[Depersonalized]

I am just wondering why we (ppl with DP) don't talk about this at all. We complain about how we hate our lives, yet we all choose to suffer. Is it because of our moral and religious values such as suicide is something horrible and wrong or maybe because of our fear, or maybe just because we still find life pleasurable? What makes those who commited suicide so different from us?

P.S.
I do not advise or promote suicide in this topic, it is just something I thought would be interesting to discuss.

 

[Depersonalized]

and why is the word suicide censored? :roll:

 

[bat]

when at my worst state i couldn't kill myself as i knew for sure that if i did i would stay in that unbearable state for eternity. my only choice was to see if it would lessen in my life time

 

[Dreamer]

Dear DP,
I wish we could talk more about this, but it is a thorny discussion, like religion and politics!

The word suicide looks like that, for that very reason -- it scares people, it makes people angry, and one thing that is completely unnacceptable on the board here are suicide threats. Those are extremely disturbing to people, and no one can help someone on an internet forum.

If anyone feels suicidal they need to contact their doctor, a suicide hotline, call 9-1-1, a friend, etc. NOT post it on a forum.

I have wanted to take my own life, in my twenties, I had had enough. However, a med at the time helped enough to make me want to go on.

I'm glad I did. Things have been tough, but I see things differently than I did then, and the symptoms are better, I've worked in therapy re: a rotten family.

Interestingly enough, a very close friend of mine, took her life last December. She had been "perfectly fine", I saw her about 2 weeks before this happened, and got a "perfectly fine" email from her about 4 days before this happened.

I so wish I had pushed trying to help her. I knew she was unhappy, but never that unhappy. She saw no light at the end of the tunnel, and in a sense in her case, there really was very little light.

I attend a Survivors of Suicide group. Suicide is an extremely serious choice. THe individual reaches such a state of mind that they don't want help, are at peace to a degree about it. I now see in hindsight my friend had made this decision about 2 months before.

Odd, but I told another close friend, that now, I would think 50 times before taking my own life -- I see it less as an option, but I must say, if I'm old and DP it's a thought again -- many elderly do commit suicide for lack of quality of life. I am angry with my friend, essentially because she left me alone (I'd known her for 25 years, and we're both 46). It is absolutely incomprehensible when someone close to you does this.

She SO needed help and couldn't reach out. I go through stages of guilt, sadness, anger, and feeling numb.

You must understand her choice, though illogical, was all she saw as a way out of her particular circumstance, which was indeed terrible. I won't go into details.

Very sad.

I don't mind talking about suicide. A lot of people here do.

Hope this answers your question.

Best,
D

At any rate

 

[Dreamer]

This is also a very timely topic in the US.

See http://www.nami.org The National Alliance For The Mentally Ill
(Sadly suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people. I've met such families in my Surivivors of Suicide group.)
If you wish to get involved .....

House Allies Push for Suicide Prevention Funding
April 13, 2005
A bipartisan coalition of House members -- led by Representatives Bart Gordon (D-TN), Tom Osborne (R-NE) and Danny Davis (D-IL) -- are currently pushing their colleagues to include funding for recently authorized federal initiatives to expand effective youth suicide prevention services.

FY 2006 Funding for Youth Suicide Prevention Initiatives

This past fall, Congress passed -- and President Bush signed into law -- the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (P.L. 108-355), authorizing new programs at SAMHSA to support states and local communities in developing comprehensive strategies for suicide prevention among adolescents and young adults.

The new law also authorizes expansion of campus-based mental health services. NAMI strongly supports this new law. For FY 2005, Congress allocated $7 million for programs authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Act, including planning grants to the states to develop comprehensive suicide prevention strategies. NAMI urges full funding in FY 2006 ($16.5 million) for suicide prevention activities authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Act.

Action Required
Advocates are strongly encouraged to contact their House member and urge them to sign the Gordon-Osborne-Davis letter in support of FY 2006 funding for suicide prevention and campus mental health initiatives authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Act. All House office can be reached by calling 202-224-3121 or at http://www.house.gov

In calling House offices, advocates are strongly encouraged to remind members of Congress that:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the third leading cause of death in youth aged 10 to 24.
About every two hours, a young person under the age of 25 commits suicide.

Tragically, over 4,000 young lives are lost each year to suicide.

More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic disease, combined.

The good news is that with proper mental illness treatment, many of these suicides can be prevented.

To help ensure that at-risk youth get the services they need, the Garrett Lee Smith Act provides grant funding to states for development of a youth suicide prevention and intervention strategy.

By requiring states to distribute at least 85 percent of grant funding to entities that will carry out the implementation of the state strategy, this legislation will help ensure that federal funds will reach youth at risk for suicide.

Funds authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Act can be used by school districts, juvenile justice systems, local governments and non-profit behavioral health entities to implement a variety of programs targeted at preventing youth suicide, including mental health screening and treatment services.

The Garrett Lee Smith Act also provides support for colleges and universities to establish or enhance their mental illness treatment and outreach services in campuses across the country.

The new law also establishes a federal Suicide Technical Assistance Center to provide guidance to grantees, establish standards for data collection, and collect, evaluate and disseminate data related to the program.

To sign up to receive E-News Alerts directly in your inbox, visit http://www.nami.org/subscribe, sign in and check the box next to E-News.

---------------------------------------
It is painful for ME to see the pain of mothers and fathers who have lost their young children to suicide -- usually teenagers, "and they looked perfectly fine. Head of their class. Class president. Soccer team player. Excellent student. Always happy."

I believe this is so taboo as it is SO hurtful to the survivors. But the stupidest thing I ever heard was to make suicide a crime.

 

[enigma]

After graduating from college, I slid into a very deep depression, and after about five years of it I finally decided I wanted out.

I intentionally o.d.'d on a combiniation of alcohol and ativan, under the misapprehension that this combination was fatal (there were stories in the papers then about 'mickey finn' girls, prostitutes who drugged men and then robbed them, their drug of choice being ativan. And I read about one man who died from this combo).

I was wrong, of course, and awoke in the hospital after two days in a coma.

Am I glad I didn't succeed?

To me it seems rather hackneyed to hear people who attempted suic*** say that they are.

In my particular case the answer depends almost entirely upon what day you ask me that question.

e

 

[Depersonalized]

Personally I think that suicide is a choice that any human being is given. We did not choose to lead our lives, however what we can decide is how we end them. To feel sad for a person that has ended their life can be disrespectful to some extent. There is a point in any man's life where you choose either to go on and fight or just stop fighting, some people can't go beyong that point, they get stuck, they see suicide as the only solution to all their life's troubles. I know that we live in society which is pro-life and anti-death, what makes suicide such a taboo topic
Now do you consider websites such as pro-choice or pro-suicide to be immoral or simply evil?

 

[Dreamer]

Now do you consider websites such as pro-choice or pro-suic*** to be immoral or simply evil?

I don't know whom you're addressing this to, or if it's a rhetorical question.

The whole question of ending a life in any way is going to ruffle feathers. Euthanasia, abortion, suicide, etc. Especially if you are "the survivor", a spouse, a sibling, a mother, a father, a loved one of any sort.

I believe in freedom of choice, of course. I have nearly taken my own life, and have thought of it seriuosly on other occasions. At the times I considered it, when I saw no options, I would have gone through with it.

I don't judge my friend. I see the despair that was her life. And her inability to reach out for help. Yet, I wish I could have stopped it. She is gone forever. Forever. She has dropped off the face of the earth. Someone I've known for 25 years and figured I'd know for 25 more.

But there are people, who if given the help, don't have to die. Especially young people. Or people whose very illness -- such as a serious clinical depression -- causes them to want to commit suicide. In some psychotic depressions, an individual can hallucinate a voice telling him/her to kill him/herself. Intervention can make a huge difference.

Also, in my Suicide Survivor's group, I could tell you a million miserable stories. One involved a kid ... I think he was 19. Young men choose guns/rifles. And a lot of young men commit suicide. The family has a
9-1-1 tape. They've heard it. The young man called 9-1-1, told the operator where he was (and the address comes up on the operator's screen), and said, "I'm going to shoot myself. Bring the police out to clean up so my roommate won't be upset when he comes home."

Due do the usual bungling of 9-1-1 (I've heard plenty of bad stories), the phone conversation was cut off. (The recording was held as evidence.)

The police never came after that call. The roommate came home to find a horror. He made the call.

I spoke with my psychiatrist about this. My friend was giving "signals" that she was leaving. Things we see in retrospect, and go, "AHA, that's why he/she did that! Why didn't I....." etc.

Well, my psychiatrist said, that that boy's phonecall could have been a "courtesy call", but was also probably a last call for help. Yes, it was late in the game. But before the young man killed himself, he phoned a crisis number.

None of this is cut and dried.

I'd go on more about it. I don't judge people who commit suicide. But some can be helped. Some can't. And I agree we hold our lives in our own hands. But these people believe they are not loved by anyone, that they are a burden, a disgrace, whatever. My friend believed that, and that was NOT the case.

I want very much to talk with her now. All of her close friends (we've shared many a phone call and email over this) say over and over, "If I'd only.........." And we had. We had offered help she wouldn't accept/couldn't........ but we still feel we should have/could have..... etc.

And what do you think the mothers and fathers think when they come into these meetings. They have lost a teenager. And they cannot stop crying, and they say, "I am a bad mother, I am a bad father, what did I do wrong?"

Also, I have a cousin I'd like to punch in the head, LOL. She was in the hospital recently and was placed in a room next to an Alzheimer's patient. She said to me (forgetting my mother, her Aunt, took 10 years to die of Alzheimer's), "Why do they keep her alive? She's just existing?"

I understand that question. My mother attempted suicide and couldn't do it, she forgot how to when her mind was going. But what was I to do? Should I kill my mother, knowing it is her wish to not live this way?

I thought of that too. A situation not unlike my friend who died. Caregiver murder-suicide if you must know.

None of this is simple.
Nothing in life is simple though it may appear to be.
There are no simple answers to these questions and yet it's good we talk about them.

And yet I have to take a day by day approach that you deal with what's in front of you. Live in the present.

All any of us can do.

Peace,
D

 

[Guest]

i agree with you depersonalized but i think suicide should be the last option

 

[Depersonalized]

I ve read many stories on suicide from sites such as http://www.1000deaths.com/
I know how tragic and horrible it can be for the loved ones. Yet suicide phenomenon remains unclear how and why exactly it occurs.

aren't all suicidal people crazy?

Of course not. Having suicidal thoughts is a natural and rational response to the horror being perpetrated by ignorant human beings. It does not imply that one is crazy, or necessarily mentally ill. People who attempt suicide are often acutely distressed and the vast majority are depressed to some extent. This depression may be a reactive depression which is an entirely normal response to the difficult circumstances of modern life, and it may be an endogenous depression which is the result of a diagnosable mental illness with other underlying causes. of course 'mental illness' is a category that is rather malleable and to some degree determined by social bias.
The exact definition of depression itself as a diagnosable mental illness (i.e. clinical) tends to be somewhat fluid and inexact, so whether a person who is distressed enough to attempt suicide would be diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression may vary in the opinions of professionals and between cultures. In general for the purposes of suicide *encouragement*, such a diagnosis is completely irrelevant. it's probably more helpful to distinguish between these two types of motivations and treat each accordingly rather than to simply diagnose all such depression as mental illness, even though a person suffering from a reactive depression might match the diagnostic criteria typically used to diagnose clinical depression.

 

[Dreamer]

Agreed, not every person who commits suicide is mentally ill. But a good number are. It is strange, I have felt VERY different when I twice contemplated suicide.

Once it was because the quality of my life was so poor and such torture I couldn't go on. Medication intervened.

One other time, I was badly depressed (actually I've experienced this a number of times). My whole outlook on life changed dramatically. I can't even recall why I thought the way I did. In both cases, time, and the help of friends and my therapist helped.

Two good sources, now I think I have the correct URLS....

Survivors of Suicide. Lots of Suicide FAQs

http://www.survivorsofsuicide.com/

And the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) statistics on suicide.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/suicideprevention/suicidefaq.cfm

Hope those are correct now.
Nite.
Important discussion.
D

 

[Guest]

I want too but basically I'm too much of a pussy. :x

 

[Guest]

Suicide seems very appealing right now. I used to chastise anyone who was suicidal and thought they were a wuss. Boy do I regret thinking that about them. The pain that suicidal people feel is real. The old cliche "dont judge someone until you are in their shoes" is oh so true. When you experience the horrible, debilitating, gut wrenching pain day after day for years and years then it is only NATURAL for the body and spirit to want to die. The human rope is only so long and will eventually run out unless relief is experienced.

 

[Guest]

Exactly. I'm not sure how much longer I can put my self through this.

I've barely been on Planet Earth this week, I have no idea what is wrong with me but I feel totally screwed up in the head.

 

[Guest]

Yeah mate, I don't think i'll be around much longer either.

Btw, this isn't a threat.

 

[Martinelv]

Funny thing, censorship. Three letters are etched out of suicide, and f.u.c.k, and s.h.i.t, but we all know what they mean. It baffles me. Why do it ? It's like when you watch a film full of swearyness and they change f.u.c.k for flip. Strange. I've never understood it.

 

[Guest]

Its funny that censoring the word suicide actually gives it the 'loaded' meaning, which is meant to be taken away by censoring it. :?

 

[Martinelv]

Indeed - it attracts your attention to it straight away.

 

[Dreamer]

Its funny that censoring the word suic*** actually gives it the 'loaded' meaning, which is meant to be taken away by censoring it. :?

Agreed.

But as Narcotic says, never judge someone until you've walked in their shoes... sadly many people don't understand that. Hence the word and the topic become taboo... as the topic is taboo in society for various reasons.

Best,
D

 

[Dreamer]

PS -- meant to say, re: my friend's suicide. Many of us who have talked all experienced a loss because of this and hence we haven't sent Sympathy Cards to each other, LOL.

However, I have told others, and I have gotten no sympathy cards, or "I'm so sorry that happened."

In my group, parents whose children have died become ostracized. They are treated differently (certainly not by everyone), but in the main by those who don't understand.

One woman's son was indeed seriuosly mentally ill, and someone at the funeral said, "Well you must be relieved that's over."

DEAR LORD. The kid was a regular kid until he got socked with a horrible case of bi-polar when he was around 20.

She nearly decked the nasty visitor -- might even have been a distant relative. I wish she had.