Matrix500- the most critical time for a person to commit suicide is not when they are deeply depressed. At that time they do not have the emotional wherewithal or physical strength to develop and carry out a plan. It is when the person's depression is starting to lift, and the anxiety starts to flood, when people characteristically kill themselves.
Actually, Phoenix, my brother tried a few other methods...again only seen in retrospect...while he was very depressed.
Phoenix32890 wrote:
It is a shame that your sister had to carry around thisanger/sadness/blame within her for all these years. It still might be a good idea for her to see a professional who specializes in grief to finally help her to exorcise this devil inside of her. She needs to be able to let it all out, and finally put it behind her.
Phoenix, I talked to my sister today. Finally, she also thinks that she really should get help to cope with this experience.
urs53- I am so glad. Please let me know how she is doing!
Suicide is one of the saddest things I can imagine, for everybody.
If one is dying and chooses it, I think that's different. But I think I would die inside if someone I loved ever killed themselves. Unanswered questions and 'what-ifs' are very hard to live with. I hope that nobody in my life is in that much pain. I understand some of the reasons people might choose it, but it's too hard to accept that they'd actually do it. Sad to think of somebody in that much emotional pain.
suzy- It isn't always emotional pain. It could be physical pain too. I could imagine a person having to choose between living in intractable pain, or being drugged up like a zombie. Not a great choice, or a good quality of life!
Suzy, that is a heartbreaking dilemma, not only for the obvious reasons but the people left behind would forever question themselves. What could I have done to prevent it? Why didn't he/she confide in me. What could have been that wrong? The questions would be never-ending.
What we have to ask ourselves is, "how did we not notice what was going on inside this persons head?".
This is very sad Suzy and seemingly senseless.
I don't want to minimize the pain felt by the survivors of a loved one who has committed suicide. I do think that we need to keep things in perspective though.
As much as we may care about someone, we can't get into their heads, and we can't be around to control their lives 24/7. In my work with the mentally ill, I have found that if people are hell bent on comitting suicide, they will do it, no matter how much we intervene, and how many barriers we erect to prevent it.
What I am hearing is that a lot of people think that if a loved one commits suicide, it is somehow the fault of the people who remain. Maybe if they had done this or that, or had been more responsive, on and on and on. It is NO ONE'S fault. It is a decision on the part of a person, maybe not a rational decision always, but it is THEIR decision!
In a thirty five year career in mental health with fifteen years on inpatient units and nearly twenty in a big urban ER, I have seen much suicidality and too many 'successful' suicides.
There are only two thing I want to add to this conversation:
1. Suicide is DEVASTATING to surviving loved ones.
2. In the vast majority of cases depressed, suicidal, people can be
helped if they will seek out and accept help.
suzy wrote:Suicide is one of the saddest things I can imagine, for everybody.
If one is dying and chooses it, I think that's different. But I think I would die inside if someone I loved ever killed themselves. Unanswered questions and 'what-ifs' are very hard to live with. I hope that nobody in my life is in that much pain. I understand some of the reasons people might choose it, but it's too hard to accept that they'd actually do it. Sad to think of somebody in that much emotional pain.
I'm a suicide survivor, I'm still fighting the battle against it but i'm gradually winning. When you're suicidal the pain becomes too much to handel and in your eyes killing yourself seems like the only way out. In my case I have clinical depression, but a lot of every day factors contributed to it.
