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There is a disturbing trend emerging in the veteran social media space. The way in which we talk about veteran suicide—and suicide in general—goes against what we know about suicide prevention efforts.
If we talk carelessly about death by suicide, we can make the problem worse.
An already sensitive and fraught topic, many in the military and veteran community know someone who has lost their life to suicide. We have an obligation to them and to those still with us to educate ourselves and others on how to safely speak and write about death by suicide. Choosing otherwise is a commitment to the problem, not the solution.
In the tragic aftermath of multiple veterans taking their lives directly outside of—or inside—Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities over the past 30 days, there has been a much-needed laser focus on this issue. With calls for investigations, published exposés, and pressure from Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs), the Department of Veterans Affairs owes every veteran transparency about this increasingly visible phenomenon.
In our grief and anger, we must not fall prey to inadvertently contributing to the issue by describing those who’ve died as a "necessary sacrifice," needed to call attention to a broken system.
We can be sensitive to the loss, venerate their service, and honor their lives without conflating their actions with martyrdom. Spreading the notion that death by suicide is an effective way to deal with our problems or a laudable form of protest may place people at greater risk for suicide.
Furthermore, exposing people to the idea that suicide is common is also harmful. Suicide is devastating, but we must remember that it is an atypical event. Acknowledging that fact does not take away from the tragedy of those that have lost their lives to suicide or suggest that they were somehow weak or incapable.
We must normalize the fact that strong people struggle and that death by suicide is not an effective way to deal with those struggles.
Relatedly, I worry about headlines, posts, and comments referring to the “veteran suicide epidemic.” This label reinforces the notion that suicide is a disease that can be transmitted or caught and reduces suicide to the illness model, which argues that people who die by suicide are simply mentally ill. Yet over half of the people who die by suicide have no known mental disorder.
Perhaps more pressingly, a whole host of often marginalized social factors are consistently correlated with suicide. Conflict in relationships, loneliness, physical health challenges, stressors related to employment and housing, and grief and loss are all related to suicide risk. This sociocultural model of suicide establishes that suicide can be a result of cultural, social, and economic upheaval—all of which occur during the period of transition from active duty service to the civilian sector, a time in which the majority of first suicide attempts occur. We ignore the power of the solider-to-citizen period at our own peril.
While suicide and the risk for death by suicide are the result of a convoluted and complex interplay of social and individual factors, it is imperative we do not elevate one explanation of veteran suicide over the other.
In some circles, the focus is solely on generating resources, interventions, and programs designed to treat individual reactions to trauma and service, while failing to assess the need for changes in social conditions related to military service and broad cultural reformation in the VA. In others, the blame is laid solely at the feet of the VA and the social conditions it sets, failing to acknowledge the individual factors at play when a veteran dies by suicide.
Presupposing the dominance of one over the other is reductionistic and prevents needed attention to both providing and researching more effective treatment methodologies for PTSD and widespread betterment of the VA system.
As unpalatable as it is to admit, the war to better understand and decrease veteran suicide is just beginning. We all have our own part to play, from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to every person with a social media account. Each must wield their respective power and influence in a thoughtful manner, informed by fact, that inspires positive change, discourse, and moves the needle in the right direction. The battle begins by us all talking about veteran suicide safely and effectively.
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