Every time I see social media posts about veterans and suicide, I want to slap them.
Let’s get past the maudlin ‘suicide awareness’ and faux anxiety.
People don’t want to hear that shit. They have problems and issues in their own lives.
Reality: In the military culture, psychological counseling is liability ; a weakness. Suicide ranks low on the scale of concerns. The military hierarchy would rather you “unalive” yourself than see a shrink. I was in intelligence. I had a TS/SCI clearance. I worked in extremely stressful, high risk strategic and tactical positions off and on the battlefield. Personnel entrusted with the nation’s secrets don’t have the luxury of spilling their guts to some egghead with a degree on their wall, without facing scrutiny. Regardless of your MOS, they take a very dim view of visiting the couch doctor.
The stigma continues with veterans.
All the “awareness” and hotlines haven’t put a dent in the numbers. And we’re just nameless numbers in their statistics.
Fuck ’em all but nine.