National Military Appreciation Month: Joanna Charnas Shares "A Hero's Suicide"
A HERO'S SUICIDE b y Joanna J. Charnas This following essay was written in 2017 but has not been previously published. Earlier this week I learned that one of my former patients killed himself. I’m devastated and can’t stop thinking about him. His name was Ryan Larkin. Ryan was a Navy SEAL. He completed four tours of duty, two in Iraq and two in Afghanistan as a corpsman. Ryan arrived at the inpatient psychiatry ward of the hospital that employs me four weeks prior to discharging from the Navy, and he remained with us for a month. While he was in our care, I became concerned about Ryan’s treatment. His attending psychiatrist was a skilled and caring provider, but the other players in the larger mental health system seemed mostly fearful of Ryan. Fear is not an optimal state in which to deliver care. My colleagues repeatedly expressed concern about his opioid use and labeled him “drug seeking.” In 2016 the country had a new awareness of the burgeoning opioid abuse epidem