The Navy Seals

This will be my final blog. It will be covering ptsd and navy seal vets that have it as well as homeless vets and suicide death rates to show what happens to some vets and as well ill be talking about how us civilians can help our veterans. I am only going to cover the Navy Seals but if you would like to find out more about all this on all the millions of other veterans there will be a few links at the bottom to find websites about veterans and ptsd and homeless vets.

PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Most people who go through traumatic events may have temporary difficulty adjusting and coping, but with time and good self-care, they usually get better. If the symptoms get worse, last for months or even years, and interfere with your day-to-day functioning, you may have PTSD.

Getting effective treatment after PTSD symptoms develop can be critical to reduce symptoms and improve function.

Symptoms

Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms may start within one month of a traumatic event, but sometimes symptoms may not appear until years after the event. These symptoms cause significant problems in social or work situations and in relationships. They can also interfere with your ability to go about your normal daily tasks.

PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can vary over time or vary from person to person.

Intrusive memories

Symptoms of intrusive memories may include:

Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event
Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks)
Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event
Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event

Avoidance

Symptoms of avoidance may include:

Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event

Negative changes in thinking and mood

Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood may include:

Negative thoughts about yourself, other people or the world
Hopelessness about the future
Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of the traumatic event
Difficulty maintaining close relationships
Feeling detached from family and friends
Lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed
Difficulty experiencing positive emotions
Feeling emotionally numb

Changes in physical and emotional reactions

Symptoms of changes in physical and emotional reactions (also called arousal symptoms) may include:

Being easily startled or frightened
Always being on guard for danger
Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much or driving too fast
Trouble sleeping
Trouble concentrating
Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior
Overwhelming guilt or shame

SUICIDE IN NAVY SEAL VETS

Suicide in Navy Seal vets is not that commonly heard of. Especially for how mentally strong they are but a Seal still goes through a lot and can see and do some things that could scare their minds for forever and leave them broken and lost and scared and make them suicidal.

Navy Suicide Data

2019	Total
Active Component	12
Reserve Component	1
Previous Month (February 2019)	Total
Active Component	4
Reserve Component	0

Active Component
Calendar Year	Total	Rate
2006	32	9.1
2007	37	10.9
2008	38	11.5
2009	44	13.3
2010	38	11.6
2011	52	15.9
2012	58	18.1
2013	41	12.7
2014	54	16.6
2015	43	13.1
2016	52	15.9
2017	65	20.1
2018	68 (preliminary)	21 (preliminary)

Note: For comparison, the most recently available demographically adjusted civilian rate from 2016 is 26.8 per 100,000. This rate is adjusted for males aged 17-60.

Reserve Component
Calendar Year	Total
2006	13
2007	6
2008	10
2009	8
2010	5
2011	7
2012	8
2013	5
2014	15
2015	14
2016	10
2017	9
2018	11 (preliminary)

HOMELESS VETEREANS

There is a large number of homeless Vets out there and some are Navy Seals. It is kinda rare to hear about a Navy Seal being homeless but it does happen a lot and there are several homeless Navy Seal vets. I could not find precise data on homeless Navy Seals but the data i have collected is of homeless vets in general.

The number of veterans living in shelters or on the streets dropped by about five percent between January 2017 and January 2018 — from about 40,000 to nearly 37,900 — despite slight increases on the West Coast, according to the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs.

The decline followed a slight uptick in the previous yearN

“Our nation’s approach to ending veterans homelessnes is working,” HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson said Thursday in a conference call with VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.

The new data also shows a 10 percent drop in homelessness for women veterans over the reporting period, from 3,571 to 3,219.

“It’s not good enough, but it’s better,” Wilkie said, adding that continuing declines in the estimates for the number of homeless veterans on any given night will depend upon providing the services many homeless veterans will need once they find housing through the HUD-VASH (Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) voucher program.

“You get into an endless cycle if you don’t address the other issues” that can leave a veteran on the street, such as drug and alcohol addiction, Wilkie said.

He called homelessness “part of a series of larger crises” involving suicide rates, mental health issues and opioid addiction among veterans.

“It’s a difficult problem,” Carson said, “because not every veteran is going to come to us and say: ‘Please help.'”

Despite the overall decline in veterans homelessness, there were slight increases in West Coast big cities, said Norm Suchar, director of Special Needs Assistance Programs at HUD, who joined the call.

Wilkie cited West Los Angeles, where he said about half of the homeless veterans were from the Vietnam era and were suffering from “many problems building for 50 years.”

The overall decline through January 2018 followed a slight increase in veterans homelessness in the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration, from 39,471 to 40,020, according to HUD figures.

Unlike the previous administration, Wilkie and Carson did not attempt to set a date for ending the problem of veterans’ homelessness entirely.

In 2010, President Barack Obama and then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki set the ambitious goal of getting all veterans housed by 2015.

The Obama administration’s effort resulted in a dramatic decline, from 74,000 homeless veterans in 2010 to about 47,700 in 2015, but the number still stood at about 39,400 when Obama left office, according to HUD figures.

Carson would only say that the goal for the Trump administration was to get all veterans housed “as soon as possible.”

“We owe it to our veterans to make certain they have a place to call home,” Carson said. “We’ve made great strides in our efforts to end veteran homelessness, but we still have a lot of work to do to ensure those who wore our nation’s uniform have access to stable housing.”

The latest figures, the result of surveys of homeless veterans, showed that about 23,000 veterans, from the total homeless count of 37,878, were living out of shelters and about 14,500 were on the street in what HUD called “places not meant for human habitation.”

Wilkie and Carson said that three states — Virginia, Delaware and Connecticut — and 64 communities nationwide had “effectively ended” veterans homelessness. The list of the 64 communities can be found here:

https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/communities-that-have-ended-homelessness/