Military’s mental illness stigma pushed Navy captain to edge; attempted suicide three times

The different way, he explained, was to over-exercise himself to death.

“It was the perfect solution to the problem I had, which was I didn’t want the stigma of suicide,” Kruder said.

Kruder’s over-exercising, together with his 17 hour-a-day job as an executive assistant to a three-star admiral, were taking its toll. It was all part of what Kruder, 47, called his “master plan.”

But what he didn’t expect was his family and friends becoming concerned about his 60-pound weight loss as well as his personality changes.

Then, one morning in 2011, Kruder hit rock bottom.

“We were probably days, hours maybe, away from breaking the marriage up,” Kruder said.

Despite the near constant fighting, Todd and Sharon Kruder had kept their wedding rings firmly on their fingers.

In their 24 years of marriage, they rarely, if ever, took them off until that day.