The only suicide awareness events that should matter

Veterans commit suicide in public for reasons we cannot ignore

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 2, 2019

Meghan Mobbs wrote on Psychology Today "Why We Must Be Careful in How We Talk About Veteran Suicide Talking carelessly about death by suicide can make the problem worse."

This got my blood pressure up.

"We can be sensitive to the loss, venerate their service, and honor their lives without conflating their actions with martyrdom. Spreading the notion that death by suicide is an effective way to deal with our problems or a laudable form of protest may place people at greater risk for suicide."

Does it matter where they do it or does it matter more they are brought to that time in their lives when they think that is the only power they have left?

I had to reply.

Posted May 02, 2019

Public suicides
Submitted by Kathie Costos on May 2, 2019
Normally I agree with you. This time I see this a different way. We accept far too much and expect far too little.

It is acceptable for groups to run around the country pulling stunts, and having fun while raising awareness that veterans are killing themselves.

It is acceptable for members of Congress and the DOD to get away with just saying they will do something, when all they do is repeat what did not work before.

It is acceptable to write checks, send out thoughts and prayers, while we count the dead who did not need to leave.

When I got into all of this over 3 decades ago, I expected that all we had to do was break the silence and show the way other veterans and families like mine could live better lives. Now we're fighting against everyone accepting "what is" instead of paying attention to the veterans who are actually suffering.

According to the VA, we actually had better results back in 1999. Their report had the number of suicides at 20 a day and there were over 5 million more veterans living in the country at the time. The "known" number is the same but that is after over a decade of "awareness" that it was happening all along.

They need hope tomorrow can be better and information on how they can make that happen. Families need to know that they are not alone. Friends need to know what to do. All they get are slogans and stunts with no one thinking it puts the focus on suicide and not healing.

Too many people out there who know how to help, but veterans cannot find us because it is easier to share pictures of Marines running around in their underwear, push-ups and folks getting a tattoo with 22.

So, yes, they end up committing suicide because of the lack of hope that people will demand change after that "one too many" died and they hope they will be the last to go.

The question is, when exactly do we find it unacceptable they had to resort to this end, and actually do something about it?

This part also jumped out at me.

"As unpalatable as it is to admit, the war to better understand and decrease veteran suicide is just beginning."

Just beginning? Seriously? Then who the hell was I learning from at the library in 1982? Who was writing about veterans committing suicide throughout the 80's and 90's and well into the previous decade? Is that supposed to be some sort of excuse?

What about all the money that went into "awareness" and "prevention" as the numbers went up all this time? 

I wrote about them in 2007 when researching this video and found over 400 of their stories.

I also tracked countless news reports for The Warrior SAW, Suicides After War and managed to make myself so sick to my stomach, I wanted to just delete the file instead of publishing it. 

To see the numbers, read their stories and then be reminded of how many years of this being and OK result from a billion dollar a year industry, is too pathetic to tolerate.


Veterans should never have to think about killing themselves, and even less about where to do it. If we were still putting them first, they'd know we had their backs. When we find it acceptable to settle for the BS coming out of Washington, it only reinforces the fact we will settle for them suffering.

Why are reporters still sucking the life out of suicide prevention? Can anyone explain the total disregard they have for facts when they report on "suicide awareness" stunts instead of the truth?

The truth is, the "22" a day has never been true. Just read the report yourself and see what the VA said about their own report.

The truth is, even the VA does not know how many because of how many veterans were left out of the data.

Here is yet one more truth about veterans committing suicide. They already know how to die...but no one is making them aware of how to heal!

When you hear "suicide awareness event" you may think about stuff like this.

Throughout the day, theVeteran Suicide Awareness March will be going on as well. People are marching 22 miles from Richmond to Winchester with a 22 pound ruck sack. They’re on a mission to bring awareness to the issue of veteran suicide. The walk started at 6 a.m. White Hall Park and will end at VFW Post 2728 in Winchester.

Sgt Strother Memorial Ruck March and Memorial Ride This is a 22 Mile Ruck March to raise awareness for the 22 a day that we lose to veteran suicide. We have also added a motorcycle ride to the event at the request of those who can not ruck but still want to show their support and raise awareness with us.

But because those stunts have failed, veterans decided that they would do their own awareness events by committing suicide in public. 

Next time you hear about a fundraiser in your area, remember these events where the veteran gave the last thing he could...his life to try to help others like him before it was too late for them too!


Here are just some of the veterans we are supposed to just forget about?

March
⇒St. Louis VA waiting room


June Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Fort Knox soldier committed suicide at Clarksville High School
⇒Kansas VA emergency room parking lot
⇒Colorado Springs veteran with cellphone for suicide "note"
⇒Georgia veteran set himself on fire at the State Capital
⇒Virginia Norfolk Navy Yard sailor walked into helicopter blade

July Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Chicago police officer and veteran in station parking lot
⇒Florida Lecanto Community Out Patient
⇒Arizona VA hospital chapel

August Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Kansas VA employee 
⇒Indiana VA parking lot

September Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Minneapolis VA Hospital parking lot

October Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Greenville veteran recorded video that was over 4 hours long for his family.

November Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Nashville VA

December Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Florida Bay Pines
⇒US Navy Commander Vice Adm. Scott Stearney

February Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Columbus Community Hospital
⇒Ohio veteran murder-suicide live on Facebook

March Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Florida VA Riviera Beach

April Suicide Awareness Events

⇒Georgia VA 2 suicides
⇒Texas VA, 
⇒Cleveland VA 

May Suicide Awareness Events
⇒Michigan veteran committed suicide during standoff with police...

Suicide Awareness spreading defeat too many lives at a time

We were prepared to win battle to save lives

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 27, 2019

“Support for Suicide Prevention Coordinators Act” filed April 18, which is intended to ensure that those VA staff members “have the tools and resources they need to provide veterans with critical mental health resources.” Anthony Brindisi

That was on Connecting Vets Radio  the other day. Why is it that after over 40 years of talking about preventing suicides and healing veterans, it is worse than ever?

They went into battle without the proper weapons!

When you have enemy surrounding you, you need to hit them from all directions with everything you have. If you do not have enough, you get more!

I wrote PTSD Claims More Lives. Why? on my old site and there was a reply from a Mom who lost her son...Joshua Omvig. It is his loss that caused members of Congress to pass a bill in his name to prevent suicides. It was signed by President Bush...in 2007.

Also in 2007, older veterans were doing what they could to #BreakTheSilence and help others heal. One of them described it as "pulling a raw scab off my heart."

But of all the news from back then, this was from my heart because of service members like Joshua Omvig and all the others I was posting about...and still am.

TO LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR THE SAKE OF  HIS FRIENDS

Do you think God abandoned you still? Come on and admit that while you were in the center of the trauma, you either felt the hand of God on your shoulder, or more often, never felt further from Him. In natural disasters, we pray to God to protect us. Yet when it's over we wonder why He didn't make the hurricane hit someplace else or why the tornadoes came and destroyed what we had while leaving the neighbors house untouched. We wonder why He heals some people while the people we love suffer. It is human nature to wonder, search for answers and try to understand.

In times of combat, it is very hard to feel anything Godly. Humans are trying to kill other humans and the horrors of wars become an evil act. The absence of God becomes overwhelming. We wonder how a loving God who blessed us with Jesus, would allow the carnage of war. We wonder how He could possibly forgive us for being a part of it. For soldiers, this is often the hardest personal crisis they face.
They are raised to love God and to be told how much God loves them.

For Christians, they are reminded of the gift of Jesus, yet in moments of crisis they forget most of what Jesus went through.
Here are a few lessons and you don't even have to go to church to hear them.


( Matthew 8:5-13)As he entered Caper'na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered him, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; be it done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

This sounds like a great act Jesus did. You think about the Roman Centurion, powerful, commanding, able to lead men into combat, perhaps Jesus even knew of the other men this Centurion has killed. Yet this same man, capable of killing, was also capable of great compassion for what some regarded as a piece of property, his slave. He showed he didn't trust the pagan gods the Romans prayed to but was willing to trust Jesus. 

Yet when you look deeper into this act, it proves that Jesus has compassion for the warriors. The life and death of Jesus were not surprises to Him. He knew from the very beginning how it would end. This is apparent throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. He knew He would be betrayed, beaten, mocked, humiliated and nailed to the cross by the hands of Romans. Yet even knowing this would come, He had compassion for this Roman soldier.  

The Romans had tortured and killed the Jews since the beginning of their empire as well as other conquered people. The Roman soldiers believed in what they were doing, yet even with that, there was still documentation of them suffering for what they did.
Ancient historians documented the illness striking the Greeks, which is what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is evidence this illness hit every generation of warriors. Jesus would be aware that saving the Centurion's slave, because of the faith and trust He placed in Jesus, would be reported from soldier to soldier. Jesus showed compassion even to the Romans. 

How can we think that He would not show compassion to today's soldiers? How can we think that He would look any differently on them than He did toward the soldiers who would nail Him to the Cross?
God didn't send you into combat. Another human did. God however created who you are inside. The ability to be willing to lay down your life for the sake of others was in you the day you were born.

While God allows freewill, for good and for evil, He also has a place in His heart for all of His children. We humans however let go of His hand at the time we need to hold onto it the most. 

When tragedy and trauma strike, we wonder where God was that He allowed it to happen. Then we blame ourselves. We do the "if" and " but" over and over again in our own minds thinking it was our fault and the trauma was a judgment from God. Yet we do not consider that God could very well be the reason we survived it all.
PTSD is a double edge cut to the person. The trauma strikes the emotions and the sense that God has abandoned us strikes at the soul. There is no greater sense of loss than to feel as if God has left you alone especially after surviving trauma and war. If you read the passage of Jesus and the Roman, you know that this would be impossible for God to do to you. Search your soul and you will find Him still there. 

For the last story on this we have none other than the Arch Angel Michael. The warrior angel. If God did not value the warrior for the sake of good, then why would He create a warrior angel and make him as mighty as he was?Michael has a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. God places things in balance for the warriors. 

And in John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

When it comes to waging war, issuing orders, God will judge the hearts and minds of those who sent you and He will also know your's. If you feel you need to be forgiven, then ask for it and you will be forgiven. Yet if you know in your heart the basis of your service was that of the willingness to lay down your life for your friends, then ask to be healed. Know this. That if Jesus had the compassion for a Roman how could He have any less compassion for you? 

Because the military is in enough trouble already trying to evangelize soldiers for a certain branch of Christianity, understand this is not part of that. It's one of the benefits of having I don't care what faith you have or which place of worship you attended. If you were a religious person at any level before combat, your soul is in need of healing as well. There is a tremendous gift when the psychological healing is combined with the spiritual healing. If you have a religious leader you can talk to, please seek them out.

Kathie Costos

We were not just prepared to wage war against the demon known as PTSD, we were prepared to kick the crap out of it!

Imagine what it is like to read the news reports, day in and day out, with too many easy assumptions and too few solutions.

While the number of "22" is not even close to reality, reporters still use it, assuming the VA has no reason to lie or manipulate data. Actually, they did not even try. It is just because reporters failed to read the data to discover how many were missing.

While the DOD and the VA heads keep saying suicide is a "top priority" to them, they never seem to be able to explain how, according to the VA, the number was 20 a day when there were over 5 million more veterans living at the time and no one out there pulling stunts...having fun while "raising awareness" it was happening.

Ya, that really made sense to millions of people writing checks and clicking the donate button. 

I feel even worse knowing that what the veterans need is simple and basic but the balderdash is brandished as if it was loaded like an Ontos with marshmallows instead of something that would actually work!

Right now I feel like Yoshio Yamakawa and Tsuzuki Nakauchi who did not know WWII ended and they lost.

We were prepared to win the battles for veterans when they came home, but everyone else was AWOL (Acting With Out Learning) what would actually save the lives on the line.

Are you a messenger of misery...or healer of hearts?

"As if mere life were worth their living for"

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
March 16, 2019

We are bombarded with the exasperating messages of "suicide awareness" on a daily basis while the messengers of misery are content to be paid for sharing what is failing everyone else.

If you want to know how many have been robbed of the message they needed to hear, like #TakeBackYouLife all you have to do is read this site on any given day and see reports of the lives gone to suicide. The thing you do not see, is how far those chosen deaths reached. Family, friends, peers and others seeking some resolution to their own pain, received the message, loud and clear, when they needed to know how to heal the broken hearts before it became too late to avoid regrets.

There was a time when people like me needed to raise awareness of what was going on out of desperation. Believing that someone with the power to change the outcome would do so once they became aware of it, I took on the heartbreaking task of doing that back in 2007. I put together a massive report wondering "Why isn't the press on suicide watch?" because I while putting together the video report, even I was shocked by what I discovered. 

Now it has become raising awareness that those groups are increasing the need to for this country to regain their senses and do the work require to achieve a much different outcome. That work needs to be done by their families!

There was a time when we were allowed to be ignorantly embracing fairy tales and escaping into moments of fantasy...before we grew up!

While we allow ourselves moments now, we are thoughtful enough to acknowledge we live in the harsh real world, and we stop dreaming of a perfect relationship. Our knight's armor is no longer shinny...it is rusty. His/her horse has a bent back and we no longer climb the stairs to the top of the tower...we look for the elevator.

There is a battle being fought on the Home Front that we are losing. 

We read about it all the time but few are investing the time to defeat the enemy claiming more lives after combat, that we lost during all of them. Their jobs caused PTSD. Until we battle the thing that is causing all our misery...it will win. Once we arm ourselves with knowledge, it stops defeating them!

They survived combat, but could not find the support or weapons to fight this battle for their own lives. Pretty disgraceful when you think of it that way.

Families have the tendency to assume they can stop worrying once their veteran returns home, when that is the time to do a hell of a lot more than worry about them. It is time to begin your own battle.

A woman I have known for years, finally approached me about a year ago. She had been receiving the messages of misery for over 30 years and reached the point where she knew there was a much better way of living. She found it and is living a more hopeful life with her veteran husband.

The hope of healing their hearts was delivered free of charge. How do you do a GoFundMe for something you do for the reasons for free? That is something no advertising or marketing company is willing to support. I know, because I have talked to several of them. They listen politely and then say "Let me talk to my team and I'll get back to you"...but they never do.

"Festus—I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for...

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best..." From ‘Festus’
By Philip James Bailey (1816–1902)

 Just loving them is not enough. Wanting a better life with them, does not make it better. Blaming them for what is happening to your family will not make any of you live a happier life together.

Stop sharing the messages of misery and start being the healer of their hearts! It requires a lot of work, time and patience but you can do it! If I could begin this work at the age of 23...learn from reading clinical books in the library with a dictionary, you can do it with the internet and instant access to the world from the cellphone in your hand!

Do you want them to blame you for not helping them when they needed you the most or believe you are the best thing that ever happened to them?

Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
Gladys Knight
I've had my share of life's ups and downs
But fate's been kind, the downs have been few
I guess you could say that I've been lucky
Well, I guess you could say that it's all because of you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Oh, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it, I made it through
Cause for every moment that I've spent hurting
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me
I know, you're the best thing, oh, that ever happened to me
Songwriters: James D. Weatherly
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

BS of 22 a day needs to stop so they can live!

When they cannot even get the number right...how much do they really care?

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 10, 2019

22 is a bogus number taken from the first suicide report from the VA, which was based on limited data from just 21 states!

How many times does it have to be proven that "suicide awareness" does only one thing. It lets veterans know that others have given up, along with showing how little the raisers actually care. Yes! If they cared enough they WOULD HAVE READ THE DAMN REPORT IN THE FIRST PLACE!

If they really cared, then they would be supporting established efforts that have actually been proven to not just prevent suicides but replenish hope!

What set me off tonight? Simple. 

Walk for Hope aims to prevent suicide That just came out about an event yesterday! It seemed like a good idea in the beginning of the article but then I read this.

"And while the college student statistic can seem high, military veterans commit suicide at a higher rate. Every day 22 veterans take their lives. In a year that totals out to be 8,030 military lives lost to suicide."

First is we know the military suicides just reached a ten year high, so no, "awareness" did not even help them. The other factor is that while the VA reports on veteran suicides, we know how many are not counted, but they do not. They do not even seem to know that there are two sets of numbers and current military reports are 90 days old while the VA reports are two years old. This is why we know awareness does not work to convince them to stay alive.

Watch the video I put together a while back and then maybe you'll understand why this kind of stuff makes me sick to my stomach!

Spam alert: #SuicideAwareness

Suicide Awareness Dead End

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 6, 2019

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future. John F. Kennedy

According to Wikipedia, this is what suicide awareness is supposed to be.

Suicide awareness is a proactive effort to raise awareness around suicidal behaviors. It is focused on reducing social stigmas and ambiguity, by bringing attention to suicide statistically and sociologically, and encouraging positive dialogue and engagement as a means to prevent suicide. Suicide awareness is linked to suicide prevention as both address suicide education and the dissemination of information to ultimately decrease the rate of suicide. Awareness is a critical first stage that ultimately can ease the need for prevention. Awareness signifies a fundamental consciousness of the threat, while prevention focuses on stopping the act.^[1][2] Suicide awareness is not a medical engagement, but a combination of medical, social, emotional and even financial counseling. Suicide awareness in adolescents focuses on the age group between 10–24 years, beginning with the onset of puberty, according to combined definitions and theories found in developmental psychology.^[3][4]

Yet we know it does not work and far too many saw it as a way to get fame...and a lot of money. They CDC has shown that suicides have increased in the years after the "awareness" raisers jumped all over social media.

Suicide rates have been rising in nearly every state, according to the latest Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2016, nearly 45,000 Americans age 10 or older died by suicide. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death and is one of just three leading causes that are on the rise.

The original idea behind suicide awareness, at least my goal, was to force action on the prevention side of it. I figured that if more families were aware it was not just happening to their family, they would join forces and get the government to do something to prevent more families from suffering the same pain.

It was happening in the civilian community, but it was more unacceptable for it to be happening in increasing numbers among those who serve the civilians.

I was looking at the reports from current military members and wrote a report putting the numbers together. Since too many people do not want to read anymore, I put it into a video back in 2007.

Back then, it was needed but now it has become all about pushing service members and veterans to making the same conclusion their lives should end the same way.

It robbed them of hope they were desperately seeking. It became a numbers game of taking a headline and racking in as much money as possible. The public was unaware of the facts within the reports being quoted and not paying enough attention to notice that suicide awareness was a massive scam. 

It was driven by social media when the repulsive events began to be about having fun because veterans were committing suicide. It trivialized the pain families like mine were dealing with. What made it worse for me was the fact that after over 3 decades, too many people I know were doing the work to change the outcome.

We were offering the hope they needed to heal. We had the knowledge they needed to know because we invested years of researching PTSD to find the best ways to inspire them to seek help and then guide them to it.

Everything being pushed on the awareness side of this darkness has prevented them from seeking a better, happier life, because all they were shown was more suffering in the dark. 

Suicides increased in the Veterans' Community, in the military, in law enforcement, firefighters and other emergency responders, just as it has in the civilian community. Want to change the outcome? then help them want to live instead of sharing how many you think gave up.

#TakeBackYourLife and live!

Suicide rate up 33% in less than 20 years, yet funding lags behind other top killers

USA Today
Anne Godlasky and Alia E. Dastagir
Dec. 2, 2018

More than 47,000 Americans killed themselves in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, contributing to an overall decline in U.S. life expectancy. Since 1999, the suicide rate has climbed 33 percent.

Americans are more than twice as likely to die by their own hands, of their own will, than by someone else's. But while homicides spark vigils and protests, entering into headlines, presidential speeches and police budgets, suicides don't. Still shrouded in stigma, many suicides go unacknowledged save for the celebrities – Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain – punctuating the unrelenting rise in suicide deaths with a brief public outcry.

And research suggests our ways of living may be partly to blame, in ways that don't bode well for the future read more here

*******

When I wanted to die, there was nothing anyone could say or do to change my mind. Our daughter was only 8 months old. The infection I had after giving birth was killing my body. PTSD was killing everything else. 

I knew what PTSD was and what it was doing to my husband, just as much as I knew what it was all doing to me. Hope evaporated. That is why I can assure you, dear reader, that is the only reason people commit suicide. Hope is destroyed.

I remember the nurse saying that I was fighting for my life, but the truth is, I was praying to die. It was not until I came out of the fever long enough to open my eyes, saw my husband holding our baby daughter, and I knew I did not want to leave her.

I was the only one with the power to find hope again. I thought about everything I had been through, all the times I faced death and all the other times when I thought tomorrow wouldn't be any better. And then, then I knew, that after all I had been through, there was no way I was going to be defeated.

We have become a society where "normal" is what we see on TV. Happiness is great pictures on Facebook with people we know surrounded by other people having fun. Only good news is shared as if no one wants anyone to know what is really "normal" for their own lives. We communicate with text messages instead of talking. 

We do not speak out of fear that someone will jump down our throats and "put us in our place" when we are the only ones who surrender power for them to do that to us.

OK, so, here is the best advice I can give. Be YOU! Be true to who you are inside, to your own thoughts and beliefs. Then be free to take control over your own life. Do not give power of your life to anyone else, especially to people you do not really know.

I do not care what other people think of me, or even if they think of me at all. It is my life and I am the only one with the power to enjoy it! I am old now but there was a time when I was much, much younger, foolish enough to think that my happiness was dependent upon other people. Then maturity came and I knew what I would get out of life depended on what I was willing to give it.

So, if you find that someone is not listening to  you, find someone who will. If you find that you are lonely, find other lonely people. If you think you are not important, become important to yourself.

Be true to who you are and how you are will change, instead of the other way around. Most people get bullied at one time or another, but power comes from knowing they really have no power over you. If they do not care about you, then why the hell should anything they think matter to you? They do not belong in your life, so why put them in a position where they can change your life?

When you hear someone say they are raising awareness about suicides, remember, that only helps them. It does not help those fighting to find hope. Be the hope they need to stay here by letting them know you were hurting too, but kicked the crap out of what did not belong in your life so you could #TakeBackYourLife and live! 

This is also how you communicate

How's your mental health? Ending the suicide epidemic begins by caring for ourselves.

USA Today
Barbara Van Dahlen and Talinda Bennington, Opinion contributors
Dec. 1, 2018

My husband died by suicide, having lost sight of the love available to him. But his death won't be in vain if it changes our culture of mental health.

The number of lives lost to suicide is shocking and the impact on survivors is devastating. Indeed, friends and family of those who take their lives often struggle for years trying to make sense of the loss — sometimes blaming themselves for not saving their loved one.

And the children of those who die by suicide are at increased risk for mental health challenges themselves, given the trauma and confusion they experience when a parent seemingly “chooses” to abandon them.

We tend to accept some suicide as unavoidable and inevitable. Many people believe that mental illness, depression and addiction are conditions that cannot be prevented, addressed or effectively treated. But mental health conditions and substance use disorders can be treated even if we can’t always prevent them. People can — and do — heal, recover and live productive lives despite the challenges. It’s time to normalize the need to care for our mental health. Suicide can be prevented.
read more here

Pete Davidson gets emotional about online bullies, being suicidal

USA TODAY
Anika Reed
Dec. 3, 2018

Pete Davidson took to Instagram to address his online bullies in an emotional post that touched on his borderline personality disorder and suicidal thoughts.

In a statement on the social media platform on Monday, Davidson opened up about what the past nine months have been like for him. During that time, Davidson had a whirlwind romance with pop superstar Ariana Grande that ended with a broken engagement.

"I've kept my mouth shut. Never mentioned any names, never said a word about anyone or anything," Davidson said in the post. "I'm trying to understand how when something happens to a guy the whole entire world just trashes him without any facts or frame of reference. Especially in today's climate where everyone loves to be offended and upset it truly is mind boggling."

The "Saturday Night Live" star said that he wants to bring awareness to borderline personality disorder for people like him "who don't want to be on this earth."

"I've been getting online bullied and in public by people for 9 months," he continued. "I've spoken about BPD and being suicidal publicly only in the hopes that it will help bring awareness and help kids like myself who don't want to be on this earth."

Despite any virtual trolls, Davidson vowed to stay strong.

"I just want you guys to know," Davidson said. "No matter how hard the internet or anyone tries to make me kill myself. I won't. I'm upset I even have to say this. To all those holding me down and seeing this for what it is – I see you and I love you."
read more here

Stop letting suicide awareness take away hope!

Out of Nevada, there is this reminder of what it is like for far too many veterans thinking about committing suicide. 

Nevada is the 6th highest rate for veterans committing suicide in the nation.

Hopelessness, feeling like there's no way out

Anxiety, agitation, sleeplessness, mood swings

Feeling like there is no reason to live

Rage or anger

Engaging in risky activities without thinking

Increasing alcohol or drug abuse

Withdrawing from family or friends

Frequently talking about death or suicide

Self-destructive behavior such as drug abuse, weapons, etc.

The presence of these signs requires immediate attention.

If one of these "awareness" raisers wonders what they are doing wrong...you just got the answer everyone needs to be made aware of! Reminding them of veterans giving up, does not give them hope back. It just takes it away!