HUFFINGTON
09.01-08.13
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
“Life is a slippery slope, and at
the top are snowflakes,” she said.
“Coming down the mountain are
snowballs, and at the bottom is
the avalanche zone where you can
be buried alive. The question is,
how do we deal with the snowflakes so they don’t become snowballs and avalanches?”
Shifting suicide prevention
resources to this larger at-risk
group “ultimately will save many
more lives,” said Yeates Conwell,
a psychiatry professor at the University of Rochester who has done
seminal research on suicide prevention and is also co-director of
the school’s Center for the Study
and Prevention of Suicide.
Intervening early with the atrisk population, he said, might
mean early identification and
treatment of mental health issues,
ensuring that injured troops get
the best rehabilitation so they can
manage independently. The efforts can help to secure firearms at
home and connect struggling soldiers and veterans with peer counselors who have had similar issues.
“What we know about suicide
in older adults is that it is a complicated act” that may include
Defense
Suicide
Prevention
Office Acting
Director
Jacqueline
Garrick
stresses
that suicide
prevention
efforts need
to start early.
many factors, but “is always associated with diagnosable psychiatric illness,” Conwell said. “And by
far the most common illness associated with completed suicides is
clinical depression.”
The problem, of course, is connecting the copious resources of
the Pentagon and the VA with the
troops, veterans and families who
need them.
FIGHTING THE STIGMA
For a variety of reasons — some
say they just don’t trust the VA —
many veterans under stress don’t
get help. Fewer th