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Have you ever known someone who committed suicide?

Economica

Dhampyr
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What is your understanding of why they did it?

(No, no one I know has done it, nor am I suicidal myself. The thread idea just came to mind.)
 

ceecee

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Yes. No clue why. I saw no signs, although I'm sure there were some.
 

Queen Kat

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I know two. The first one was already a psychiatric patient. He had these feelings for a long time, told everyone and wrote a depressing blog. The other one was a drug dealer and he just committed suicide out of nothing.
 

INTP

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I know one that did commit and one that might have committed suicide. Neither very well.

One that did commit suicide for sure was alcoholic and used drugs at times. He had some issues with girl and couldnt handle it. Most likely because he had conforted himself too much with alcohol and drugs, instead of learning how to deal with problems.

Other guy was alcoholic + junkie, he was in rehab and after he got out he overdosed after he got out. Dunno for sure if it was accident or if he just couldnt deal life sober and didnt want to be junkie either.

Both good guys, but with alot of problems.
 
P

Phantonym

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No. Not anyone who has succeeded anyway. I heard about the attempt later on and it was a complete shock, to say the least. Thinking back, sure, there must have been signs, but...I can't remember any. That was over ten years ago and we still communicate but we've never talked about it. She never had any counselling either. She's doing fine now.
 

Laurie

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First violin in orchestra did. I didn't know her but obviously I knew her. It was weird, they told us over the announcements. She was a dark type of person but she seemed pretty neat.

An "estranged relative" did, no one was close with them at the time, but it was very hard. It's sort of a secret so I have to be careful, but it was a "close" relative who had deserted their kids to be raised by someone else. Suicide was almost like the final deserting of their kids. It was very sad.
 

Lux

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Yes, I have known five people to do so. Two I think were terrible accidents, the other three were sadly on purpose. I wish they had thought there were other options.
 

Kingfisher

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when i was a kid, kids at my school committed suicide, from the stress and fear associated with our neighborhoods. i didn't know any of them very well though.

when i was 21 my next door neighbor shot himself at his home while i was at home next door. he had been in prison for possesion with intent to sell, and he had been out for several months when he shot himself. i had been trying to help him get a job, but it is very hard for ex-cons to get a legitimate job. he was trying to get legitimate work, trying to change his life. it can be very overwhelming for people who are trying to change their life, but have only ever known one kind of life. it is depressing, in a certain kind of impoverished culture people try very very hard to keep you at their level, to keep you from rising up.

when i was 22 my grandfather committed suicide the day after my grandmother (his wife) died.
 

kyuuei

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Didn't really know him, just witnessed it. I knew of him and was friends with his son.
 

Thalassa

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I know three people who have committed suicide. The first person was a fifteen year old boy I was extremely close to at the ages of twelve and thirteen, he was actually a devout Christian, but suffered from depression and other psychological problems in his home life. Still, it was very shocking to everyone because he was so religious and had a very likable personality. His funeral is one of the most populated I've ever seen. Deeply sad for me personally.

The second was also a teenager with serious depression problems. This was when I was in high school, I wasn't as close to him, but he was like a friend of a friend. His case was a little more...predictable? He fit the stereotypes of listening to heavy metal and having problems in school, etc. Still sad, I think there was more warning there, but how much of one I can't really say since we weren't especially close.

The third was the mother of one of my best friends. She was middle-aged and had been battling serious schizoaffective disorder (basically a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) for over ten years. She was Catholic and left her husband and children to live with her mother after being institutionalized repeatedly. I can't imagine the psychological horrors she went through. She was a very sick woman.
 

Lady_X

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King sns

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No. I'm often the friend that people cry for help too though... Thankfully I haven't lost anyone.
Usually its triggered by some event and the person just needs some coping skills.
 

Halla74

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I girl in my high school hanged herself with a leather strap in her closet. She built a crossbar/support out of spare lumber and anchored it to the top corner of the closet, by the ceiling, got a stool to stand on, then she tied up the leather strap into a noose, put it around her neck. fitted it to the support she built, kicked the stool away friom her and was asphysxiated.

Poor girl, I hope she knew her neck would not break, but I don't think she did. Her Mom found her upon coming home from work. She was still alive. The gril was in the ICU for days, pronounced a vegetable, and they pulled the plug. No note. She had some issues, she was drinking alot, and she was promiscuous, so there was some type of inner turmoil she was fighting, but she never disclosed what it was.

She was a sweet kid. The school had counselors for a few days, and gave kids liberal leave to get over it for a week or so, but then that was that. Done deal.

Mary, may you rest in peace! :jesus:
 

ayoitsStepho

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My grandmother commited suicide by sticking her head in her oven...
It was a really grotesque moment in our lives.

I've gone through the same thing as well. I dont like bringing it up to often, but I did try to kill myself when I was in 8th grade. As you can tell, the attempt didnt work. But that was before I knew who I was, I'd moved 10 times by that point in my life and had no friends at all. I felt like an outsider and it didnt help that this particular group of boys were always picking on me (telling me I was ugly, always pulling my hair and telling me each thing that was horrible about me) and I listened to them. Plus, at that time my mother and I didnt get along. It kinda all blew up in my face when my mother let me know how much she hates me. My dad is an alchoholic and has been for the past 6 years I believe, so that was no help there. I can't say that I WANTED to die, but I didnt feel like anyone cared and I kept reliving the same crap over and over again. I just wanted change, but wasn't wise enough to realise that I can make my own change. So I decided to try to kill myself. At this point I'd had a knife in my room and when I'd been upset, I'd take it and cut parts of my thigh with it. [i wasnt dumb enough to do it on my wrists...but i was dumb enough to do it] So, yes I ended up finding a gun that belonged to my dad at the time, in his closet. So I took it and had no idea how to really work it...well I shot the gun...but I ended up shooting my parents vanity mirror and it went through, straight into the wall.
Well, to end it all my parents found me with the gun. They found out why I had it and I was sent to see a councelor every week for 5 months. That was a horrible time...
 

BlueScreen

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Lots. All for different reasons. One following the murder of a neighbour and being too close to the inquiry, one after moving away from friends to start anew then feeling disconnected and realising what he left behind, one teen who was really nice but became troubled, one guy at school from pressures during final year, one of my students at uni (don't know much about, but I recognised all the signs in hindsight), a sporting teammate who was a brilliant guy suffering depression, best mate maybe (was quite ill (probably terminally) and may have been an accident). There are probably more, but they are the ones that had an impact and stuck with me.
 

poppy

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Yes, a childhood friend. Don't know what his reasoning was, but he had lived a tough life through no fault of his own...

He was a very bright, vibrant, strong individual.

EDIT: I forgot about a few aquaintainces. I can't even pretend to understand their reasons, though I know they suffered from crippling depression.
 

Totenkindly

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I know of people in my broad social circle who have but did not know them personally.

If there aren't just some irrational influences (drugs, booze, etc.) at work, it's usually the culmination of feeling out of control of one's life and that any attempts to change matters is hopeless. The hopelessness and powerlessness is a big factor; suicide seems to be one of the few options that the person has the power left to choose, whether or not that is entirely accurate. I personally think the feelings of powerlessness come from some sort of fear; it isn't that the person is as powerless as they think, instead they are just unable to accept the things they will risk/lose if they make different decisions. (i.e., you can feel trapped in a marriage even though technically you could leave, because you are terrified of what others might think of you if you're in an environment where divorce is not acceptable and you're afraid to leave, so you feel powerless but unable to continue in the marriage; or you might feel ashamed over not making enough money to provide for your family, even though realistically the economy might be hard and many people need two working spouses to make ends meet. Or you might feel your peers will never accept you as you are, so instead you have to pretend to be something you're not... because their lack of approval is somehow really important to you and you're scared of criticism. Etc.)

I have been through a few spots where I was so much on the edge of ending things for prolonged periods of time that I don't know why I am still here. For me, it was much of the above; I was miserable and didn't feel like I could change things within the constraints I was living under because I was afraid of the outcome and who might get hurt (me and others I cared about), yet couldn't continue as I was, and change is hard enough as it is with a good outcome never assured... so death seemed very "safe and easier" by comparison. To live, I had to change the way I viewed the world and accept a lot of the criticism I had been terrified to accept in the past; but that actually made me stronger in the end. Still, when you are in the middle of it, the agony and depression is excruciating; I understand why people sometimes just choose to cash in.

ayoitsStepho said:
I can't say that I WANTED to die, but I didnt feel like anyone cared and I kept reliving the same crap over and over again. I just wanted change, but wasn't wise enough to realise that I can make my own change.

Totally understand, that's sort of the typical feeling I have from many who wrestle with suicide.

My dad is also an alcoholic (and my mom part of that codependent cycle) so like you I felt very alone and powerless -- I had to take care of myself and never really had "parents," and that brings with it a lack of knowledge of how to change, plus a terror of facing the dark alone. Parents with addictions are trapped themselves in these "dead patterns of behavior" with no change that they permit themselves, so I never had it modeled positively for me how change might be possible while preserving the things you love; in fact, addictive patterns FIGHT change, they stabilize into these oppressive frameworks that lock everyone in the most stable pattern to support the dysfunctionality, so changing it often destabilizes the system. When I changed my life finally, my dad started drinking even MORE heavily and the entire family balance was thrown into an uproar... which is even more pressure on the person struggling with suicide and badly needing to make changes if they are to live.
 

LostInNerSpace

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I think the thing to do might be to drill into people that there is always a way out. People will need it when they get that low. They need to know what to do about it because they will not think clearly at that point. I would never do it myself but I've been very low. I came out of it much stronger.
 

Atomic Fiend

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Not personally, I mean I've met people who've killed themselves, but I never actually had any deep relationship with them.
 

bighairything

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I tried to kill myself when I was ten. I took about twelve aspirin, went to sleep, then woke up and was violently sick. I was ill for close to a week after that, unable to keep much food down. Although I've had occasional depressions, I've never felt suicidal in the 21 years since. That 10-year-old doesn't feel like me, he feels like another person, one that's a disturbing mystery to me. I just can't understand why a 10-year-old would do that.

I had just had a really bad telling off from my mother for a bad school report. She had probably gone a bit overboard, and I was feeling emotional, upset and angry. I wanted to hurt her, to make her sorry. So stupid, selfish and senseless. And utterly impulsive, as far as I've been able to make out.

Around about a similar time a friend of my sister, who would have been about 15, and who I had a slight crush on, killed herself. I never made the connection before until earlier this week, but I wonder if her suicide had any influence.
 
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