BBC NEWS | Family's plea after soldier's suicide

soap box time;



I'm here to tell you folks that the medications I've been given for ptsd elevate the risks of suicide for a few weeks when you start taking them AND a few weeks after you stop! If you can go in-patient during those periods, DO!



I've suffered with ptsd for decades now. The meds today are better than they were... ONCE THEY REACH THERAPUTIC LEVELS IN YOUR BODY. Without the meds suicide is a whisper that grows into a nag that becomes the only way out. It's gradual enough to trigger the survival instinct or draw attention. There's a chance, if slim that you'll survive it.



Going on and off the meds it's a sledge hammer that knocks you to your knees so hard and sudden that you ain't left with enough energy to fight it RIGHT THEN.



They know that. That's why the caution you to maintain your dosage. If they can figure out what yours should be. They're cautioned to keep patients under close observation during those periods.



My experience is that close observation turns out to be once a week visit to the office for them to ask you how you're doing. How many of us tell them anything other than, "I'm o.k."



AND ANOTHER THING. Suicide isn't the only psychotic ideas that pop up. If you can't be closely watched, stay away from loved ones!



That's what I think about the whole thing.



Maybe later I'll go into what it's like to be misdiagnosed before ICDM included ptsd in their desk reference and it became the diagnosis de jour. Hallucinations, sitting in the corner drooling on yourself, tendons in the back of the neck drawing up like bow strings,...



Come on folks, take responsibility for your lives. Don't be so damn negative. Everybody has problems. Sing along now, "Get over it!"



If 60 days short of the end of your tour of service you became instantly unfit for military service it's because you're the slime on the edge of chicken shit that can't tough it out!