September is Suicide Prevention Month
To a person going through a tough time, one humble action has the power to make a transformation. Bring positive influence Veterans and Service members in your life today – let them know they’re not alone.
The American Dream U team tirelessly works to ease the pressures our military communities face. However there is so much more that can be done if we continue to work together as a community to promote suicide prevention.
ADU has many members of the team dedicated to suicide prevention such as Andrew O’Brien.
“I am amazed with what American Dream U is doing for these troops. Being an OIF Veteran myself, a program like this could’ve have saved my life. I am a suicide survivor. I tried to take my own life after Iraq, and a big factor in the reason was because I didn’t know what was next for me. Getting out is a very intimidating process. People say we can handle anything if we made it through war… Reality is in war you just have to stay alive every day. In the civilian life it’s not about just staying alive; it’s about feeding your family, paying the bills and finding a career that you fit in with that will pay you a decent amount of money to live. This organization gives us hope by hearing from very successful entrepreneurs who have made a name from themselves.”
Andrew O’Brien
Living Resilient
World-Renowned Public Speaker/Author/Success Coach
Suicide prevention has proved to be a difficult task for Pentagon health officials.
“Soldiers don’t like the current treatment model, with separate mental health service sites, where their presence reveals the category of their diagnosis,” said retired Army psychiatrist Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer of the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health, in an interview. “People are more likely to prefer primary care.”
The Data
From 2006 to 2012, the increase was largely attributable to increases in hospitalizations for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (192 percent), depression (66 percent), alcohol abuse and dependence (110 percent), and adjustment disorder (52 percent). The deployment history of those hospitalized varied by diagnosis. About 80 percent of those with adjustment disorder had never deployed, compared with 22 percent of those with PTSD.
We Must Continue to Work Together!
The military culture stresses the importance of maintaining the group’s integrity, identity, and security. The high cohesion characteristic of the military culture can thus buffer against stress both in combat and noncombat settings (Grojean & Thomas, 2006; Mareth & Brooker, 1985), potentially imparting a “built-in” suicide prevention effect.
