Photo by Taylor Bright.
Amanda Gale Parker, a veteran of the U.S. Army, talks about her path to wellness.
Maybe the details aren’t important now. Maybe it’s best to keep them in the past.
Amanda Gale Parker weighs what’s important to her story. Is it being dragged around the country as a child with a hippie mother? Is it the trauma she suffered in the military? Is it the way she coped with it? Is it a recognition of her “authentic” self that she has found after the dark storms?
Parker, a U.S. Army veteran turned Homewood housewife, turned Realtor, now looks back at the moments that made her and the decision she made to get better.
“It’s when you hit that darkness that you either are done, done or you get help,” she said. “There’s not a lot in between. And, I don’t think that’s specific to the military. I think it’s every human.”
Parker used alcohol as her medication of choice.
“You just numb yourself and you hope all of the little boxes full of experiences stay shut, until they don’t, because they don’t stay shut,” Parker said.
Then there comes a reckoning.
“And then, at some point, you can’t drink enough,” she said.
That’s when she decided to get help. She found Alabama Veteran, a group that helps veterans with their mental health. Through them, she was able to get more help at the Veterans Administration. She has now been sober for more than 1,000 days.
Alan Cook, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and board member of Alabama Veteran, said the group has a wide range of services to help veterans in their struggles, from retreats to connecting veterans with the services they need to get help. They are currently in the process of building a permanent veteran wellness community in Lincoln called Dovetail Landing, where veterans will be able to receive help and job training.
Veterans are more prone to mental health issues than almost any segment of society. They accounted for 18% of Alabama’s suicides even though they make up only 9% of the population, according to the Alabama Department of Veteran Affairs.
The No. 1 factor in veterans’ struggles is re-entering society, Cook said. Veterans are given little time to transition from military life to civilian life, often only one or two weeks.
“Now I feel lost,” Cook said. “Not only do they get left behind, now that mental health starts to impact them. Now they don’t have a structured living environment. Now they have to focus on how to live and provide for a family. A lot of veterans start to feel the anxiousness, the depression.”
On top of that, Cook said, veterans often suffer from survivor’s guilt.
One message Cook hopes to impart through Alabama Veteran is bringing these issues that are often hidden into the light.
“It’s OK not to be OK,” Cook said. “We want to destigmatize it. We’re trying to normalize it. The sooner we start to normalize it and provide resources to veterans, the better we’re going to be.”
The message Parker wants to get across, especially for veterans, is there’s help and it’s OK to reach out for it.
“Reach out, talk to someone,” Parker said. “Make sure the people you’re talking to don’t have a vested interest in you not changing. ... People really don’t listen until you’re screaming. Veterans don’t ask for help until it’s too late, usually. I just got lucky.”
This story is part of our September series for suicide prevention month. Read our stories on Suicide Prevention Month, the aftermath of a string of suicides at Chelsea High School and suicide rates among senior citizens for more information.
