling the world that he was done, he was finished, he could not go on anymore.
But something else happened within that post, in seconds other warfighters were posting, sending him messages, sending him their phone numbers, begging him to reach out. I do not know the results of those attempts, but I do know that contact was made, and hopefully today that man has been strengthened enough to continue the fight.
I know its not easy. I have seen firsthand the terrible struggle of PTSD and TBI, I have felt the darkness, I battle the darkness for someone I love right now. I have also seen firsthand the struggles of mental illness, of Bipolar and schizophrenia and depression. I hate these dark things, and I will fight them until the end of my days. They steal life, they steal hope, they steal beauty from this world. But it does not have to be so. We can all band together, fight together, lift up those who have fallen, hold them up until their strength returns to get back into the fight. Push back the darkness, fight it with everything you have in you, and reach out when you cannot fight anymore. There are more people than you know who are standing with you, praying for you...please keep fighting!
Let us help you, please let us help you, let us all fight together, for a better tomorrow, for renewed hope, for life! Please I beg you, please reconsider. If you are thinking of suicide, if the thought even crosses your mind, please reach out. It is not the answer. It is so terribly painful for so many people, many of them people you may never know. We need your strength, we need your courage, we need you in this fight! So I am asking you, endure the pain, please, endure it in the hopes that it will ease over time, that we will together find ways to control it, ways to push down the darkness. Others have done so, they have come through the long dark valley. Please stay with us, put out your hand and take the hand of another brother or sister and lets walk through this together.
Written from my heart, and with all my love, to all the Warfighters, to their families, and to those who battle mental illness and their families. Standing with you today, and ever day, until the end of my days.