Suicide

angelica

One month ago today, my best friend's 16 year old son took his own life.

A few years ago, my stepsister took her own life.

I'm wondering if there are others out there who have stories, thoughts or feelings on suicide that they'd also like to share.

Thanks.


Rest in Peace precious Josh.

flywallyfly

My brother-in-law developed a severe gambling addiction and killed himself 3 years ago because of money problems that he incurred. He just kept getting deeper and deeper into it and took suicide as his way out unfortunately.

soulsinging

2 friends of mine (though they were more my brothers friends, but i knew them both pretty well) hung themselves within a month of each other about 3 years ago. i remember at the time i envied them. they looked like they were at peace.

Heineken Helen

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/02/19/4859704-ap.html

there's talk of 'tribute' pages on social network sites having some blame... like a girl will commit suicide, her friend will set up a bebo/myspace page and it turns into a tribute and everyone saying how much they love her... some kids see it as some strange way to get attention and be popular... through death :(

is it just my way

my cousin took his own life 9 years ago, its been a very long hard time and a horrible thing to see my aunt and uncle go through, i just hope he has found that peace he so desperately sought. He was the one that was the life of the party, the popular one, so sensible and the one you went to when you needed sound advice, i always felt guilty that he didn't think he could share his problems, worries, fears with me or any of his friends.

To help understand suicide further i completed several suicide prevention courses over the years, its did not lessen the pain of Matthew, however it did give me a better understanding of what he may of thought. In Australia there are 90% of people who do not really want to die, they are crying out for help and my only hope is one day i can be there for someone before they make that step. Then there are 10% that you will never know feel this way, you will just get that phone call or knock at the door and the confusion and pain floors you. Matthew was part of that 10%. I try very hard to honour his memory by living life to the fullest, be happy and appreciate what i have, sometimes this is hard and when i feel i take things for granted i go visit his resting place, have a chat to him and i often come away with a feeling of peace. anyways a very good thought provoking thread.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au

even flow?

I've known at least five people from the age of 15 to about 40 who have taken their own lives. I personally have no feelings either way. If your life is that shitty and you want to go and x yourself and not see what the future may bring all the best to you. In highschool (this would be the 15 year old) this guy threw a party and his house got wrecked. The guy was so worried about what his parents would do that he blew his brains out in the livingroom for his parents to discover upon their arrival home. I've been down pretty low in life sometimes and the last thing that has crossed my mind is ending my only life.

I would also like to state that assisted suicide should be made legal for anybody who is suffering and do not want to see what a certain disease does to them before their time is up.

baraka

I had an uncle that was very charismatic & witty. He was in his late sixties, but looked very young and full of life. About six months ago he had a stroke, which left him a little disabled. His girlfriend moved in with him to help him out. With physical therapy, he might have regained some of what he lost, but after the stroke, it was like a light went out in him. One Sunday, he insisted his girlfriend go to church. She had not been in awhile and he said he wanted her to go back to enjoying things she liked to do. While she was gone, he shot himself. When she came home, she found him. The family was devastated.

angelica

is it just my way wrote:

my cousin took his own life 9 years ago, its been a very long hard time and a horrible thing to see my aunt and uncle go through, i just hope he has found that peace he so desperately sought. He was the one that was the life of the party, the popular one, so sensible and the one you went to when you needed sound advice, i always felt guilty that he didn't think he could share his problems, worries, fears with me or any of his friends.

To help understand suicide further i completed several suicide prevention courses over the years, its did not lessen the pain of Matthew, however it did give me a better understanding of what he may of thought. In Australia there are 90% of people who do not really want to die, they are crying out for help and my only hope is one day i can be there for someone before they make that step. Then there are 10% that you will never know feel this way, you will just get that phone call or knock at the door and the confusion and pain floors you. Matthew was part of that 10%. I try very hard to honour his memory by living life to the fullest, be happy and appreciate what i have, sometimes this is hard and when i feel i take things for granted i go visit his resting place, have a chat to him and i often come away with a feeling of peace. anyways a very good thought provoking thread.

http://www.beyondblue.org.au

Yeah, I work and volunteer in a Crisis centre. I also volunteer in a public speaking capacity encouraging prevention and mental health with high school kids. My suicide intervention training is helpful, and yet one thing I've learned is that considering how much we know, there is so much we still don't know.

I spent years being suicidal myself, and when my stepsister committed suicide, I understood it, given what she'd been through, the lack of supports, etc. In the past year, I increased my intervention skills, and began to understand there is so much beyond our control. Even being quite skilled in coping with suicide, there is only so much one can do.

This past week, an 18 year old who had been calling the Crisis line at our centre completed suicide. He had received various supports that were offered him from experts in crisis intervention. As well, my friend's son who died last month also was hooked up with every resource--social, emotional, psychiatric, etc, and had numerous friends for support.

angelica

Heineken Helen wrote:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/02/19/4859704-ap.html

there's talk of 'tribute' pages on social network sites having some blame... like a girl will commit suicide, her friend will set up a bebo/myspace page and it turns into a tribute and everyone saying how much they love her... some kids see it as some strange way to get attention and be popular... through death :(

My friend's son has a tribute page on facebook. A week or so ago, another of his friends attempted suicide as well.

One risk factor for suicide attempts is knowing someone who has committed suicide.

gimmesometruth27

i am so sorry to read the stories posted in this thread. i will share my story of suicide because i think i need to get it off my chest.

one of my very good friends committed suicide when i was 12. his name was Matt and he was 14 at the time. he was a year ahead of me in school and he was really outgoing, the life of the party, and a really popular kid. he was a skater and wore a really cool mohawk, which you did not see too often in middle school. he got into his fair share of trouble at school, mainly for acting out but nothing too serious. mainly just the smartass kid who would get on the teacher's nerves.

we used to ride the bus together and after school in the spring we would all meet up at the neighborhood catholic church after school and play football, baseball, or roller hockey depending on the weather. fall it was baseball or football, rain it was football for sure, winter it was always roller hockey. the church always had the best fields for sports and parking lots for hockey so we always went there. his mom was devoutly catholic and was at the church every night for various reasons, she was involved with the youth group, was a reader, was one of those people that either sang and led the chorus at mass or helped administer communion. she was a really good woman. his father was kind of a jerk. he was really hard on Matt. anything he did was never good enough to meet, let alone exceed his father's standards. he never talked to any of us kids and i don't remember ever seeing him at the church. we heard rumors that his dad used to beat him, but we never noticed any outward signs of abuse. Matt always denied everything and since he was older, his word meant alot to me. besides, all of our group had gotten spanked by our parents before so we thought it was normal. we were so young.

one day Matt organized everyone to go up to the church and play football after school. the last thing he ever said to me was "bring your ball and i'll see ya at the field" as he was getting off the bus. it was a Wednesday and it was a really nice day, one of the first warm days in march. i remember it like it was yesterday. only Matt never showed up. it was weird because he was always the first one there and the last one to leave and we never knew why. now that i am older i realize that he never wanted to be at home. so around 5:00 or so we saw Matt's mom's car leave the parking lot and we never thought much of it. we had heard some sirens and emergency vehicles go by a little before that, but that happend all the time on the busy street the church was on. it got dark so we went home for the night. i went to the ice rink for hockey practice an hour or so later and i got home about 9:00. i remember i set my bag down and the phone rang. my dad answered and it was my friend Tina who lived down the street from Matt. She told him to tell me that something had happened to Matt, he had shot himself and he was dead.

my dad hung up the phone and i will never forget the look on his face. it was like one of those "How the fuck am I supposed to explain this to my son??" kind of looks. he told me to sit down and he sat down next to me and told me "son," which i thought was funny because he never ever once called me "son" before that or since then......"son, i don't know how to tell you this, so i am just going to say it. Tina just called and wanted me to tell you that Bruno's dead. He shot himself this afternoon....I am so sorry...." years later my dad said that moment was the most difficult moment of his life as a father.

i didn't know what to do or what to think. i was only 12, i had no idea how to fathom what had happened. he was the first one of my friends that died. i had been to funerals for old people before that time, but nothing like this. our school was devestated. we had grief counselors there for several days i remember. the day after Matt's death many kids did not go to school. there were fears of copy-cat suicides and my parents made me go to school because they did not want me staying at home alone in my very depressed state. the thing that still messes with me to this day was we heard and saw the ambulance and police cars go by and we saw his mom drive off to his house once someone called the church to tell her what had happened. weeks later we found out that a kid on our bus who was 11 gave him the gun. Matt had asked to borrow it a few days before so he could go in the woods behind his house and hunt squirrels.

school was never the same after that. it took me a long time to be able to walk past his house after that. i remember crying for months when i would see his house or hear a song by The Cure, which was his favorite band. we never played football after school again, and if we did try to play baseball or hockey it was never the same. i should have seen it coming because he tried to give me his skateboard a few weeks before saying he was getting a new one and that he didn't need it. i didn't take it because i was not much of a skater. i found out he tried to give another friend his prized remote controlled car because he was "getting a new one".

looking back, i see that the warning signs were there and i have lived with the guilt for all of these years. none of us knew how bad it was at home for Matt because he never talked about it. none of us were ever invited over there when his dad was home. some time later the parents divorced. i guess they were too devestated to go on together. i remember seeing the mom at church and she was like a different person. she seemed to age 20 years seemingly overnight. she was just totally heartbroken for years.

i sometimes think of all of the things Matt never got to do that all of us have managed to experience. he never got to go to high school, never got to go to college, never got to go to a concert, never got to have sex, never got to get drunk or high, never got to drive a car, never bought a house or did anything that adults do in their daily life. and he never got old.

i do know that our collective childhoods were forever changed after that. our innocence was lost in that one day. we were naieve to think "people our age don't kill themselves, they die in accidents or due to illness". but we realized that suicide was for real, and it happens more often than we ever dared to imagine.

jesus, i just realized it will be 20 years next month. i am sorry to ramble in this post but i have never written about Matt. i just started to write a little blurb about him and it just kept pouring out of me. we still talk about him at times but its always with a sad tone. i really miss him, especially right now. every time i hear The Cure, or the song "there is a light that never goes out" by Morrissey i think of him.

my deepest sympathies go out to everyone else who has experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide.

slightofjeff

Heineken Helen wrote:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/02/19/4859704-ap.html

there's talk of 'tribute' pages on social network sites having some blame... like a girl will commit suicide, her friend will set up a bebo/myspace page and it turns into a tribute and everyone saying how much they love her... some kids see it as some strange way to get attention and be popular... through death :(

Some die just to live ...

69charger

angelica wrote:

One month ago today, my best friend's 16 year old son took his own life.

A few years ago, my stepsister took her own life.

I'm wondering if there are others out there who have stories, thoughts or feelings on suicide that they'd also like to share.

Thanks.


Rest in Peace precious Josh.

Personally, I think it's selfish when people get angry at people who commit suicide and I think terminally ill patients should have the right to choose to end thier suffering.

Why make them suffer just so we don't have to deal with the pain?

My $.02

blonde redhead

I'm dealing with a suicide right now in my family....it's hard, there are so many unanswered questions, but we have to move on from it. I definitely have a different outlook on suicide than I had before dealing with it from the inside looking out vs. outside looking in.

angelica

blonde redhead wrote:

I'm dealing with a suicide right now in my family....it's hard, there are so many unanswered questions, but we have to move on from it. I definitely have a different outlook on suicide than I had before dealing with it from the inside looking out vs. outside looking in.

My condolences, my friend. I'm very sorry to hear.

I send best wishes for you and your family as you deal and move forward.

Peace.

Kushikushun

I am a teacher at a school. A couple of years ago one of the students at my school committed suicide. I can remember the moment that the headmaster came into the teachers room and told us what had happened, crystal clear. We had to go to our classes and not say anything to the kids. They where then all asked to come to the central hall where the headmaster in tears told them what had happened. Thinking of it still gives me the chills.

I will not tell here what he had done to himself, because that still is shocking to me. He had voices speaking to him telling him what to do. Unfortunately therapy was not able to help him anymore. He told his parents on his deathbed that he had not wanted to die, but was not able to control the voices inside. How sad is that, he wanted to live...

I counselled one friend of him who was going through a very rough time. I feel I was able to get her to look on the bright side of life and I feel she got through it all right in the end...thankfully!

I did not know the boy very well as I did not teach him at the time, but I still think about it a lot. Especially when I hear "given to fly" as the first verse sounds like Ed is telling this boy's story.

One thing I feel is that kids should really be careful with drugs and interest in the dark spiritual side of life. I believe this boy was experimenting with this and it made him too sensitive to forces beyond his control. Drugs and alcohol make you vulnerable, please be careful!

Just enjoy the little things in life!!!!

A GIANT HUG FOR ALL OF YOU!!
Love, Francisca.

Sian-of-the-dead

This is a really sad thread to read :(
It's amazing when you realise the reasons as to why people feel the need to take their own lives and don't see any other way out, how something that one person would consider simple would drive someone else to such a final action. It's bewildering... but I don't think we'll ever properly understand the human mind, in a depressed state or otherwise.
I personally don't know anyone who has done this but many people who have tried, including close friends and family. I know how I felt at the times they tried and couldn't fathom how i'd feel had they succeeded. I'm so sorry to anyone here who has lost someone through their decision to end their own life.