What Happens to Military Families After a Loved One's Suicide?

Jennifer Barnhill is a columnist for Military.com writing about military families.

When a member of the military community dies by suicide, their neighbors, friends, brothers in arms, and families gather. Those in the community express their grief, offer support, try their best to be a salve, even if they don't know what to say.

"That night we were notified, I had two conversations that I remember," Kristen Christy, Air Force spouse and master resilience trainer for the Air Force and the Army, recalled of the days following one of the worst days of her life. "One was a friend from church, and she came and said, 'Kristen, he's in the better place.' And in the rawness of the moment, I said, 'Why isn't the better place at home or at the dining room table?'"

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Christy's husband had killed himself three days before he was set to accept the rank of colonel.

The other conversation Christy remembered, while mostly focused that day on how to help her two sons, was simple but impactful. Her friend approached her and said, "Kristen, I have no words for you." And gave her a hug.

The military community has expended substantial effort to eliminate suicide. It employs robust, evidence-based suicide prevention strategies, including an emphasis on lethal means safety, promoting mental health care and leveraging civilian partnerships. But are we so focused on suicide prevention that the larger community has neglected the families of the suicides we couldn't prevent? Do we move on too quickly after a death, quietly diminishing support for families to avoid the difficult conversations that are part of grief?

While all loss is devastating, suicide carries additional stigmas. Survivors often ask themselves, "What could I have done?" These internal struggles, coupled with an unpredictable community response, can be devastating. When we respond with platitudes and phrases that make us feel comfortable, we may overlook the needs of the person we are trying to comfort. While there are military programs and resources available to survivors, they may not feel accessible to those who are actively grieving.

And it's not just military spouses and children who are survivors.

Monica Velez grew up in Lubbock, Texas, with her two younger brothers, Jose and Andrew. Jose joined the Army out of high school so he could get an education. Andrew followed his lead and later joined the Army. Tragedy struck their family when Jose was killed in action in 2004 while serving in Iraq. Andrew was told he would be escorting his brother's body home.

"There were several days that my brother Andrew would call me, screaming on the phone for hours and hours and hours, and finally, one day, I couldn't take it, and I tried to call somebody on Fort Hood to go find him," said Velez. "He was just by himself in a hangar on a telephone, hadn't eaten, hadn't slept, had been sleeping near the casket."

Velez shared that Andrew "did not handle it well" and began to look into getting a compassionate reassignment that would allow him to be stationed near his sister, who lived outside of Fort Hood, now renamed Fort Cavazos.

"The day his [compassionate reassignment] paperwork got signed, within the hour, I got a phone call that my brother had died by suicide," said Velez. She was hurled back into grief, but this time her grief was coupled with regret.

"One day I was like, 'OK, I'm OK. I got dressed, I did my hair, I did my makeup, I'm doing good," shared Velez. "And the next day, I'm like, I -- and forgive me -- I'm just going to pee on the bed today. I don't even care. Maybe if I just lie here long enough, I'll just die, and I won't have to deal with this pain anymore."

Those competing emotions and thoughts are very common among family members of those who die by suicide.

"There's a huge shame element," said Matthew Brown, who serves as a commander in the Navy Reserve and is the founder of Chimney Trail Health. Brown founded this organization after a member of his unit died by suicide. "If somebody in their circle or their tribe, so to speak, dies by suicide, they have to overcome this personalization, self-blame and shame before they ever do something for themselves."

Military spouses are not particularly good at asking for help on a good day (speaking from personal experience), let alone on the worst day of their lives. However, not receiving proper support after a death by suicide can be devastating for survivors.

Both of Christy's two sons later attempted suicide, as did Velez, underscoring a chilling statistic: Family members of suicide victims are three times more likely to die by suicide than other grieving families. This is why the Defense Department has expanded its support for survivors beyond next-of-kin notifications given to family members.

All branches have casualty assistance officers who notify families of the death of a service member and provide information on how to file claims and access benefits. While survivors share that their delivery is often stiff and official, they are a useful resource immediately following a loss.

Programs like the Army's Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) offer more continuity, providing financial planning, counseling resources and community events for Gold Star families. However, SOS is not universally accessible, particularly for survivors from other service branches or those stationed farther away from military installations where there are not robust communities.

"The military did a great job right after," said Christy. What was lacking was sustained support from individual community members. She shared that it is not uncommon for the survivors to feel as though they simultaneously lose their loved one and, with them, their connection to the military community. Her sentiment reflects a common refrain: The initial response is often robust, but long-term support is inconsistent. However, things are changing, slowly.

"As we're talking about [suicide] more openly, people now are more likely to come forward [to get help]. … They're not met with the judgment and, you know, the shame and the stigma," said Dr. Carla Stumpf Patton, a suicide survivor and the senior director overseeing suicide prevention and intervention at Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). TAPS is a nonprofit founded in 1994 by survivors to offer resources and peer support to all those grieving a death in the military or veteran community.

"It wasn't that long ago when these organizations now just didn't exist," said Stumpf Patton. "There weren't services for survivors." In the past, suicide survivors would be told they were ineligible for programs, resources and benefits that were available to families whose service members' cause of death were not stigmatized. Because they were not eligible for resources, suicide survivors were often "left alone to figure it out" on their own.

However, Stumpf Patton said that the situation has improved, with more training, conferences and awareness around suicide prevention, intervention and "postvention." Suicide postvention is the organized and immediate response following a suicide that focuses on both short-term and long-term care for survivors.

This change is the direct result of the work of suicide survivors.

Brown left the military to start Chimney Trail Health. Stumpf Patton works at TAPS helping survivors daily. After fellow-survivors helped Velez process her grief, she decided to volunteer with the organization that helped her, the Travis Manion Foundation.

It took Christy years before she was in a place where she could use her experiences to help others. But when she did, she also took aim at eliminating military suicide, by speaking out about her experience, both at home in the U.S. and abroad. Her work ultimately resulted in the establishment of the national suicide hotline, 988, which went live in 2022. Prior to launching 988, people in crisis could call 800-273-TALK (8255), the National Suicide Hotline since 2005. Christy says she pushed for the "three-digit number like 911 to make access easier."

"It is not up to the family going through a trauma [to reach out] because they have those blinders on, the veil of despair and darkness," shared Christy. "It's up to the community members to rally around [survivors], even though it's uncomfortable. … We have to be intentional on still reaching out to those family members."

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a trained crisis counselor, troops, veterans and their loved ones can dial 988, press 1; text 838255; or use the online chat function at www.veteranscrisisline.net.

Related: Military Suicides Rose in 2023, Continuing Upward Trend Pentagon Sees as 'Real Change'