OT: Suicide sucks

[Saint Vitus]

Originally Posted by froze

I Damm it, I gone on to long about something probably not relevant to the post, sorry if I bored you all, maybe I just needed to vent.

Not even, all discussions surrounding this topic are relevant and venting is important as well.

[mikemowbz]

It's tough, man.

The thing about suicide is that it is both completely baffling, and disturbingly understandable. Life can be hard (no matter one's station, advantages, particularities), and our minds are fickle interpreters of the situations we find ourselves in and the prospects contained therein.

I recently found out that an old friend with whom I had lost touch killed himself a few weeks ago in my home town. I would never have guessed.

Thirteen years ago, my best friend killed himself while traveling in Asia. To this day, I have no idea what actually happened - but I can't say that there were not clear signals or that I can look back on our relationship without regret today.

It's not something that processes without tremendous difficulty for folks left behind.

Yup. Suicide sucks.

[binxnyrwarrsoul]

Originally Posted by Saint Vitus

Not even, all discussions surrounding this topic are relevant and venting is important as well.

This, a billion times this. Imo the only hope of preventing, understanding etc. this is communication.

[ripvanrando]

Keith, I am sorry for your loss. I had a good friend as teen kill himself and I had never understood why. I have typed many responses to this thread but deleted them all. I often read some of my posts the next day and shudder. Being in chronic, serious pain does funny things to us. Actually do not post much but want to share my perspective.

The suicide rate for old white males is something like 50/100,000 and a lot of this is due to intractable chronic pain. Now that Doctor's licenses are at risk for prescribing pain medicines, many chronic pain suffers are being denied medicine that keeps them going. We are going to see an increase in suicide amongst old farts. Laying in bed midday recently, I kept thinking how I could go on living like this and in a flash, I realized why some people make the agonizing decision to put their pets down and indeed, why some people kill themselves. I got it.

The only psychological pain I have is dealing with a screwed up healthcare and insurance system. I am probably going to spend my retirement money on surgery overseas but I still have hope and that is what evaporates from those who decide to stop. That dim light at the end of the tunnel gets fuzzy. For me, it is nothing about depression or mental health. For society......never mind, I would just say stuff that others would be uncomfortable with.

[Climb01742]

My sister has (had? more later) a mental illness. When taking her meds, she's ok, relatively. When she's in a VA hospital, she's ok, relatively. When she doesn't take her meds or isn't under care, she isn't ok.

This life hasn't worked out well for her. Marriages didn't work. Jobs lost. Was homeless, living in her car. Our folks left us a small inheritance. A lawyer and I tried to set it up so it could give her some measure of help/security. Without her consent, couldn't. It's gone now.

Helping people can be hard. Example: My sister called me once from a VA hospital. Her take on the situation was, um, confusing. I called the hospital back, spoke to a doctor trying to assess what was going on and because of well-meaning laws designed to protect the mentally ill, he couldn't even confirm she was there, much less any further details.

I don't know where my sister is. I don't know if she's alive. Some awful things happened around the time we were working through the inheritance. Distance seemed the only viable answer.

Life and death are so complex I don't know if any 'knowledge' or opinion or belief is transferrable from one situation to another. I can only speak about mine.

I believe in reincarnation. I believe in karma. I have no idea if these beliefs are 'true' but it's where my life has brought me. My sister is/was dealing with some stuff I only, or anyone could only, know partially. But based on what I know and saw and experienced, this life wasn't bringing her happiness or peace. I didn't and don't want my sister to suffer.

If one day I find out she committed suicide, part of my heart would break. Parts already have about her. But if reincarnation and karma are the ways of the world, maybe my sister, or anyone, is passing from this one attempt to another attempt at life and peace and merit toward others. Maybe her pain will end, or ended, for a bit while her soul waited for its next incarnation.

Who the hell knows? I hope my sister is being cared for...somewhere, in some form. How we see death and suicide depends so much on how we see life and existence. All I can do is try to see my sister through our lives and beliefs. Reincarnation gives me some comfort. I hope it gives/gave her some too...and to anyone who might need comfort...on whatever side of the light we're on.

[nesteel]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

My sister has (had? more later) a mental illness. When taking her meds, she's ok, relatively. When she's in a VA hospital, she's ok, relatively. When she doesn't take her meds or isn't under care, she isn't ok.

This life hasn't worked out well for her. Marriages didn't work. Jobs lost. Was homeless, living in her car. Our folks left us a small inheritance. A lawyer and I tried to set it up so it could give her some measure of help/security. Without her consent, couldn't. It's gone now.

Helping people can be hard. Example: My sister called me once from a VA hospital. Her take on the situation was, um, confusing. I called the hospital back, spoke to a doctor trying to assess what was going on and because of well-meaning laws designed to protect the mentally ill, he couldn't even confirm she was there, much less any further details.

I don't know where my sister is. I don't know if she's alive. Some awful things happened around the time we were working through the inheritance. Distance seemed the only viable answer.

Life and death are so complex I don't know if any 'knowledge' or opinion or belief is transferrable from one situation to another. I can only speak about mine.

I believe in reincarnation. I believe in karma. I have no idea if these beliefs are 'true' but it's where my life has brought me. My sister is/was dealing with some stuff I only, or anyone could only, know partially. But based on what I know and saw and experienced, this life wasn't bringing her happiness or peace. I didn't and don't want my sister to suffer.

If one day I find out she committed suicide, part of my heart would break. Parts already have about her. But if reincarnation and karma are the ways of the world, maybe my sister, or anyone, is passing from this one attempt to another attempt at life and peace and merit toward others. Maybe her pain will end, or ended, for a bit while her soul waited for its next incarnation.

Who the hell knows? I hope my sister is being cared for...somewhere, in some form. How we see death and suicide depends so much on how we see life and existence. All I can do is try to see my sister through our lives and beliefs. Reincarnation gives me some comfort. I hope it gives/gave her some too...and to anyone who might need comfort...on whatever side of the light we're on.

Well said. My mother dealt with mental illness her entire life. As a result, so did her children. Not a fun time, let me tell ya. Poor relationships with her family, which led to us children never really knowing the relatives on her side of the family.
I left home when I was 16, moved back in briefly when I was 18, then moved out of state shortly thereafter. My mother was never really accepting of this, even though my wife and I tried VERY hard to make peace with a woman that wanted none of it. It led to me blocking her from my life, which is pretty damn hard to deal with, but had to be done. It took a long time to make the decision to patch things up with her (10 years without speaking to her, 7 years without actually seeing her).
It came as a hammer blow when my younger sister called to tell me our mother had taken her own life at age 65. My wife and I had a vacation planned, part of which was stopping and talking with my mother. I never called her, as I wanted it to be a surprise.
Going through her apartment, it became evident that she was in failing physical health, and add that to a lifelong battle with significant metal illness, and you sometimes get bad results.
Do I understand why she went that way? Yes.
Do I accept that as her choice to make? Yes. Does society in general? Not really. And I don't care.
Society needs to accept that some people don't wish to linger on in constant pain and declining health.
Am I disappointed that I never got a goodbye, or a chance to tell her I wasn't mad at her? Absolutely. Every damn day.