Have you ever known someone who committed suicide?

[kiddykat]

Someone very close to me committed suicide.. and I don't think he was selfish in any way.. in fact, he was the most selfless person I knew. Genuine, caring, and a bit misunderstood.

He was an immigrant who spoke hardly any English. Everywhere he went, he was pretty much outcasted. When his support system left him, he was all alone, and committed suicide. On top of that, he survived being beaten in a re-education camp from where he was from.. lots of painful stories in his life.

In the end, all he needed was someone to listen to him. I think a lot of people who commit suicide feel extremely lonely inside. All they need is for someone to understand/hear them out.

 

[Totenkindly]

Thread derail moved here.

(Sorry, I should have done this before rather than just commenting on it.)

 

[proximo]

Getting near to double figures... I did a lot of drugs in my teens, and whilst I became a parent at just past my 20th birthday and this forced me to calm down and kick the habit, most of the people I hung out with had no such compelling reason, and so carried on through their 20's. And I've had to watch as they've dropped, one by one, as I got closer to 30. There are only two still alive, of the old crew, the other two besides me that quit, though they quit a lot later than I did.

So far 8 have died - 5 known suicides, and 3 dubious cases, can't tell whether it was an intentional overdose or accidental. In most of the definite cases, it's been the general paranoia and other screwed up shit the drugs did to their brains.

I did know one who committed suicide who wasn't on drugs or anything, when I worked at a community centre that helped people in deprived areas. She felt that she was the world's worst mother (she really wasn't that bad!), and kept trying to get her kids fostered in what she called "better homes", but they didn't qualify. In the end she killed herself by jumping out in front of a moving train, and her suicide note said that now she believed her kids would be free from her and have a shot at life.

I don't think you get to a state like that without being first pretty unbalanced, so the reasoning isn't likely to seem familiar or relate-able to most people