Tag: pain

Why People Like Me Commit Suicide

A few days ago I received the message below from a former NCO.  I had no idea the impact I had in his life simply by being there for him when he needed it.  I am sharing this with his permission…

My name is Steve Meyers and I would like to start a discussion about, why people like me commit suicide. You see, I am a combat veteran with PTSD. I am no longer close with my family and I don’t have a lot of friends. Which means, I have almost nobody to talk to.

I have been depressed more than once in my life. Each time, it gets harder to pull myself out of it. When you are depressed it is easy to think nobody cares, maybe nobody would notice you were gone, and the worst, maybe they are better off without me. Those are the thoughts that hurt the most and they kill people like me. I wanted to talk about that. The number one reason people like me commit suicide, is relationships or more specifically their lack of relationships.

People like to think the loss of a single relationship is the reason someone commits suicide. No, it was just the last relationship that was worth living for. We rarely like to ask, what happened to all of the other deep and meaningful relationships? We know the answer. We neglected them and we let the relationship die.

We didn’t do it all at once. It wasn’t an immediate break-up. It happened slowly over time. It starts when you are away from each other. You see the other person less, so you talk with them less. As the amount of interaction time decreases, so does the number of things you share. Which means you have less of those bonding moments. Those shared experiences and the things that kept you emotionally close. This is how you grow apart.

When I was living in Germany, nobody told me my grandmother had died. They all thought someone else had told me. I found out she was gone when I was home on leave after I said I was going to go visit her. Finding out that way, meant I was forced to grieve all on my own, at a memorial attended by only one person, me.

Over time, the emotional distance with my family has increased. We have less frequent deep and meaningful conversations. So, I want people to learn from my story. I want everyone to know the secret to maintaining a close relationship is just staying in regular contact. When you stay in regular contact you have more opportunities to share, to have those shared experiences with each other. The ability to confide in one another and to know what’s going on. If you find yourself going down the lonely path of isolation, and you want to revitalize those dying relationships, you need to be in regular contact.

People in general tend to trust people with what they think those people can handle. So, if I can trust you with a small secret, there is a chance I can trust you with a medium- sized secret. However, if I cannot trust you with a medium-sized secret, then I definitely will not tell you about the big secrets.

This is why most people self-censor while serving in a combat zone. I did it and now, I am paying the cost of my actions. I thought I was protecting my family by not telling them I was doing dangerous missions. I knew they would have a hard time knowing I was in mortal danger on a regular basis. So, I didn’t tell them. I pretended everything was okay. Now, I can’t talk to them about things like that. If you are not going to trust them with small pieces of bad news, you will never feel okay with trusting them with the stuff of your nightmares.

I was raised by a single mother. I grew up on welfare and lived in subsidized low- income housing. My mom worries about the family every day. I have seen her blank stare while she spins the ring on her finger. While she runs through all of the terrible scenarios in her head. I have seen her become racked with anxiety over bad news. Which is why I do not talk to her about the really bad things. I don’t know if she can handle it.

I got to know my father when I was in high school. I love my dad even though him and I have never really been close. He has always been a sensitive person, who tends to insulate himself from others. It is how he protects himself. Half of the time when I call he chooses to let the phone ring. When I manage to get him on the phone he almost always says he is in the middle of something and I get the impression he wants to end the call quickly. We don’t talk about the really bad stuff.

I am the eldest of 5. When I left home at age 20 I told myself that I was going to help my family escape poverty. I was going to learn how to be successful and come home and teach my family how to become successful. Over the last 20+ years my siblings and I invested very little time into our relationship and we have grown apart. Today, I am now little more than a stranger to them. I have reached out to them several times in hopes of rebuilding a relationship, but my reality today is so different than theirs. So, our conversations are awkward. Sometimes I think I should just quit trying.

I was really close with my uncle and used to seek his opinion on most things. He was the executor of my estate. He was one of the few people I trusted with the full truth. Last year his wife posted something on Facebook and I called her out for it. Now, him and I only seem to talk when she is not around.

Last week I was in Washington staying in someone’s guest room. My girlfriend was sleeping on the air mattress next to me. I cried for over an hour, until I finally fell asleep. It took me a week to tell her why, and I took a big risk telling her. You see, when a man is vulnerable and weak around a woman, she loses respect for him. Women that lose respect for their man leave. They leave. I really don’t want to be more isolated that I already am, but I need to talk to someone. So, I took the risk.

Opening up to people about PTSD is a very scary thing because it has such a harsh stigma. People automatically think you are a mad man, forever damaged, and a danger to society. They make fear-based decisions that change almost everything about how they interact with you, and you can tell.

When I was going through something emotionally heavy while in the military, my Army buddies were there for me. Now, that I am out of the military they are still the ones I can turn to them for things I cannot go to anyone else for. There is a reason why I can pick up the phone and talk with them and it will seem as if we were never far apart. There is a reason why it hits us so hard when we hear they died. It hurts even more when it was by their own hands. The reason is simple, we are a lot alike and if it can happen to them, it can happen to me.

Before you get too excited, I am not suicidal and I have no intention of harming myself, but there was a time after my wife died when I had plans to kill myself. Which is why I would like to publicly thank Louis Fernandez for being there when I was struggling to find a reason to live.

I have seen a lot of Facebook posts where people will say “call me if you need anything”. I would like them to stop. It’s a hollow phrase meant to ease your own personal guilt. If someone you care about needs help. Help them. Don’t wait for them to ask for help. Imagine you see someone hanging from the edge of a cliff. You don’t tell them to reach up and grab your hand. No. It’s too risky. There is a high likelihood they will fall. You reach down, grab them, and pull them up. You have to take action. That’s how you save them. Telling someone a hollow phrase doesn’t help. Stop doing it. Get involved.

If the things in this message resonate with you, join the discussion. Online comments and shares help to spread the message, but the offline conversations are what we really need. If you need to start it by sending a meme, a text message, or even a post card. Do it. Talk to them. Have those conversations. More than 20 veterans a day commit suicide. Just talk with them, it really is that simple. Just talk with them. That’s how you stop suicides.

I’d like to publicly thank Steve for his courage in posting this message.

-LJF

 

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Never Surrender

Since I started CONUS Battle Drills I’ve had many people send me resume’s to review, ask me tips on handling headhunters and recruiters, and even helped proofread some college papers, but I was really unprepared for the conversation I had last night (even though I probably should have been).

A battle buddy of mine that I used to serve with gave me a call to talk about a friend of his that is getting out of the army (Let’s call him John).  John suffered a combat injury that has left him with chronic pain, and that pain has led to many more issues to include substance abuse, marital problems, and depression.  John is also getting out of the Army soon and doesn’t seem to have a plan for what he wants to do.  My battle buddy gave me an open-ended question asking for advice on how to handle this situation or what advice to give to his friend.

Now if you follow this page at all, you should have noted that John is on the path noted in Dark Night of the Soul and is exhibiting many of the risk factors for suicide.  If John doesn’t make some changes, there is a very good chance he is going to become another statistic and through his surrender, another family is going to be broken.

risk factors

 

If you’ve read the book, then you know that one of the objectives of CONUS Battle Drills is to prepare guys in such a way that they can address some of these risk factors and get on the path to healing and success.  I am not qualified to help John through many of his problems, and neither is my battle buddy, but together we are the first line of defense and can get him the real, professional help that he needs.

Surrender

My heart breaks for guys like John, but he is surrendering.  It’s easier to get up and ring the bell during hell week than to continue to suffer.  It’s easier to quit in mountain phase of ranger school than to endure another two months of pain.  It’s easier to drop out in selection than to continue to roll in the log pit filling your pockets with vomit.  The hard part, and the part that makes it all worthwhile, is to fight on, push past your limits and succeed in your goal.

Gentlemen, getting drunk and high, divorcing your wife, losing your job, that’s surrender.  You know what’s hard?  Fighting an addiction, repairing a marriage and building trust, getting promoted, even apologizing.  I’m not going to marginalize John’s problems, however, and just say that a change in attitude is going to fix everything because it’s not, but he needs to make a commitment mentally to get off the path of least resistance, get back on azimuth, and start working towards what is important in order to find healing and satisfaction.

What is Important to You?

The second big question is to understand why you are getting out.  We have explored that extensively and even argued about whether that needs to be the first big question instead of the second.  Understanding what is important to you is very similar to the why because it becomes the overarching goal in which all other smaller goals will fall.

Using my earlier examples, the guys who eventually earn the SEAL Trident, Ranger Tab, or Special Forces Tab went to that school with the mental attitude that no matter what, they were going to achieve that goal, but they also compartmentalized their problems and challenges and created a series of small goals that were attainable that fed into the overall goal:  Pass the PT test, don’t fall out of the run, find the next point in land nav, get over this obstacle, don’t quit.  Even though surrender was an option at every turn, they avoided it because it didn’t fit into their overall goal.

So let me ask the question, What is most Important to You in Life?  Think about everything that you could lose, which of those things would be the absolute worst?  To me, it’s my family.  I can lose my job, my house, all my things, but all of those can be replaced, my family can’t.  Therefore every action I take, every decision I make, I ask myself whether or not that action or decision is helping to preserve that which matters most to me.  If the answer is “no” then I need to correct my course, get off the path to surrender, and move back towards my objective.

Paying the Small Debts First

I’m a big fan of Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University.  In many cases of soldiers that I work with, financial strife is the first problem that they face and things snowball from there.  Dave Ramsey gives counseling every day to people sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and his advice always starts with paying the small debts first.  This gives us the opportunity to take some weight out of our rucksacks a little at a time, develop good habits, and prepare us to take on the biggest monsters because the ankle biters have been taken care of and we can laser focus on the bigger issues.

In John’s case, however, finances have become a symptom or a consequence of his initial injury that drove his addiction.  Now he’s facing a major life change by getting out with no job, no career goals, and no focus.  This is compounding problems in his marriage, making him want to quit.  In John’s case, finding a job is his smallest debt.

Let me put it this way:  John isn’t going to wake up tomorrow and not have pain.  He isn’t going to wake up and not have an addiction.  He isn’t going to wake up and not have any problems in his marriage.  There is no action he can take today to make those problems go away.  In fact, he will be fighting those battles for many years to come, BUT he can wake up tomorrow and have a job!  He can take a single action this afternoon and tomorrow wake up with a career; it’s a small victory and one he certainly needs in his life right now.

John also needs to get off the path of surrender and do the hard task of asking for professional help with his addiction, managing his pain, and repairing his marriage.  Gentlemen, going to a mental health professional doesn’t make you weak.  It’s hard to admit that you need help, the mistake is thinking you can do it alone.

Conclusion

I know a lot of you are suffering like John is, and too many of our brothers out there are quitting life because they can’t handle the enormity of their problems.  I want you to know that there is help, there is healing, and you are not alone.  One of the pillars of my strength come from God, and I encourage you to seek Him out.  Even if you don’t believe, joining a men’s group where you can talk openly with other men facing the same problems will give you great strength just like your battle buddy did in combat.  Please don’t surrender, there are people in this world that are counting on you, and to them what you have done in your life makes you their hero.  You can do this and there are people that can help.

God Bless every one of you!

-LJF

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It’s Time for a Buddy System

I read a story this morning about a veteran who killed himself after his call to the VA for help went to voicemail. Besides the obvious reason for getting pissed off, I’ve been asking myself a lot lately, “what are you going to do about it?”  I’m done bitching and whining, it’s time for action.

The DOD has no idea why soldiers are killing themselves more now than ever before.  I know most of us think it’s because of the wars, but nope, there is no correlation between combat and suicide.  They are also not spending any money figuring out the cause by the way.

The point is this:  We need to band together as a veteran community and start taking care of ourselves; it’s obvious no one else is going to.  There are a lot of great organizations out there like Warrior360 and 22kill that are veteran run and really doing a lot of good, but I want to take it a step further:

I want YOU to get involved.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Identify a buddy, tag them in this post, or if you don’t have facebook, comment below.  This is a public declaration that they are your buddy.
  2. If you don’t have a buddy in mind, then please comment that you need a buddy and state your location and date of service.  We will find you one.
  3. You will talk to your buddy at a minimum once a week.  You will ask difficult questions about their finances, relationships, and mental state
  4. You and your buddy will answer honestly
  5. If your buddy goes into a dark place, you are the first line of defense to get him help
  6. You will take this role seriously

None of this is new to any of you, we’ve all done it before.  We are making a formal buddy assignment.

It’s time for us to band together, set up our security perimeter and watch out for each other…no one else is going to do it for us.

 

———

Warriors Who Do Violence

Being a warrior that does violence is different than being a violent man; a warrior has empathy.

All throughout history societies have looked to men who were willing to do violence and written their stories down.  Warriors have developed new and unique ways of fighting which we call art forms.  Entire cultures centered around their warriors: the Spartans, the Huns, the Samurai, the Maori, the Vikings, the Knights Templar, the list goes on.  In all ages, all regions, warriors have found their place among their fellow man.

I’ve come to believe that being a warrior comes as a predisposition, much like extroversion, You can train someone to be a soldier and do soldierly things, but only a few are actual warriors.

The warrior doesn’t fear death although he doesn’t yearn for it.  If it comes, so be it, but better it be the enemy.

The warrior can measure his violence, but ask him and he cannot identify the maximum amount of violence of which he is capable.

When doing violence, the warrior is concerned only with eliminating the threat.  He will not think about home or take the time to be afraid or sad.  He is singularly focused and as the threat increases, his self preservation instinct decreases.  If eliminating the threat requires his life then he will give it, if eliminating the threat requires he expose himself, then he will do it.

A warrior loves to do battle, but not against the weak, that is an act of a coward.

Finding someone predisposed to being a warrior is difficult, some even think they are until the threat presents itself and they come face to face with death.

 

Once a man discovers he is a warrior, once he has seen the world and the evil in it for what it really is, it is impossible to turn that off. Every situation, every environment, every moment he is analyzing threats, developing courses of action, and identifying weapons for his use.  Always.

When I was just a boy, my family went to Madrid, Spain for a new years celebration.  There were large crowds and I could tell my father was uncomfortable as he held my hand.  Most of the group we were with were happily enjoying their time when a man dropped his keys in between my father’s legs.  The man fell to his knees and started to feel around.  Dad’s hand squeezed mine tighter as he began to back up.  The drunk stood up, showed us his keys, and began to walk off when in an instant my father released my hand, grabbed the dude and slammed him violently against a nearby wall.  As he bounced off the wall, my father grabbed him by the neck and slammed him a second time yelling, “Where is my fucking wallet?”  The wallet flew out of the nearby crowd and landed at my father’s feet.

I remember distinctly the look of fear in the “drunk’s” eyes.  He was taller than my dad, but he wasn’t a warrior, and when he met the ferocity of one, fear penetrated his core. All night they had been pulling this scam, but only the warrior who is always thinking of potential threats identified it.

Realizing that you are a warrior is a paradigm shift.  You will never look at the world the same way again, and the overwhelming majority of the population doesn’t understand or see what you see.  Their prescription for your “problem” will always fail because they are trying to get you to see the world the way they do.  You are not them, you are different, accept that.

This does not give you carte blanche to act out, It takes more power and courage to show restraint than it does to be violent. Do not ignore what you feel and see, take control over it.  Don’t be too proud to seek help.

The only way to live in this world as a warrior is to be stronger than your urges, more powerful than your emotions, exert control over yourself, like a fucking warrior does.  Any weak minded fool can be loud and angry.