Read from the bottom up. This is the suicide of rapper Freddy E. What strikes me as odd is that he would twitter "*puts finger around trigger*", and then continue tweeting. One wonders what role drugs played. I sense he was playing around with the idea of killing himself, and probably didn't decide to do it until after his last … Read More
The 1,905 Page Suicide Note
This past Saturday at about 10:50 a.m., a 35 year old man named Mitchell Heisman — a resident of Somerville, Massachusetts — walked into Harvard Yard and shot himself. Heisman who posted a 1,905-page document on suicidenote.info, a website he created, arguing history, politics, religion and death. His mother reportedly told the Crimson to publish his name to let people … Read More
PTSD
A RAND study just showed that something like 20% of all returning servicemembers from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from depression or PTSD. That’s an astounding number — almost 300,000 men and women. But it is just a number. What is it like? Read this post from a vet actually suffering from this syndrome. A sample: So it’s like that — … Read More
Casualties Of War
The other statistic: More than 100,000 of the 750,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have sought treatment for mental problems from the Department of Veterans Affairs, an official said during a hearing on suicides. Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s deputy chief of patient care, told members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that the department’s suicide hotline has received more … Read More
How To Deal With Autistic And Retarded Kids? Tase Them
I wish I was this was a joke: Every time [Rob] woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren’t electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn’t about to be shocked. It was no mystery where this recurring nightmare came from—not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, … Read More
The Fatalities You Don’t Hear About
In my right-hand column, I have a little thingee reporting the current number of U.S. soldiers killed and injured in Iraq to date. Don’t be fooled by the numbers, people. The casualty toll is actually higher. The numbers, for example, don’t take into account people like Specialist Douglas Barber, an Iraqi War veteran who suffered from PTSD. Douglas Barber walked … Read More
The Hidden Cost
A side of the Iraqi War that you rarely read about: Jesus Bocanegra was an Army infantry scout for units that pursued Saddam Hussein in his hometown of Tikrit. After he returned home to McAllen, Texas, it took him six months to find a job. He was diagnosed with PTSD and is waiting for the VA to process his disability … Read More