LUBBOCK, Texas, April 18 (UPI) -- The number of soldier suicides this year is most likely due to the redeployment of soldiers with psychiatric illnesses, a U.S. researcher says.
David Rudd, Texas Tech University professor and author "Interpersonal Theory of Suicide," said the more a person is exposed to violence or death, the more that person loses anxiety about death. This specifically applies to soldiers living in a war zone because the interaction with death makes it more probable that these people will kill themselves when they get depressed or anxious.
"It's a consequence of killing people," Rudd said in a statement. "War is about killing people and when you train young men and women to kill people, some of them are going to have a difficult time doing it. And then if they end up killing civilians as well as combatants, they're going to have an even more difficult time."
Fear of death tends to be protective to someone who is at risk of suicide, Rudd said.
"If someone is depressed and thinking about killing themselves, it's a good thing to be anxious about dying," Rudd said. "Being fearful of death can actually be protective."
Effective treatment immediately after the emergence of symptoms would help, but the treatment would be virtually negated once the patient goes back into combat, Rudd said.
