Suicide advice

Two summers ago one of my best friends came back to visit her family here in MI. Like any good friend it was just like old times. A month later I was driving through the night to get to her funeral in NY. A few hundred people lined out the door of the funeral all sobbing. No note, no warning. She should have been celebrating a birthday last week. Messes with my mind on a daily basis. Then you talk to friends and what you thought was a statistic is all around. It seems like everyone I talked to had someone close who either had, tried, or even had been their themselves. Now I'm flipping back and fourth from this thread to facebook and stumble upon a link to a friend's blog detailing some depression suicide attempts I never knew about..... Please anyone who is in that dire of circumstances talk to someone, anyone. I think I have a call to make :( Go hug somebody.

It really is hard, I have been there. I started having having suicidal thoughts around 8, 1 failed attempt, and more than a few on the verge, do I jump/pull the trigger, ect moments. The last time I was at that point, my cat saved me.

Now, I find the one thing to keep me going, no matter what, is the sheer audacity to live. If life shovels E36 M3 in your face, ending it is saying "I give up". But to pull thru is to give the middle finger to your problems.

rotard wrote:

mtn wrote:

donalson wrote: and yet another place my lack of compassion separates me from most peoples thoughts (or I'll just say what others thing but refuse to say openly...) I put them right up there with drug addicts... it takes a selfish person for either... don't care what it'll do to others... just about themselves... it's sad to see what it does to family and friends... as has been shown in this thread... *flamesuit on*

When a person is suicidal, they are mentally ill. Often it can be traced back to one event or a series of events that made them that way. In the case that I am involved with, that event was rape.

Thumbs up, it's cool to be an shiny happy person!

Huh? I'm confused by this comment.

Four years ago, I was diagnosed with diabetes. I was whittled down to 140 lbs (from 180), and defecating "gravel" once a week.

Then I got on insulin and it got better. Until my eyesight began to go to Hell. The pain from having no butt to sit on, shaking myself to sleep after going to the bathroom, and topping it off by going nearly blind for three weeks made me think of ending it.

Yes.

I remember saying, with absolute conviction, "Berkley this. If God thinks this is fair, then he's an shiny happy person. berkeley him. I was born with E36 M3 ears and now I can't see. Screw this, I'm gonna check out."

I'm just glad I had enough sense to wait. Everything went back to fairly normal after about a month. But I can see how a certain person just needs a push...

not to be a downer to an already somber thread but recently locally a high school kid was being bullied at school and couldn't take it anymore.

he called his mother at work, said i'm in my closet going to hang myself, by the time she got home it was too late.

If you know someone or some kid who is possibly being bullied at school (i have been through it) talk to them. Show them some Henry Rollins writings (he was bullied in school) and teach them effective ways to overcome it.

People overlook kids being miserable from high school or elementary, but sometimes there is more of a reason why.

I just posted this because the young people suicide thing is getting crazy lately, especially around here due to bullying.

A very good friend did this 24 years ago. To this day, it still affects me, I ask myself 'what got so bad?'. He had a very good job, he and his GF were really close, he had a part time business in partnership with a brother selling windsurfing boards and giving lessons, etc.

His GF and I spent a lot of time discussing it shortly afterward, we came up with theories but no solid reason. Then several years later his oldest brother did the same thing because he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

One of my two best friends in the world is the middle brother from this hard luck family. He was a rock for me during my recent troubles (another story completely, there) and I am really glad he did not choose to follow his brothers.

Cherish your friends and family, folks, because you never know...

I already told the wife that our son (who is only a month old) will not be bullied. If he has a problem and he cannot fix it via passive means (ignorance, teacher/parent intervention) he is allowed to fight back. I figure if someone's gonna start it, and he finishes it, it will only happen once. She was behind me on that. I was bullied for a loooooong time due to my economic status (I lived in an affluent school district, I was the clearance JC Penney kid) among other things, and when I finally said berkeley it, and beat the E36 M3 out of the kid in question, I never had another problem. Let me tell you, I spent plenty of mornings wishing I was dead. I didn't after that.

mndsm wrote: I already told the wife that our son (who is only a month old) will not be bullied. If he has a problem and he cannot fix it via passive means (ignorance, teacher/parent intervention) he is allowed to fight back. I figure if someone's gonna start it, and he finishes it, it will only happen once. She was behind me on that. I was bullied for a loooooong time due to my economic status (I lived in an affluent school district, I was the clearance JC Penney kid) among other things, and when I finally said berkeley it, and beat the E36 M3 out of the kid in question, I never had another problem. Let me tell you, I spent plenty of mornings wishing I was dead. I didn't after that.

Dad taught me how to deal with bullies at a young age. I was probably 5 and the 7 year old next door was relentless. Dad taught me to punch, and said "Nobody EVER forgets a broken nose." Dad was right.

Around 20 years ago when I was unemployed for 6 months. I began to wonder if it would be a way to end my misery. Two college degrees, a long successful work history, etc etc etc and I couldn't even get an interview. Considering the current economy, my situation was trivial. I never got close to doing it, just wondering about it.

I guess at some point pretty much everyone gets into such a crappy spot that they wonder. I have had a couple of '3AM staring into space wondering how the hell will I get out of this nightmare' episodes that I'd just as soon forget about.

^^ Agreed. We've all been there.

Call me a jerk, but I find it helps to make a promise to myself to outlive the person who annoys me, just so I can pee on their grave.

spitfirebill wrote: Around 20 years ago when I was unemployed for 6 months. I began to wonder if it would be a way to end my misery. Two college degrees, a long successful work history, etc etc etc and I couldn't even get an interview. Considering the current economy, my situation was trivial. I never got close to doing it, just wondering about it.

That's the only thing that made me seriously consider it around 15 years ago.

Career success has still eluded me and lately I've thought--"what if I knew then that it really wouldn't get that much better???"

Pretty depressed as of late, but I'm not going to do that to my wife and my widowed Mom.

JoeyM wrote: Call me a jerk, but I find it helps to make a promise to myself to outlive the person who annoys me, just so I can pee on their grave.

Not suicide related, but when my ex-wife and her new husband were building a house, I found out where it was and peeed on their front porch, at the point in time that the framing was done.

RXBeetle wrote: Two summers ago one of my best friends came back to visit her family here in MI. Like any good friend it was just like old times. A month later I was driving through the night to get to her funeral in NY. A few hundred people lined out the door of the funeral all sobbing. No note, no warning. She should have been celebrating a birthday last week. Messes with my mind on a daily basis. Then you talk to friends and what you thought was a statistic is all around. It seems like everyone I talked to had someone close who either had, tried, or even had been their themselves. Now I'm flipping back and fourth from this thread to facebook and stumble upon a link to a friend's blog detailing some depression suicide attempts I never knew about..... Please anyone who is in that dire of circumstances talk to someone, anyone. I think I have a call to make :( Go hug somebody.

This is more common than you'd think. One of my SCCA Worker buddies killed himself (damn near 20yrs ago now)..he'd been to our Region's Xmas party, and seemed to be in absolute bliss around us.

When we finally got permission to enter his house, he had spread all his old pictures over the dining room table, and had a freshly pressed suit on a hanger he'd attached to the light fixture. It was like he'd planned it. To me, this is an eternal "wake-up" call..if one of your friends has been depressed, and suddenly seems "better", it may mean that they've come to the decision to meet oblivion. Talk about it. I sure wish I had..

RXBeetle wrote: Two summers ago one of my best friends came back to visit her family here in MI. Like any good friend it was just like old times. A month later I was driving through the night to get to her funeral in NY. A few hundred people lined out the door of the funeral all sobbing. No note, no warning. She should have been celebrating a birthday last week. Messes with my mind on a daily basis. Then you talk to friends and what you thought was a statistic is all around. It seems like everyone I talked to had someone close who either had, tried, or even had been their themselves. Now I'm flipping back and fourth from this thread to facebook and stumble upon a link to a friend's blog detailing some depression suicide attempts I never knew about..... Please anyone who is in that dire of circumstances talk to someone, anyone. I think I have a call to make :( Go hug somebody.

Make the call. I've done more than one 3am run to save a life. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

friedgreencorrado wrote: <When we finally got permission to enter his house, he had spread all his old pictures over the dining room table, and had a freshly pressed suit on a hanger he'd attached to the light fixture. It was like he'd *planned* it. To me, this is an eternal "wake-up" call..if one of your friends has been depressed, and suddenly seems "better", it may mean that they've come to the decision to meet oblivion. Talk about it. I sure wish *I* had..

You got it right. There is NOTHING more liberating than to realise you can take your own life. Once you get to that point, you suddenly realise that nothing else matters a damn

There are more threats to harm oneself, attempts to harm oneself and actual suicides than many people may think. Most news establishments will never publish the incidents as they are of personal nature. Statistics of threats and attempts are likely unknown as being under reported or being categorized as psychiatric emergencies. Cries for help should never be ignored.

wbjones wrote: told the father of my best friend that he'd quit drinking ... the hardest thing he'd ever done, but felt the best he'd ever felt.... last week came home late one afternoon / evening ... 38 in the mouth, no one has any idea why

I kind of get this one.

Depression runs in my family, and I am lucky to have dodged the worst of it. But when I do get depressed, it's due do to a traumatic event (like my divorce) and it's a years-long process to crawl out of it, even with a lot of therapy and medication. At some point, you do break through it, and you think, "WOW! What a gorgeous day! I'm happy and at peace." And your next immediate thought is, "I need to end it now so that I never, ever sink into that kind of hopeless depression again. Go out on a high note."

Yes, it's twisted and thoughtless. I imagine that thought is very, very hard to resist for someone who battles chronic and deep depression.

its hard for people left behind to understand, to get their head around, that people who have decided on this course of action with deliberateness no longer put a priority on being understood or seeking understanding from others.

The reasons of course will wildly differ from circumstance to person, but they have already mentally 'checked out' so to speak. By the time they succeeded in ending their life, its too late for us left behind to figure out when they stopped placing an importance on the interaction of others, so we're all left with the 'holding the bag' feeling.

Chemical, neurochemical, environmental, circumstantial.... Seeking some level of human interaction, no matter how small, is a normal human response, and if someone turns away from that for whatever combination of those reasons, it is VERY hard to cross back that threshold since you now represent that human contact they no longer value with their existence

Its terribly complicated and sad. and I'm too much the tough-love type to ever try and broach it.

My FiL hung himself at the family home in front of my 15 year old SiL's bedroom. She couldn't live there anymore (no E36 M3), so my young wife and I had a teenager to raise along with our newborn. Unfortunately the damage is done and she has some serious, permanent issues. Selfish act that destroys others more than it destroys yourself

while to us left behind it merely looks selfish, i know the issue is a much deeper detachment, beyond misanthropy.

I'm just saying, i'm not emotionally equipped to sort such things out myself. I'd probably make it worse if I tried... -_-

neon4891 wrote: The last time I was at that point, my cat saved me.

now that's what i call good Bob Costas!

I have an online friend who has tried to kill herself three times... We talk often.. and while she is far too far away for me to do anything if she does it again (georga) I only asked that she let me know... that we are not left wondering what happened