Ryan Freel Commits Suicide: REPORTS

[SunSeeker]

Source: HuffingtonPost.com

Former Major League player Ryan Freel has commited suicide, as first reported by First Coast News.

Freel, a utility player who spent parts of eight seasons in the Majors, took his own life at the age of 36. Best known for his years with the Cincinnati Reds, he played 594 games with five teams from 2001 through 2009.

Citing confirmation from Sgt. Mike Paul of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Jacksonville.com reported that Freel was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/22/ryan-freel-commits-suicide-dead_n_2353907.html

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Another death by gun. One has to wonder if he didn't have a gun, maybe he would have made it through that dark night, and he would have seen the sun coming up in the morning, and he would have gotten help.

All of us have been there. That's why I don't keep a gun in the house.

[Bozita]

1. Rec based upon your comments

[AtheistCrusader]

2. All of us?

[SunSeeker]

5. Well, all of us get depressed at some point, except for you apparently.

Some of us quickly snap out of it, others need help, and some struggle with it for a lifetime.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. There is a difference between

'shit my team lost the world series'

and clinical depression/thoughts of suicide.
I would be worried if EVERYONE considered suicide at some point. It would suggest that our society is fantastically unhealthy to a degree that, even given how fucked up things are right now, would be absolutely mind-boggling.

(IIRC, in people aged 18-25, the highest risk group, the number of people who have had serious thoughts of suicide numbers slightly under 10%)

Edit: The world series quip was not targeted at the man who committed suicide in the OP. Substitute 'superbowl' or whatever. Unfortunate coincidence, or the fact that he was a baseball player slightly biased my train of thought to one particular sport.

[libdem4life]

24. Do not trivialize the reasons that flit across your mind. Depression to the point of suicide

does not just magically occur after a sports loss....any sport. It may have been merely the trigger...the last straw. Athletes and especially men are taught in the game and in our society just to "play through it" as it's still considered "weak" to get help. Less so today, I think.

We don't know about his family, money issues, major disappointments and so many other things. The pressures from all sides are very high on public people and their families.

Surely there was no shortage of mental health care in his life.

[AtheistCrusader]

34. That's WHAT I SAID.

[libdem4life]

36. Didnt get the correlation lilke that...sorry.

[dballance]

8. You Want to Quibble over Suicide?

Last edited Sun Dec 23, 2012, 04:25 AM - Edit history (1)

Sorry, I must have hit return too soon.

Many of us feel depressed and even go to the verge of suicide. I don't believe the OP meant that everyone one of us had been to the point of considering suicide but was more a comment that we all get depressed from time to time. If you never get depressed please seek professional help. Never getting depressed would make one abnormal.

Stats clearly show the availability of guns in a household with a depressed person are more likely to lead to a successful suicide than in households without a gun. Even if the troubled individuals try to use available drugs to kill themselves.

It is quite clear we can rush a person to the ER and pump their stomach to save them if they use drugs to attempt suicide. We cannot do anything but call the coroner and scrape a person's brains off the walls and ceiling if they use a gun for suicide.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. It is, to the best of my knowledge, not a clinically accurate statement.

That's all.

[BainsBane]

13. 90% of suicide attempts by gun are successful

Compared to 3% of attempts with pills.

[Liberal_in_LA]

16. Yes, the only people I know who committed suicide successfully,

did so with guns

[libdem4life]

25. ..and it breaks down over gender...don't have the actual statistics, but women generally

use pills which may be more a call for help, and not knowing the exact dosage required, perhaps.

[AtheistCrusader]

35. No shit.

I said that downthread, before you.

[BainsBane]

42. Yet you called a post

Making a generally point about that inaccurate. Perhaps that wasn't the part you objected to, but That was not clear.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. When I responded to him...

His post said 'many of us/EOM'. Look at the edit history.

I stand by my statement in that context. (EOM means end of message)
I'm not going to edit my post to fix it in the context of that poster's edit.

[grantcart]

37. It wasn't a clinical statement. It was an empathetic generalization.

While not everyone has been at the point of suicide, certainly everyone has faced personal disappointments that seemed much larger than they are.

With a little alcohol or other drugs these feelings can become exaggerated.

Teddy Roosevelt seemed to be the most contagiously upbeat and optomistic public man in history.

And yet after his mother and wife died on the same day he was never able to speak of them the rest of his life.

So yes I think it is very fair to say that all of us have been 'there'.

There being a place where the darkness out weighs the light and for some no positive way forward looks available.

If you really haven't been there maybe your time is coming with an incurable illness that inflicts great pain, or do you really think you will pass at 90 in your sleep having walked 5 miles the day before?

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Actually, I have contingency plans for that.

I supported and worked for the passage of I-1000 in my home state.

In any case, the poster I objected to either meant or modified that to just mean depression, and not thoughts of suicide.

Have I been depressed? Yeah, probably at times. Have I had thoughts of suicide? Nope. Nor has the vast majority of the population.

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k9/165/Suicide.htm

Cool to be empathetic. No worries there. Uncool to use over-broad blanket statements, or at least, in the manner it appeared to be used initially. Poster later clarified 'been there' to mean 'depressed', not 'suicidal'.

[IDoMath]

3. I think he would have found another way

Studies have shown that there is a difference between men and women committing suicide. Men are more likely to use guns and be successful in their first attempts. Women are more likely to use less sure forms of suicide. The speculation is that women are more likely to make a "cry for help" in the form of a suicide attempt. Men are more likely to simply commit the act. (Please - I'm only reciting what I read somewhere. Whether it is right or wrong, sexist or not, I don't know.)

There are plenty of ways to commit suicide. Some are more certain than others. Guns, believe it or not, fall into both categories. Somehow, women manage to attempt suicide by gun and fail more often than men.

To me, this is a matter of motive, not opportunity. Without knowing more about his last days, I can't tell you when he actually made the decision to act.

[SunSeeker]

4. How do you know he would have found another way?

I don't know what studies you are talking about, but from my personal experience, the only person I personally know who committed suicide by gun was a women. She was a friend of mine's sister, back when we were in college. She had a bad breakup apparently, got depressed as all of us do at some point or another and killed herself with the family gun. There was no cry for help. Everyone was in shock.

I can't help but think if there hadn't been a gun in the house, she would not have acted on what may have been a fleeting impulse.

Statistics show you are five times more likely to commit suicide if you have a gun in the house.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. 'successfully'

[grantcart]

38. Actually statistics do not bear that assumption out.

If you look at countries with high gun ownership, like Germany, even if they do not have significant outbreaks of gun violence they have much higher suicide rates than their neighbors who do not have high gun ownership. The only apparent variable is gun ownership.

[MrSlayer]

6. I've never been there.

I've never once in my life considered suicide. Not on my worst day.

But it is sad for people that do. It must be a terrible thing to feel that death is your best option.

[SunSeeker]

7. I'm talking about depression, not suicide attempts.

When you're depressed, you're not thinking straight. Some alcohol or drugs and a readily available gun can turn your "worst day" into your last day.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. I read your 'all of us have been there'

to mean 'thoughts of suicide'. It sounds like you didn't mean it in that manner, given this post.

[geomon666]

14. I've been there.

Didn't have the alcohol or the drugs but I did have the gun there. It was tempting.

[rightsideout]

15. With a gun in the house you are 7 times more likely to be a gunshot victim

I heard the stat is 5 or 7 but it's definitely increased if you have a gun.

I know this from a personal tragedy. My best friend in elementary and jr high took his own life with a gun his father kept in the house for protection.

I knew they had a gun and thought it would eventually be trouble because my friend's parents were strict disciplinarians. I met him while walking home from detention after elementary school. He cried the whole way home because his parents were going to beat him when they found out. During the years I knew him he was either on restriction or punished for little things other parents wouldn't punish a kid over. He was even spanked for something I did at their house. It was insane. He came to school with black and blue marks from his mother grabbing his arms. My parents even told his parents to chill out.

His family moved away in high school so we lost touch. I hadn't seen him in a couple years. One day he came by the house out of the blue for a visit. The passenger window in his car was smashed in. He said he had an altercation with another driver. Two weeks later I found out he had shot himself. At the funeral his father told me the lesson to learn from this was to stay out of trouble. I felt like slugging him in the face. My dad was so angry about it he refused to go to the funeral. We never heard the real details as to what happened and what he was really upset about. All I heard he was found in the house with gunshot wound to the head and it was self inflicted. He died a couple days later.

[RVN VET]

18. Angry controllers

Abused kid -- very sad. I hope his parents come to see and admit their responsibility for the death of their son; and how they contributed to making life unbearable and so painful for him. It's the only way they can ever find forgiveness.

If there's a hell, it has a special place for people who drive their own children to despair.

[SunSeeker]

26. Brutal story.

So sad.

[Sanity Claws]

17. Your comment is very important

New York City is hardly the easiest place in the country to live yet its suicide rate is only about one-half of the country's as a whole.
http://gothamist.com/2012/02/24/7_of_nyc_suicides_are_subway-relate.php

It is very difficult to get or own a gun in NYC and the percentage of gun-inflicted suicides in NYC is very low, just 12% compared to 51% nationally.

Yes, I agree with you. Restricting guns will lower the suicide rate.

[marble falls]

19. No. We have not all "been there."

[libodem]

20. Same here

Exactly why.

[plethoro]

21. Years ago, my sister committed suicide.

She did it with pills and booze. After years, I look at it realistically. Had my sister lived she would have bankrupted my mother and possibly all of us. The doctors she was seeing were HMO quality and approximate crap. Before she went bonkers, my sister used to convey to us the message that amost immediately after she told a doctor a pill was making her feel bad, the doctor would change it, and she could no longer stand the transitions. She finally couldn't take it and ended her life. For her, in her circumstance, it was the RIGHT thing to do, I now believe. In a country where medical doctors are getting poorer and poorer I can totally understand someone committing suicide. I hear about potential suicides from my diabetic website daily. I don't say as much as I used to. I offer alternatives; I say things will get better; I make specific suggestions about what might work... All these were the same things I was doing when I was working the SHN Suicide Hotline, which I stopped once WEBMD bought them. Less and less seems to work anymore. And a large part of that seems to be Quality of Life issues. The suicider seems to be saying "Can life get better if I DON"T commit suicide?" I still answer "Yes, it can." But I am not as convinced any longer that is probable. And maybe, God, or whatever comes next, may understand more given the way things are, and not hold a person's last decision against them.

[libdem4life]

29. Anyone who has lived through a friend or family member with serious mental problems, agrees

The medication is often way worse, for the person, than the condition. And no one can force them to take it. And talk therapy? No. It's a lot of times a way of keeping them in the family...yes, and alive. And the changing meds on a dime, effects times 10. It just plain fucks with their mind or reduces them to near catatonic behavior as they described Adam Lanza. The side effects read like a long list of nightmares, but absolutely no one knows how it will effect the mind. It's a guessing game in an unknown territory...an already mis-firing brain.

[plethoro]

33. Yes, near catatonic. That's how she was in the end. Would just lie

in bed mumbling. Thanks for your post.

[nightbloomer]

22. not always guns

Its not always guns. My soon to be ex husband hung himself this last September and his brother did the same thing 5 years ago. And my husband had a gun. Chose not to use that.

Hanging is very lethal too.

[SunSeeker]

31. Didn't say it was. But having a gun in the house makes suicide over 5 times more likely.

Sorry for your loss.

[Throd]

23. My brother-in-law, who owned several guns, hanged himself.

[grantcart]

41. Sorry to hear that. I am guessing that he did it in a way that the process could not be reversed

Hanging causes the brain to shut off in sections and creates momentary loss of memory that causes the person to return to fight for survivial despite the most committed intent. That is why to be successful they need to be off their feet or unable to free themselves in some way.

Gun shots are, of course, much more difficult to reverse.

[alp227]

27. But wouldn't he have tried something else like jumping off a bridge or crashing his car?

As much as I support gun control when it comes to suicide I've gotta be skeptical of the "if he didn't have a gun" arguments.

[libdem4life]

30. Bridge jumpers or car crashers are not certain of death, at least instant death.

They don't want to be a burden on others...often the reason for choice of methods. Even the slitting of wrists doesn't always do it, or someone comes in before it has concluded. Plus it involves other people and is in public. Most suicide victims are desperately alone in their inner darkness. Guns, like no other single method, will assure the outcome.

[Skittles]

43. my dad shot himself in the head and lived for six days

[libdem4life]

45. I am so sorry. Can not imagine.

Blesssings to you.

[Zoeisright]

32. Having a gun in the home far increases the likelihood of using it to kill yourself.

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full

[graham4anything]

28. Country singer Faron Young late one night years ago did this

and he missed with the first shot and actually did a second a killed himself

and he had friends, but not at that moment
and they would have helped him

maybe one of them even if they knew how depressed he was, would have given him a duet hit single or something

maybe 1 hour more and he would have changed his mind

Great person who I knew but was not personal friends and not too closely, and it always bothered me that in his hour of need, he was alone and had a gun.

Guns and bullets kill.

[Aristus]

39. Lot of gun deaths in professional sports these days.

If the NRA doesn't care about little children, you'd at least think they'd care about the millionaires they watch on TV...