JUST IN: US Air Force Base Will Pause Operations After Rise in Suicides

Between January and July 2019, 79 members of the US Air Force have taken their own lives. Three of them, Second Lt. Christopher Rhoton, Justin Strickland, and Jose Llanes, died at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. In response, the base is pausing operations to “recharge.” In a video posted to Facebook, Col. Derek O’Malley addressed the plans put in place in order to address the crisis.

https://www.facebook.com/20FighterWing/videos/752348161876213/

His plan focuses on addressing “a thousand little [solutions]” to the alarming suicide rate in the Air Force, acknowledging that there is no one singular cause or one singular action to be taken.

Many of the things we do will not be big things, but rather hundreds of small things that we string together that hopefully will have a big impact in your lives.

Some of these “small things” include resiliency tactical pauses, wing down days, and opening a dialogue about mental health.

This is a tragedy and an emergency that the Air Force is facing. They recorded 100 suicides per year over the past five years.

“We lose more airmen to suicide than any other single enemy, even more than combat,” Kaleth Wright, chief master sergeant of the Air Force told the Post and Courier. “If we don’t do something, we could lose up to 150, 160 airmen in 2019.”

But there is a glimmer of hope to be found in the Air Force’s response. A holistic response to mental health and especially depression is key– and that’s what their “hundreds of small things” are sounding like. It’s important to have a balanced life, and these scheduled breaks are designed to facilitate that. I’m also hopeful that an open dialogue about mental health will encourage people to seek help in maintaining their own– in an environment as intense as an Air Force base and such a rigid mode of behavior associated with members of the Armed Forces, simply feeling depressed– let alone talking about it– doesn’t really jive. (Or maybe it does, I wouldn’t know. Correct me if I’m wrong.) That needs to change, for the sake of the men and women willing to volunteer for this service on behalf of all of us. I hope this is the start of a big, meaningful change.

Now, that is the end of this news story, but as someone who’s dealt with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts myself, I want to take any chance I can to promote treatment.

If you’re feeling symptoms of depression, I want you to know two things: 1. You won’t feel this way forever, and 2. There is no shame or weakness in getting help. PLEASE get help. For some reason there’s this weird stigma around therapy and antidepressants/other drugs to treat mental illness, but let me tell you from experience, they ROCK. Changed my life, 10/10 would recommend.

If you know someone who is or might be depressed, please make yourself available to them. It’s a hard subject to broach, but they need someone to be that brave. Just know that some of their feelings may seem enormously illogical and ridiculous to you, but they’re not to them. Don’t discount what they say. Listen, don’t lecture.

On that same note, please stop calling suicide “selfish.” Whether you think it’s true or not, it helps 0 people to say so, and runs the risk of pushing someone who already feels unworthy of living further down that road.