Suicide Awareness Month: What Veterans and Their Families Should Know

If you're worried about yourself or someone else right now, call one of these before you read any further:

Combat Stress: 0800 138 1619
Samaritans: 116 123

Every September, Suicide Awareness Month brings a wave of statistics and campaigns. For the Armed Forces community, it's worth pausing on why this one is different. Younger male veterans, especially those who served in the Army and left at lower ranks, are more likely to die by suicide than their civilian peers. That's not a claim we're making lightly, it's what researchers at the Forces in Mind Trust and King's College London have found, repeatedly, over several studies.

Why veterans are more at risk

There's no single explanation. It's usually several things arriving at once, right when someone has the least support to deal with them.

Leaving the military often means losing structure, identity and belonging all in the same few months. The people who understood service life aren't around anymore, and building an equivalent civilian network takes time most people don't have. PTSD and other conditions that were managed or pushed down while serving can surface once the job, and the routine that came with it, disappears. Chronic pain from service-related injuries is a well-known driver of depression and suicidal thinking in its own right. Relationships strain under the pressure of service and then strain again during the adjustment afterwards. Money is often tightest in the first months after discharge, right when everything else is unsettled too. And alcohol, used more heavily across the veteran community than in the general population, tends to mask problems until it makes them worse.

None of this is about apportioning blame. It's about knowing the pattern well enough to catch it early.

Signs to watch for

Service culture trains people to hold it together. That's part of what makes this hard: someone can be in serious difficulty without ever looking like they're in crisis. A few things worth paying attention to, in yourself or someone you care about:

• Pulling away from people, or from things they used to enjoy
• Drinking more, or other behaviour that feels out of character
• Talk of being a burden, or that others would be better off without them
• Giving away possessions or getting affairs in order, with no clear reason
• A sudden calm after a period of visible distress
• Talk of hopelessness, or that nothing is going to change
• Risk-taking that doesn't fit how they'd normally behave

More than one of these at once is worth a direct conversation, or a call to one of the numbers above.

Where to go beyond the helplines

Not everyone in this situation needs an emergency line. Some people just need a door in.

Op COURAGE, the NHS's specialist veterans' mental health service, takes self-referrals, so no GP is needed, and it's staffed by people who understand service life. Combat Stress runs community and residential treatment for more complex or long-standing difficulties; you'll need a referral, but they'll walk you through how. PTSD Resolution offers free therapy for veterans and their families, often without the waiting list that comes with other routes.

There's also a strong network of peer support and activity groups around the country, from walking clubs to horticultural therapy to family counselling, for anyone who'd rather find their way back through people and doing than through a waiting room.

If it's someone you love

Watching a veteran you care about struggle is genuinely hard, and stigma plus stoicism make it harder to know what to say or do. You don't need to find the perfect words. You need to make the call. Combat Stress and Veterans' Gateway both support families and carers directly, not just the veteran themselves, because service reaches the whole household, not only the person who served.

This article is for guidance only and isn't a substitute for medical or clinical advice. If you're concerned about your own mental health or someone else's, speak to a GP or a qualified professional. In an emergency, call 999.

Read Next:

PTSD and trauma

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects a significant number of veterans, particularly those with combat exposure. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and emotional numbness and they don't always appear immediately after leaving service.

Crisis and suicide prevention

Veterans are at higher risk of suicide than the general population. If you or someone you know is in crisis, immediate support is available, no appointment needed.

Op COURAGE

Op COURAGE is the NHS's dedicated mental health service for veterans, reservists, and their families. It covers the full range of mental health needs — not just PTSD — and you can self-refer without seeing a GP first.