Have you ever known someone who committed suicide?

[Synapse]

Yes. Been on both ends.

A girl I was friends with took her life because she couldn't deal with her nightmare mother, her mother was abusive and treated her badly. Made me understand her desperation to wanting out having been born into such a family not unlike my parallel.

A friend of a friend took his life too. I talked to that friend and said at the time I think about it all the time but won't since its in conflict with who I am. Some 15 years of wanting to, many attempts without telling anyone, and having to face a nightmare father daily helped. Voluntarily sought help often without getting any help, pills included. I'm amazed I pulled through actually.

Five years ago I said if I live long enough life has got to balance, if I only live long enough and it is finally. At the end of the day I had to learn that the thoughts were a medical state that professionals continued to undiagnose me for so I went alternative. And learned the extent to why I was feeling like this besides a dysfunctional life. Its taken a long while to have a positive peer group and working away from my family. I can understand completely why people do this. And know it is the bodies response to a deficit from other than serotonin 9 times out of 10, the serotonin being leached out from disruption.

The people that are the most serious will almost never tell you and just do it. The people that aren't will say things that will indicate their distress. Men are more final about this then women since its a hormonal thing. Ironically having underactive thyroids stopped me from taking my life since I lacked initiative. Am I glad I lived long enough, depends, I guess I chose to live since I'm still here so I must be glad.

 

[Kasper]

My cousin.

He had ADD and dyslexia, he wasn't diagnosed when he was at school so didn't receive the right kind of help or attention and got mixed up in drugs. He was 21.

 

[wolfy]

I had a good friend who tried a couple of times. Both times, I helped him out. When I look back now, I'm surprised how much I took it in my stride.

 

[Spamtar]

I think it is a sickness....

Suicidal Tendencies Suicide's an Alternative Lyrics:

Sick of people - no ones real
Sick of chicks - they're all bitches
Sick of you - you're to hip
Sick of life - it sucks

Suicide's an alternative

Sick of trying - what's the point
Sick of talking - no one listens
Sick of listening - its all lies
Sick of thinking - just end up confused
Sick of moving - never get nowhere
Sick of myself - don't wanna live
Sick and tired - and no one cares
Sick of life - it sucks

Sick of politics - for the rich
Sick of power - only oppresses
Sick of government - full of tyrants
Sick of school - total brainwash
Sick of music - top 40 sucks
Sick of myself - don't wanna live
Sick and tired - and no one cares
Sick of life - it sucks

Suicide's an alternative

 

[SilkRoad]

Yeah, I have known one at least...actually, the first guy I dated. We only went out for a couple of months, there weren't deep feelings involved (on either side, I think) and I'd lost contact with him for a couple of years, so it certainly had nothing to do with me. And in a way it didn't touch my life deeply but it was certainly a blow. I was very, very shocked and saddened. He'd had serious depression issues, I was already aware of that. I think a lot of things hadn't worked out too well in his life, there was a history of physical abuse in his childhood, etc and it all became too much. But in a way, I never really knew him that well (though he opened up a fair amount when we dated) so hard to say.

I've known families who've lost someone to suicide, too, but I think he was probably the only one I knew personally. Partly due to that experience, and to having had at least a couple of close friends who have been suicidal, I am much less judgmental about it than I used to be. It is a terrible thing to do but people who choose it have generally reached a point of such sadness, and are not well, and judging doesn't help anyone.

 

[Spamtar]

^ Wow, you must have been a dreadful first date.

 

[Laurie]

If that's the case, I think it's just as selfish for other people to expect a person to continue living just so that they won't have to deal with the loss...

Jennifer, I have to address this. My father (ISTJ) always told us that suicide is selfish. I never really understood it but I have had down times where I thought about it - I ended up getting depression meds. I don't want to leave the people in my life to deal with how hard life is, while actually dealing with my suicide too. Thinking about it being selfish can really get the thoughts off how bad YOUR life is and focus on the people you would be hurting if you did something. It's really not about someone else being selfish to keep you around. It's refocusing your thoughts off yourself.
/OT

One of my brother's youth group leaders he was VERY close to committed suicide years later. My brother was very messed up about it for a long time. I'm sure this guy didn't think anyone cared, but I saw what it did to my brother.

 

[Totenkindly]

I don't mean to offend, I'm only sharing my experience with my situation with myself. How I realised I was being selfish and not thinking about others. How the only thing running through my head was me and how I'd be done wrong. I'm not talking about anyone else, I'm talking about me.

I do not want to offend I understand all of that. I just hope you understand I wasn't trying to say that people are selfish. I was just trying to say I was selfish.

I'm not offended at you personally, but I felt a strong need to clarify what you said... because you DIDN'T say you were selfish, you made a very broad statement saying everyone who considered or committed suicide was selfish:

...Its true...even after what I did, I've come to the point in my life, where I realise that suicide is a selfish act. You worries about yourself and the only thing on your mind is you and YOUR problems. Even I know that there are times where you just wanna be so selfish in all that because we feel we have a right...but from what I've learned, when you take the the view off of yourself and put it on others, you start to view life differently.

If you don't meant to make such a broad statement and mean to talk about yourself, it's better to use the pronoun "I" rather than "you" and "we" and say that "suicide is a selfish act." You pretty clearly stated it was selfish, and I think that only applies to some of the situations.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant.

... The commonality is that both denies, rather than address and/or resolve the issues or problems.

Yup, that is really it. The problem never gets addressed, both sides (the suicider and the people around him or her) are trying to get what they feel they need or want without really considering the feelings and needs of others.

 

[FemMecha]

Jennifer, I have to address this. My father (ISTJ) always told us that suicide is selfish. I never really understood it but I have had down times where I thought about it - I ended up getting depression meds. I don't want to leave the people in my life to deal with how hard life is, while actually dealing with my suicide too. Thinking about it being selfish can really get the thoughts off how bad YOUR life is and focus on the people you would be hurting if you did something. It's really not about someone else being selfish to keep you around. It's refocusing your thoughts off yourself.
/OT

One of my brother's youth group leaders he was VERY close to committed suicide years later. My brother was very messed up about it for a long time. I'm sure this guy didn't think anyone cared, but I saw what it did to my brother.

The bold portion struck me. I had a suicidal family member during my college years, but fortunately he never went through with it. The thinking patterns that lead to suicidal thoughts can focus inward until everything disappears except for that inner pain. Often the increased personal pain is accompanied by a dismissal of others' pain, even when the person is incredibly kind-hearted by nature. Part of this is probably related to chemical imbalances and physiology that can be potentially measured and corrected, but sometimes working on healthy thinking patterns can also help realign the body and emotions.

It was a helpless feeling trying to communicate with someone who had that level of depression for so long. I have no idea if anything I did helped or not. He told me on an almost daily basis that nothing I did helped, and yet he sought me out almost daily to talk. That depression consumed much of my life since it took a lot of my emotional energy. I don't regret it though, since he was family. One of the worst nights of my life I got a call from the guys' dean saying his suicide note was found. I didn't have a car, but remembered one way he said he wanted to die at a location downtown. I ran into the parking lot and begged a ride off the first person I saw. For some reason she starting yelling at me how I should have gotten him help. She didn't really know either of us. It turned out he was in the library studying. For some strange reason, when there is suffering or crises, people have to place blame and punish. I've never entirely understood that since there are so many things that happen outside anyone's control.

There is a way that depression fragments a sense of reality and can completely eliminate any sense of empathy. Depending on the context, a suicide can absolutely destroy other people's lives. The responsibility of that can be placed wherever people choose, but that action can produce that result of destruction for others as well. Because of the types of illness internally that can produce it, it is different from selfish behavior, but it does parallel it in that same sort of blindness to everything except self even in the kindest and most caring of people.

 

[SilkRoad]

^ Wow, you must have been a dreadful first date.

errrrrrgggghhh...that was a bit tasteless.

 

[Totenkindly]

Jennifer, I have to address this. My father (ISTJ) always told us that suicide is selfish. I never really understood it but I have had down times where I thought about it - I ended up getting depression meds. I don't want to leave the people in my life to deal with how hard life is, while actually dealing with my suicide too. Thinking about it being selfish can really get the thoughts off how bad YOUR life is and focus on the people you would be hurting if you did something. It's really not about someone else being selfish to keep you around. It's refocusing your thoughts off yourself. /OT

That's fine to address it, you are helping to widen the perspective and discussion on it and I think it's a good clarification. In fact, one of the main reasons I didn't kill myself was for my children... so it was a concern for me and actually contributed to my surviving.

(Ironically INTPc has an ongoing thread on the same topic right now and over there I posted the opposite side of the argument because I felt like people weren't grasping how killing oneself DOES have an impact on others who love them.)

However, that wasn't my personal experience, and sometimes I think people can be FULLY aware of the impact of their death on others... However, the problem is that the alternatives actually seem far worse.

I don't always believe that suicide is a purely selfish and irrational decision, I believe that with some people and circumstances it can be a very rational process. And especially if someone feels crushed enough to kill themselves because they've constantly been too worried about the impact of their choices on other people (to the point where they've stopped living in any sense for themselves), then it's cruel to tighten the screws once more by beating them with the same club they have not been able to deal with and that has been killing them already. They need a better reason to keep living, and they need the people who love them to help them work through that issue and lessen the pressure they've been feeling.

At that point there is usually a communication issue though, since the potential suicider probably is not great at expressing their emotional needs, and the other people are not sure what's going on or how to engage. It's not an easy road.

One of my brother's youth group leaders he was VERY close to committed suicide years later. My brother was very messed up about it for a long time. I'm sure this guy didn't think anyone cared, but I saw what it did to my brother.

I'm sorry about your brother. It's especially hard I think when it's someone you look up to or believe in or have made a role model. What do you do with that? Sigh.

 

[Laurie]

In fact, one of the main reasons I didn't kill myself was for my children... so it was a concern for me and actually contributed to my surviving.

Same here, actually. My grandma's mother died in surgery when she was 9. Her father and step mother shuffled her off to her grandparents. It still affects her.. she is around 93 years old. You lose all ability to help your children when you die.

I'm sorry about your brother. It's especially hard I think when it's someone you look up to or believe in or have made a role model. What do you do with that? Sigh.

I think he became more cynical/hardened.

 

[Bubbles]

I've had friends who wanted to. I only wanted to once, in middle school, purely for dramatic "wouldn't you feel awful if I did that, yes you would, you'd regret everything mean you said to me" kind of reasons. Which I regretfully admitted were stupid. However I haven't yet met someone who wanted to die who died. Or who had a good reason for it, imo.

INTJ friend wanted to get back at his ex for dumping him. I told him no, that'll get the opposite affect of: "wow, he WAS crazy, glad that ended." Which is exactly something she'd say.

ENFP friend...she made a big show of it, she wanted attention. I talked to her and suddenly it stopped and she did her hyper happiness mode again. She never brought it up since.

So no, I haven't, and the people who might've that I met weren't particularly serious.

 

[Saslou]

No.

I do understand the mindset of someone who has contemplated it though.

Not a nice headspace to be in.

 

[Snuggletron]

a couple girls from school, my brothers' grandfather, probably some other people I can't really recall at this time.

I've had the thoughts myself, but a lot of it was just 'what if'. Had the depression thing pretty much all through high school pretty bad, but I wasn't one to act on it, it just made me very inactive and bitter.

People who self-injure and have acted on suicidal thoughts kind of blow my mind. The girl I'm dating now self-injured in highschool, which astounded me because she does not seem to be the 'type' people would probably consider to do that. These thoughts could be in anyone, and it's just a matter of how it manifests in them. I also found a notebook with my mom's suicide notes in them, luckily she never went through with it (probably because my nephew was born shortly after). I never told her I found them though.

 

[beyondaurora]

An acquaintance of mine committed suicide on New Year's Eve a few years ago. He was 26.

Nobody saw it coming. His mom said that he had been playing video games in the morning, wrapped up his controller, and said he was going out. He never came home again.

He had walked to a nearby open space and shot himself in the head.

He was handsome, entertaining and had a TON of friends, but ultimately, we think that he may have felt alone. He had done a lot of acid in the years previously that left him a little 'off'. He couldn't stay on one track during a conversation, and people teased him a lot for it, though mostly in the usual way friends (especially guys) do. We think that maybe he just felt that he couldn't get his thoughts out, that he couldn't connect with people. Plus his best friend's girlfriend had been pulling his best friend away, making a fit whenever the guys would hang out. The increasing distance between him and his best friend may have been the last straw for him because his best friend may have been the only person who really 'got' him.

Very sad.

 

[Kambro]

Nobody saw it coming.... He was handsome, entertaining and had a TON of friends, but ultimately, we think that he may have felt alone. He had done a lot of acid in the years previously that left him a little 'off'.

Very sad.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]


Same here - friend of mine moved to a new job and had friends who would have taken care of him if necessary. we also figured out that he felt lonely and isolated depsite having great friends.

 

[LotsOfHeart]

I sort of do. A friend of mine killed himself driving drunk and many close family and friends think it was because, ironically, his life was getting better. He was on the verge of getting his life on track. Some people think he was afraid of the new responsibilities that came with this change. I think it's possible. In any case, he was a great person and I will always miss him. He was only 23.

My uncle stopped eating and died as a result as well. However, he was 99 years old, so maybe by the time you're that age who knows how much control over yourself you're still capable of in many cases.

 

[ygolo]

I know of one guy who went to my high school, and was a year ahead of me. We went to the same college afterward and at that point he was two years ahead of me.

He was a real intense student...full ride scholarship, was set to graduate as valedictorian that year.

He was on vacation overseas, I believe, I forget where, with his girlfriend. Apparently, there was really bad fight, and they broke-up. I'm not sure of the details actually. He hung himself.

Also, I believe he had 4.0 (and basically nobody pulled this off at my university) and he got some news that one of his closest professors was about to give him a B+. Again, I am not clear on this, since rumors were flying around.

He was a leader of one of the extra-curricular engineering projects I worked on (and that professor mentioned before was a faculty sponsor). I walked into a meeting of the team only to find that there were a lot more people there, and there was a psychologist who wanted to discuss what happened, to make sure none of the rest of us were having similar feelings, or having bad reactions.

From what I knew of him, he was a really nice guy, but rather intense and ambitious (he was one of the few people who called me a slacker in college..and I got 2 degrees in 3 years of schooling).

There were rumors, that when he was younger we was rather overweight, and picked on...and that he worked real hard to work off the weight. So maybe his self-esteem suffered...I know personally that being bullied early in school can hurt self-esteem forever.

Personally, I think the gf thing was what did it. But we'll never know.

-----------

There were two other people from my high-school whose circumstances of death were rather confusing and muddled. I think their deaths may have been due to accidents during self-destructive behavior (IOW ODs)--which is almost like suicide. But here, I know even less.

I knew both these guys personally as well (one was in my graduating class and we played on the same sports team, another was one year junior and in the same "tech. lab" as me), but it had been a while since I had any iterations with them.

------------

I have, myself, been suicidal a few times. I really can't even make sense of what was going through my own mind at those times. One of the times was after my break up with my fiancée.

Distorted thinking played a big role. Loss of hope, loss of trust in my ability to do basic things, a feeling of worthlessness, and a belief that my life amounted to nothing were among the thoughts I had.

 

[Tewt]

I know two people. One was a teenager down the block when I was about 10 or so. He shot himself inside a sleeping bag so there would be less mess for his parents to clean up. I don't know anymore details than that, people were pretty much hung up on the sleeping bag thing.

The other one was a guy who shot himself in the chest when his girlfriend left him for another guy. The details were murky because she had left him a while back and he had been apparently stalking her before shooting himself.