Why Suicide Prevention Awareness Campaigns May Be Hurting Veterans and First Responders

by Dr. Shauna Springer

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time often marked by well-intentioned campaigns aimed at reducing suicide and encouraging help-seeking. Slogans like “It’s okay not to be okay,” “It takes courage to ask for help,” and “You are not alone” appear across social media, posters, and billboards. But these efforts are missing the mark—especially when it comes to veterans and first responders.

For over two decades, I’ve worked extensively with those who have a “warrior spirit” – those with an ethos of service, those who protect and defend us. And it is clear to me that the September’s multitude of “suicide prevention awareness campaigns” only demonstrate the culture and trust gap between veterans and first responders and eco-system of those who hope to support them.

The first question we should ask ourselves is this: Who are these awareness campaigns designed to target?

Presumably, they’re meant to reach those impacted—specifically, veterans and first responders. Yet members of both of these communities are already painfully, acutely aware that suicide is a devastating problem. The warfighters I serve, support, and partner with have often been pallbearers at numerous funerals of people they love like family—irreplaceable people they would have died for in battle.

Police officers are constantly alerted to suicide deaths within the ranks. Often, it is those least expected to die by their own hand, including members of their peer teams or those in command roles. Firefighters serve deep in the trenches of the darkest, most hopeless valleys of human experience. They are often the first on scene, the first to try to intercede when someone is in desperate pain, the first to attempt resuscitation—sometimes taking risks with their own health—and the first to find the devastating results of completed suicides, often many times within a typical career.

Exposure to suicide on the job is amplified by private, personal impacts. Suicide cuts very deep within the veteran and first responder communities. The data are clear: veterans, police officers, and firefighters have higher rates of suicide than their civilian counterparts (2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report; Belen, 2025; Carr, 2022; O’Brien and Campbell, 2021; 2016 report; 2019 report; 2021 survey on wildland firefighters; Violanti and Steege, 2021; Violanti et al., 1996). Veterans and first responders do not need more “awareness.”

In fact, awareness campaigns often make protectors and defenders feel exposed—as though they are in a metaphorical fishbowl to be pitied by outsiders. Over-focusing on statistics and “hand-wringing” without presenting resources, strategies, and effective, culturally informed solutions only increases feelings of helplessness. As one of the warriors in my life put it: “Awareness campaigns that tell us how many of us are taking our lives every year, or every minute, make us feel like suicide is a runaway train that cannot be stopped.”

In addition, awareness campaigns can amplify guilt and shame. Protectors and defenders are not just at elevated risk for suicide; they also carry a deep sense of responsibility. Marine Corps veteran and author Steven Pressfield captures this perfectly in The Gates of Fire when he speaks to “the secret shame of the warrior, the knowledge within his own heart that he could have done better, done more, done it more swiftly…always most pitiless when directed against oneself” (Pressfield, 1998, p. 148).

Research backs this up. Maguen and colleagues (2021) found that soldiers who return from deployment and feel they were responsible for the death of others—either fellow soldiers or civilians—have elevated suicidal thoughts or behaviors. The responsibility they feel intensifies guilt, shame, and self-blame. Suicide prevention awareness campaigns often do the same, increasing their risk as a result.

When a fellow veteran or first responder dies by suicide, it’s not uncommon for survivors to internalize it as a personal or collective failure. “Why didn’t I see the signs?” or “What could I have done differently?” are haunting questions that often remain unanswered. Campaigns that oversimplify suicide prevention as a matter of “reaching out” or “being there” can reinforce the idea that someone failed their friend or partner—turning awareness into blame.

Additionally, the phrase “reach out” often feels hollow within the culture of protectors and defenders—a culture built on strength, resilience, and stoicism. Those with a warrior spirit are professionally skilled at compartmentalizing their private pain. Their inherent resilience means they continue to be operational even when dying inside. Admitting struggle or vulnerability can feel like a betrayal of their professional identity.

When anyone, especially an outsider, tells a veteran or first responder to “just reach out,” it is like telling a drowning person to swim harder—oversimplifying the problem without addressing the underlying causes.

Moreover, these campaigns often don’t account for the systemic and cultural factors that contribute to suicidal despair. The culture and trust gap between those within and outside these communities, moral injuries, survivor guilt, experiences of betrayal (including a perceived lack of tangible, practical support), and cultural stigma around mental health all play significant roles. Focusing only on individual awareness or behavior change ignores the deeper structural factors and invisible injuries that may drive suicide attempts more than trauma exposures.

It’s time for a different approach—one centered on trust, peer support, and meaningful connection with “Docs” who understand. Veterans and first responders need access to trust-based relationships where they are truly safe. They need access to support without fear of judgment or career repercussions.

I’m opening up access within my latest venture, Thin Line Advisory, to give members of these communities specific, warrior-informed insights that can help them gain traction with mental warfare and navigate challenges without professional consequences. I’m also working to equip and resource peer support teams to become a force multiplier for the incredibly positive impact a well-supported peer team can make in keeping more people in the fight.

It’s time to shift from awareness to action—investing in culturally respectful, culturally informed approaches where conversations about mental warfare are normalized and supported, not shamed or minimized.

Awareness is not enough. It never was, and it certainly isn’t now. For protectors and defenders—who have faced life-and-death situations and who carry a thousand pounds of grief—we must do better. The work must go deeper than hashtags and posters. Veterans and first responders need to know that healing is possible—not because someone told them it is, but because they’ve seen it modeled, supported, and respected within their own ranks.

Connection is the most powerful form of suicide prevention we have. It’s time our campaigns reflect this truth—not just in words, but in practice.

References

Belen, V. Jan 25, 2025. LA Wildfires Stress Firefighters, Highlighting Mental Health Needs. THIN LINE NEWS. Sourced online 9/13/25 (LINK to article)

Carr, J. 2022. “Overworked California firefighters struggle with PTSD, suicide, fatigue, intensifying wildfires. CAL MATTERS. Sourced online (LINK to article)

Maguen, S., Tsai, J., Bosch, J., Knight, S. J., Garvert, D. W., Woolston, A., & Neylan, T. C. (2021). Association between responsibility for the death of others and postdeployment mental health and functioning in US soldiers. JAMA Network Open, 4(11), e2130810. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.30810 (JAMA Network)

O’Brien, P. and Campbell, D.G. (2021) Wildland Firefighter Psychological and Behavioral Health: Preliminary Data from a National Sample of Current and Former Wildland Firefighters in the United States. Sourced online 9/13/25 (LINK to article)

Pressfield, S. (1998). Gates of fire: An epic novel of the battle of Thermopylae. Doubleday.

Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders (2016). Sourced online 9/13/25. Ruderman White Paper on Mental Health and Suicide of First Responders – Ruderman Family Foundation (Wednesday, 9/24/25)

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2022). 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report. Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2022/2022-National-Veteran-Suicide-Prevention-Annual-Report-FINAL.pdf

Violanti, J. M., & Steege, A. (2021). Law enforcement worker suicide: an updated national assessment. Policing (Bradford, England), 44(1), 18–31.

Violanti JM, Vena JE, Marshall JR. (1996). Suicides, homicides, and accidental death: a comparative risk assessment of police officers and municipal workers. Am J Ind Med. Jul;30(1):99-104. 

__________________________________________

Dr. Shauna Springer – known as “Doc Springer” in the military community, is one of the nation’s leading experts on trauma, military transition, and close relationships. As Chief Psychologist of Stella Center, she works to advance a new model for the treatment of trauma that fuses biological and psychological interventions. Her book WARRIOR: How to Support Those Who Protect Us brings the worlds of the warrior and those they protect together to shine new light on things that many thought we understood: Trust, Stigma, Firearms, The Imploding Mind, and Connection. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.