Real Talk: Suicide Prevention - You Matter

By Leslie McCaddon, Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at VVSD

www.vvsd.net/cohenclinicsandiego

September is Suicide Prevention Month: YOU Matter

In the weeks and months after my husband died by suicide, I was often asked “What was he thinking? Why?”

For a while, I believed this was a question that required an answer. How could a man who had a successful military career behind him and a bright medical career ahead of him want to die? How could the man who had been my best friend for 20 years want to permanently leave me? How could he hurt our children --the children he adored -- like this?

The truth is, I will never know exactly what was going through my husband’s thoughts when he made the decision that ended his life. Even if I did, I wouldn’t understand it.

If I understood the thought process that took my husband away from the children and career he loved so fiercely, I’d have to be experiencing the same level of crisis in my brain as he had in that tragic moment-- and that is a dangerous place for anyone to be. I’m thankful I don’t have that understanding. In fact, I have done, and continue to do, many things to prevent myself from experiencing that kind of mental health crisis.

So often when we discuss suicide prevention, we talk about how we can stop someone else from taking their own life. And we can absolutely make an effort to be there for each other, watch for signs of suicide, and accompany our loved ones on their journey to seek help.

The underlying causes that lead to suicide are treatable. We must make sure that everyone we love knows this and encourage them to seek out support.

Yet, while there are many good actions, we can take to guide someone towards effective treatment, it is imperative that we are mentally healthy ourselves.

Just as we must put the oxygen mask on ourselves first in the event of a loss of air pressure on a flight, we must first take care of our own mental health to be the best supporters of our loved ones who may experience their own mental health challenges and even crises.

To mentally train for your part in helping to prevent suicide you can:

• Build your mental health skill set. Whether through therapy, coaching, reading books, taking online courses, or some other means of self-development, make sure you have a toolbox full of coping, communication, and self-care skills.

• Seek out community. Talk with your friends. Don’t try to manage deployment, PCSing, raising a family, and navigating a military marriage alone.

• Seek joy! Find healthy things to do in your life that create fun and joy for yourself. Think of joy like a protective armor that has the added effect of being contagious to the world around you.

• Get a therapist. A good therapist is one you personally connect with. Mental health is like physical health, we have to keep working at it for our entire lives. If the stressors are piling up and your skill set isn’t helping enough, it is time to get help from an expert.

The benefit of taking care of yourself is that it makes you better equipped to notice when someone you know, and love is struggling. It gives you a cushion of resiliency which means you can support that friend, without putting your own mental health in jeopardy. Think of it like a bank account-- when our own is flush, it is easy and fulfilling to buy our friends a nice dinner out. But, if we’re struggling just to pay our bills, we may resent it when they ask us to split it down the middle and our portion is only twenty percent of the check.

I am grateful that I can say I did everything I possibly could do to help my husband. He had a lot of factors that made it difficult for him to recognize how much he needed quality mental health support.

It gives me peace to know I left no stone unturned in trying to help him get the help he needed. But I was only able to do that effectively because I was making my own mental health a priority in my life. When the day came that we all missed another opportunity to help prevent his suicide, I had months of therapy and tools within to support me. The effort that I made to build my own resilience is what continued to give me the strength to process the trauma my children and I experienced when we lost him.

Dr. Phil likes to say, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” My philosophy is “If Mama ain’t healthy, ain’t nobody healthy.” Whether you are mom or dad, grandma or grandpa, aunt, uncle or friend, making your own mental health a priority is a powerful choice you can make in our united fight to prevent suicide. Your physical and mental health matter because you matter.

Veterans in crisis or having thoughts of suicide — and those who know a Veteran in crisis — should call the Veterans Crisis Line for confidential support 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.

Call 800-273-8255 and press 1, chat online at www.VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text to 838255.

More crisis resources, visit:

www.veteranscrisisline.net

Mental health support, visit

www.cohenveteransnetwork.org

Peer support call Vets4Warriors 1-855-838-8255 National Women Veterans Hotline: (855) 829-6636

Leslie McCaddon serves as part of the outreach team at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at VVSD. She is the Gold Star Widow of Army CPT Michael McCaddon, MD.