Suicides in Military Continue to Rise, the Mental Health Fight Is Far From Over; Anxiety and PTSD Among Mental Health Diagnoses On the Rise, Military Researchers Say

Suicides in Military Continue to Rise, the Mental Health Fight Is Far From Over:

According to the Department of Defense’s Annual Report on Suicide in the military, which outlines suicide trends among service members and their families, 523 service members died by suicide in 2023. This harrowing statistic marks the highest number of deaths since 2020.

The report, released Nov. 14, recorded a striking 1,373 men and women actively serving in the armed forces who attempted suicide in 2023.

Since 2005, veteran suicide rates have risen by a startling 50%, and a baffling 150% for veterans of post-9/11 wars, a trend Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation and combat veteran of the Army Special Forces, deemed an “unprecedented crisis in the force” in congressional testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

The Department of Veterans Affairs also recently released its most recent Suicide Prevention Annual Report, disclosing that the average number of veteran suicides per day had increased from 16.4 in 2001 to 17.5 in 2021. Although the Defense Department started tracking the data a little over a decade ago, these numbers support a steady and rising trend in military-related suicides over the past two decades.

Unfortunately, self-inflicted deaths are just one piece of a larger mental health crisis. The VA estimates that 41% of veterans require some level of mental health care, yet of the 18.1 million veterans in the U.S., only 11% of them obtained VA mental health services.

The mental health crisis has been intensified as service members who deployed during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars transition out of the military, with many lacking adequate mental health resources to guide the transition to civilian life. An estimated 30,000 War on Terror veterans have tragically died by suicide, a staggering statistic totaling over four times the number of deaths by war violence in post-9/11 conflicts.

When asked about coping with civilian life after deploying twice in active combat roles, Shane Hudson, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, explained, “The misnomer is that people think it is simple to just overcome or move on … I don’t fully believe that you ever overcome. You just learn to manage … Some days are very good; some days are not so good.” —>READ MORE HERE

Anxiety and PTSD among mental health diagnoses on the rise, military researchers say:

Diagnoses for mental disorders among U.S. service members increased nearly 40% in a five-year period that partly overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report that military researchers say demonstrates a growing need for health services.

From the beginning of 2019 through the end of 2023, more than 541,000 active service members were diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder and about half that number were diagnosed with at least two, the report said.

More than half of the diagnoses, nearly 283,000 cases, were for adjustment disorder, according to the latest edition of Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, a peer-reviewed journal of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division.

The disorder is time-limited and characterized by impaired function due to stress. It can be serious and is a risk for suicide, according to the Mayo Clinic website, but can also be mild, and in most cases, is manageable within a few months.

A 2022 study published in the journal Military Medicine found that 57% of service members with attachment disorder received the diagnosis within their first three years of service.

Meanwhile, anxiety diagnoses rose 77% from the beginning of the five-year period to 48,940 last year. Depression cases also showed a substantial increase, with nearly 40,000 last year.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, while far below figures at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly doubled during the time period to 22,386 cases. The diagnoses included rising numbers of women. —>READ MORE HERE

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