Let's talk about Dianne (sorry about the language...)

She did the deed on March 26th and was tidily buried on April 1st. I still expect her to walk in the shop, late, opening a bottle of water and cracking wise. It's not like I think about it every day. But it's there, isn't it?

What was so fucking bad, Di? I'm not so simple a creature that I think everything is clear to someone outside the situation, but come on. Two beautiful (irritating, unappreciative, typical) teenagers. A husband who loves you (and doesn't hear you, and isn't a communicator, duh.) Your adorable puppies (who shit in the house,) your hobbies (miniatures might not be for the obsessive,) your friends (the church was full of people you obviously never confided in.) Gorgeous house (mortgage,) nice clothes and humongous diamonds everywhere (maybe they were your friends?) Parents who drank and didn't understand you? Rough life. Fuck you.

I guess I'll never have the chance to know why you didn't share your pain with me. I guess I shouldn't presume to understand the level of your unhappiness or judge your decision to check out. It's not fair of me to do so. I didn't walk in your shoes. But I'm pretty pissed off because I was always honest with you and you LIED to me. Apparently a lot. Over a ridiculous amount of time. So you're going to have to bear with me when I say that you fucking copped out.

But then I'm still breathing and you're not.

I'm still dealing with all the disappointment of the imperfect life. Didn't get the perfect parental units. Didn't marry the perfect man. Haven't found my bliss, or my purpose, or even a simple fucking reason to keep drawing breath, but here I am still doing it. Some days I drown in it. Some days I'm numb. But. I'm. Still. Here. And you, my fucked up friend, are not.

I win.

I think.

are smarter people really more likely to take their own lives?

"Conventional wisdom says that gifted artists like Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath had something in their constitution that made them much more susceptible to depression, and thus, to suicide. One of the smartest people I ever knew, a former high school classmate who was also a world-class rower, took his own life as pressures for perfection at his Ivy-League university became too much for him. Such stories, painful and tragic, lend credence to the belief that smart people are more likely to commit suicide. But do we remember these stories because they are commonplace, or are they notable only because they are also actually rare?

Because of the relative rarity of suicide, researching its causes is problematic. Most studies therefore investigate attempted suicide, which is much more common. Since attempted suicides are very strongly correlated with actual suicides, they can serve as a reasonable proxy measurement.

Two studies by Martin Voracek seem to uphold the notion that more intelligent people are more likely to commit suicide. Voracek looked at national suicide rates and average IQ, and found that countries with higher average IQs also had higher suicide rates. But a study released last week suggested the opposite might be true. A team led by G. David Batty looked at military conscription records of over 1 million Swedish men, and found that those with higher IQs were significantly less likely to be admitted to a hospital for a suicide attempt than those with lower IQs. Even after adjusting for socioeconomic status, education, and a variety of other factors, those in the top 10 percent of IQ scores were about four times less likely to attempt suicide than the bottom 10 percent."

Read the rest of the article by Dave Munger here.

More troops hospitalized for mental health than any other reason

More U.S. troops were hospitalized for mental health disorders than any other reason in 2009.

Mental health hospitalizations throughout the military topped injuries, battle wounds and even pregnancy and childbirth for the first time in 15 years of tracking by the Pentagon's Medical Surveillance Monthly report.

Four mental health issues — depression, substance abuse, anxiety and adjustment problems such as PTSD — cost the Pentagon 488 years of lost duty in 2009.

Obviously PTSD, depression, anxiety and substance abuse are not limited to American soldiers. According to a new U.K. Ministry of Defense study covered Thursday by The Guardian, troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have a 22% higher risk of alcohol misuse than their fellow servicemen and women.

Reservists serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were found to be three times as likely to suffer PTSD as other reservists, while regular personnel in combat roles there were found to be twice as likely to report the disorder.

Simon Wessely of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London thinks alcohol abuse is even more of a concern than PTSD. "Our view is that alcohol misuse is actually a greater problem for the armed forces than PTSD," he said.

Another article about the new UK report, from Reuters, points out a "striking" difference in mental health between US and UK troops. US personnel deploy for longer than UK troops – 15 months compared with six months – and American troops are younger. Combined with the numbers from the Pentagon, it is clear that US soldiers are undergoing intense mental pressure.

Read the whole article at The Raw Story.

May is Mental Health Month

Check out NKM2 for yourself!

18 a day....

By Rick Mays for the Army Times

Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department.

Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and 11 percent of those who don’t succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months.

The numbers, which come at a time when VA is strengthening its suicide prevention programs, show about 18 veteran suicides a day, about five by veterans who are receiving VA care.

Access to care appears to be a key factor, officials said, noting that once a veteran is inside the VA care program, screening programs are in place to identify those with problems, and special efforts are made to track those considered at high risk, such as monitoring whether they are keeping appointments.

A key part of the new data shows the suicide rate is lower for veterans aged 18 to 29 who are using VA health care services than those who are not. That leads VA officials to believe that about 250 lives have been saved each year as a result of VA treatment.

VA’s suicide hotline has been receiving about 10,000 calls a month from current and former service members. The number is 1-800-273-8255. Service members and veterans should push 1 for veterans’ services.

Dr. Janet Kemp, VA’s national suicide prevention coordinator, credits the hotline with rescuing 7,000 veterans who were in the act of suicide — in addition to referrals, counseling and other help.

Suicide attempts by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans remains a key area of concern. In fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, there were 1,621 suicide attempts by men and 247 by women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, with 94 men and four women dying.

In general, VA officials said, women attempt suicide more often, but men are more likely to succeed in the attempt, mainly because women use less lethal and less violent means while men are more likely to use firearms.

Suicide attempts among veterans appear to follow those trends, officials said.

10 Ways to Reduce Anxiety... Part 2

3. Don't fight the craziness.
You may occasionally have thoughts that lead you to think you'll do something terrible ("I'm attracted to him. Does that mean I'll have an affair?")or that you're going insane (a client of mine who is an attorney kept imagining herself screaming in court.) Remember - our minds are creative. Little synapses firing away at random,and every now and then a "crazy" thought jumps out. Everyone has them. Instead of judging yours, describe it to yourself like it's a curious object on a shelf and move on.

4. Recognize false alarms.
That fear of your house burning down because you left the iron on has never come true. That rapid heart beat doesn't mean you're having a heart attack; it's your body's natural response to arousal. Many thoughts and sensations that we interpret as cues for concern - even panic - are just background noise. Think of each of them as a fire engine going to another place. You've noticed them; now let them pass by.

Ed. note: Part of a series by Robert L. Leahy, PhD and director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in NY, NY. See the first part here.

you CAN die from it

Do you know someone who always brings a ray of sunshine into the room? I'm talking a person with a razor wit, an infectious grin, always willing to listen to you whine, quick with scalding sarcasm at her own expense or a painful groaner of a pun? I get to see the friend who fits this description every other Wednesday from ten until noonish - the bright spot of my Wednesday workday - and while I filled her nails we would talk about the kids, our husbands, our mothers and pets, and all the ups and downs of our lives just as we have for the past ten years or so. Occasionally we would hook up to go for a walk, getting as much exercise from the laughter as from the mileage. She once helped me reupholster a chair - I stiffened her spine when she tried to talk herself out of going to her 30th class reunion. We exchanged hysterical birthday cards and Christmas presents. I held her hands every other week.

On March 26th she took her own life.

My friend did not attempt suicide. She made a methodical, intelligent plan - dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's - timed it and executed her exit from this life with the same precision she showed in the miniature rooms that she painstakingly created as a hobby. There was no detail unattended to. She was 48 years old. My age.

Five days before I posted to this blog about the social isolation of mental illness. At her memorial service, the pastor read from the Book of Job and pointed out that in Jobs culture, it was customary to sit in front of your home dressed in sackcloth and covered in ashes - to put grief and misery on display - but that in our culture, one is expected to hide grief; to put on a smile and always keep up appearances. She was a master of deception because she felt it was expected of her; she was always smiling, laughing, joking, because it hid her pain. I held her hands every other week. I never saw it.

And now I am keeping up appearances and hiding my broken heart. I miss her so much. And it occurs to me that her pain really didn't end... it merely moved... to all who loved her.

If you've ever thought about it... think about it.