Army alarmed by suicides rates of soldiers.

The U.S. military is losing a battle to stem an epidemic of suicides in its ranks, according to an article in PsychPORT.

The Department of Defense reported last week that there were 160 active-duty suicides in 2009, compared with 140 in 2008. This report only covered soldiers who were actively serving, and did not include the large numbers of soldiers who return from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and commit suicide in the months and years afterward, when they often suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome and have problems readjusting to civilian life.

“There’s no question that 2009 was a painful year for the army when it comes to suicides,” said Col. Christopher Philbrick, the Deputy Director of the Army Suicide Prevention Taskforce, despite “wide-ranging measures last year to combat the problem.”

Col. Elspeth Richie, the Director of Behavioral Health for the Office of the Army Surgeon General, is alarmed by the easy availability of handguns on army bases and the ongoing stigma attached to suicide, mental illness, and the treatment of mental illness, despite the army’s attempt to change. Elspeth says, “In many ways we talk out of both sides of our mouths.”

There have been a number of conferences, taskforces, training programs and studies devoted to the problem of suicide, yet the problem gets worse. Soldiers who receive counseling are still committing suicide. “Many soldiers think that seeking treatment could ruin their army careers,” Elspeth notes.

Suicide among solders is not new. During the Viet Nam War of the 1960s and 1970s, almost as many soldiers committed suicide during and after the war as were killed in combat—about 60,000. The alarming rate of suicides associated with this war has been attributed to the unpopularity of the war.

This statistic has been largely hidden, as the army views suicides as shameful. It is a problem the army wishes would just go away. And the counseling they have devised to work with soldiers who have a suicidal tendency is geared to making them stop being a problem for the army as soon as possible. Nothing will make a suicidal person commit suicide faster than someone giving him the message he is being a nuisance.

The army’s attitude, however, is no different than the attitude of society in general. Suicide has historically been stigmatized. And mental illness has historically been stigmatized as well. Like the army, society is not particularly interested in understanding why people are suicidal. Society simply wants to put suicidal people on some kind of medication or some kind of quick fix program and get them out of their irksome funk as quickly as possible.

What I’ve learned about suicides during my 30 years of practice with suicidal people is that the all of them suffer from some kind of mental anguish, and the most effective way of helping them is to provide them with an empathic listener who will give them the space the talk through and unravel the conflicts inside of them.

Listening is not something the army—or most people—do well.

Child abuse is linked with adult ailments

Recent research has demonstrated a relationship between childhood abuse and a number of adult ailments, including arthritis, depression, cancer, and psychosis.

The research, published in journals in America, Australia, Canada and England, notes the following connections:

· Adults who experienced physical abuse as children have 56 per cent higher odds of osteoarthritis compared to those who have not been abused, according to a study by University of Toronto researchers published in Arthritis Care and Research.

· Childhood physical abuse is associated with elevated rates of cancer in adulthood, according to another study by University of Toronto researchers to be published in the journal, Cancer.

· People who were abused and neglected during childhood have a higher risk of major depression when they become young adults, according to a report in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, depressed men who were abused have ten times higher risk of suicide, according to an article in the British Journal of Social Work.

· Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London have published new research in The British Journal of Psychiatry which indicates that women with severe mental illness are more likely to have been abused in childhood that the general population.

· Childhood sexual abuse significantly increases the risk of developing drug and alcohol issues, mental illness and marital strife in men and women, according to a study in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

This research underscores the long-term devastation caused by childhood abuse and shows links between it and a growing number of adult diseases and disorders. And it calls attention to a problem—be it physical, emotional, or sexual abuse—that has been escalating over the past decade.

For years, families swept childhood under the rug and some researchers believed that it had only limited long-term effect. Indeed, some researchers stated that a child could grow out of it once he became an adult. This new research shatters this mythology once and for all.

Although recent researchers don’t offer an explanation for the link between abuse and a myriad of illnesses, one can conjecture that any kind of child abuse engenders low self-esteem, bad coping method, and a pessimistic outlook on life. These three factors alone would predispose victims of child abuse to a number of illnesses. In addition, bad hygiene and physical posture associated with child abuse victims could explain the many cases of arthritis later on.

This research goes counter to recent trends to seek primarily biological explanations for mental disturbances as well as for physical ailments. It clearly shows that environmental traumas continue to have at least a partial effect on the development of adult problems.

Maybe, just maybe, by focusing on the many long-term effects of childhood abuse, we may at last be able to come up with some preventative measure that will help us to diminish or even eliminate it from our culture. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Why would a beauty kill herself?

Ever since Ruslana Korshunova, 20, jumped from a building on Water Street in New York’s financial district several weeks ago, people have been wondering why she did it. Why would a beautiful, young, successful model kill herself?

Newspapers reported that she was unhappy, but the source of the unhappiness was unclear. In one message from her diary three months before the suicide she wrote: "I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?" In an earlier posting, quoted in the New York Daily News, she wrote: "It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out." One cryptic entry in March reads: "My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high."

Other postings revealed anger. In March she wrote: "I'm a bitch. I'm a witch. I don't care what you say ... I know why my other relationships didn't work out, 'cause I'm unpredictable. "

Originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, the almond-eyed, flowing-haired Korshunova appeared in advertisements and on runways for such designers as Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci and DKNY. British Vogue hailed her as "a face to be excited about" in 2005. Her break came when modeling booker Debbie Jones noticed a picture of her while perusing an in-flight magazine article about Korushnova's hometown of Almaty, according to a Vogue magazine report. "She looked like something out of a fairytale!" Jones told Vogue. "We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did!"

At the time of her suicide, she was reportedly dating two American men and had broken up with a married man in Russia. She had also hired a “life coach” in Russia to help her with her relationship problems. Her mother, with whom she was supposedly very close, came to America to claim the body.

We may never solve the mystery of Korushnova’s suicide. But her case reminds me of another suicidal girl, a patient, whom I came to know a while back. Let us call her Miss M. Like Ruslana, Miss M was a beautiful young woman who was troubled by pursuers. And, like Ruslana, she was sending money back home in Europe to her mother each week.

For Miss M, the problem did not have to do with the men who dated her. It had to do with her mother. Her mother had smothered her with love when she was a child. After divorcing her alcoholic father, her mother clung to Miss M like a safety tube. When Miss M became a teenager, her mother would routinely disapprove of any man she was dating.

Miss M moved to America to get away from her mother (although she wasn’t aware of that consciously). Her mother called her every day, and Miss M would report to her the details of her love life. One after another she disapproved of her beaus and entreated Miss M to return to Russia. As Miss M went through one beau after another, she was beside herself, unable to understand the confusion within. One part wanted to give herself to a man; the other wanted to remain loyal to her mother. She suffered from confusion, depression and suicidal thoughts--a depression similar to Ruslana Korushnova’s.

Whether Ruslana had a similar childhood can only be mere speculation. But we do know that children from healthy families do not normally become suicidal.