Preparing a presentation on the prevention of suicide among veterans. Any suggestions?

SrA Marc Haynes On average, 22 Veterans commit suicide every day. The reasons include, but are not limited to: PTSD, depression, bipolar disorder, and family problems. Many of these causatives are often just lumped together under the term PTSD.

But many Veterans seem to also share a deeper, darker, psychological pain. Without treatment, this pain can be every bit as destructive as physical injuries.

Disabled Vets are at a special risk, as their disabilities often include chronic pain, and with the VA's newest initiative to take all non-terminal Veterans off of opioid pain medication, with no replacement medication being provided to help with the pain, I fear that the problem will soon grow even farther.


I would recommend the three following sites for information and further links:


http://www.veteransandptsd.com/PTSD-statistics.html

https://www.facebook.com/Goal-Zero-VS [login to see] 93647/timeline/

Letting veterans know that people care is important. Also important is to make them aware of resources available in their community. Many vets don't know what's available, and are afraid to ask for help from official channels for a whole host of reasons...

I think for the collective benefit, the posts should be made here.

Is this a nonmilitary audience? If so, it might be worthwhile to talk about the continued stigma in the military of asking for help out of fear it will make you look weak or hurt your career. Suicide isn't a military-only problem, but there are reasons why the situation is different, why some people are reluctant to ask for help and why friend, even close friends, don't always see the signs of someone in distress.