As a follow-up to the "suicide thread", I would like to make a separate OP to call attention...

[LeftyFingerPop]

to the fact that some of the responses shown in that thread exemplify a heartbreaking stigma that exists with both DU members and the population at large concerning mental illness. Otherwise intelligent people seem to have no grasp on the causes of suicide.

Let me get this out of the way first...there is a very small percentage of people who commit suicide who are relatively mentally stable, but they do it to hurt someone else. This type of suicide is negligible in relationship to the cause of the majority of suicides...which is mental illness.

When your blood vessels get clogged with blood fats, you have a heart attack. The heart attack is a symptom of the clogged vessels.

Your brain, a bodily organ just like the heart, is subject to several organic problems, some of which the medical community does not entirely understand yet. You may have a brain injury. You may have a brain tumor. You may have a chemical imbalance in your brain. You may have a micro-vascular disease that inhibits the proper flow of blood to your brain. You may have a depressive disorder. You may have PTSD.

Any and all of the above dysfunctions may cause your brain, A BODILY ORGAN, to experience negative symptoms ranging from motor difficulties to thought disorders. A thought disorder can cause a person to see the world differently than you or I do while sitting here posting or otherwise living our routine lives.

Not having a thought disorder has a tendency to prohibit you from even coming close to understanding what a person with suicidal idealizations is experiencing.

Pre-suicide psychic pain can be unbearable. It can be worse than having two untreated broken legs. It can be the worse thing you can possibly imagine.

People who take their own lives are generally not "cowards", and they often mistakenly feel that taking their own life is the best thing to do for their loved ones. This is because they are not thinking clearly...a symptom of their mental illness.

We all feel anger when a loved one kills themselves, but we need to understand that they were not thinking as a normal person would, and we need to understand that suicide is a tragic symptom of an illness in most cases.

[Deep13]

1. Well said. K&R if I could. nt

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. Thank you, LFP.

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Seriously.
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[Demoiselle]

3. Beautifully said, MFM.

A huge thank you from all of us who know exactly what you're talking about.

[Call Me Wesley]

4. Great post.

Exactly.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear LeftyFingerPop...

You could not be more correct.

SO well said...

Thank you.

[pitohui]

6. thank you for this

the other thread disgusted me, someone is in so much pain that they feel that suicide is the only way out...and a lot of people apparently respond with, "it's all about MEEEEEEEEEEE"

how can people call a seriously ill person, a person so ill they died of their disease, "selfish" when they are the ones who are being selfish that the seriously ill person's dead body wasn't left looking pretty or in the right place for whoever to find or all the rest of the bullshit -- you know what, there is NEVER a pretty way to die or a perfect place to die, one day we'll ALL leave this world and people will be disgusted by the hideousness of the shell we leave behind, that's part of the package when you're a primate instead of a mollusk...

the young people i know who killed themselves were in terrible pain, the older people simply had no good alternatives, i have alzheimers in my family and i need suicide to be an option so that my (younger) spouse isn't destroyed if i get the disease...how dare someone tell me that i should instead stay alive without my brain for 20 years, as happened to one of my older relatives?

sometimes suicide is just the decent choice and sometimes suicide is the result of the crushing disease of untreatable clinical depression (all the women i know who committed suicide as a result of depression had been in treatment many years, the reality is that all these wonderful medicines DON'T WORK FOR EVERYONE)

people who have the gift of a life worth living...for them to stand there and wail about their "anger" ... fuck that

people don't kill themselves to send a message, they kill themselves because they are sick, and it's the person whining about "oh how dare they? they should have just gone on suffering" who are being selfish in my book

[SoxFan]

7. Thank you, Lefty

:thumbsup:

[Redstone]

8. Very nicely said.

Redstone

[ceile]

9. Thank you.

I try to participate in NAMI Walks each year. The stigma surrounding mental illness is appalling.
http://www.nami.org/walkTemplate.cfm?section=namiwalks

[Maraya1969]

10. Not to scare anyone but I tell people that mental illness can be terminal.

It is especially true if the person suffering is not supported in getting help or is given unqualified help.

There is a type of OCD or panic attack or something I can not label where the person gets into a mindset that they cannot stop thinking that they HAVE to kill themselves. It is the same as if a person leaved all their groceries in the grocery store because they believe they are going to go crazy unless they get out of there.

It doesn't make sense if you've never experienced it but as the OP said the mind is an organ and can manifest organic issues to come out as "social issues".

[rurallib]

11. Thank you for this. And well put.

[SoxFan]

12. Kick

[raccoon]

13. It's hard for most people to understand what torture clinical depression can be.

Thanks for your post.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. Sometimes depression is forever....

because the pain of unemployment is forever. And parental units telling me it was MY FAULT (with three college degrees) was forever...until they died and I don't have to listen to their blaming and shaming anymore.


Does anyone understand that????

[LeftishBrit]

14. Great post.

[nickinSTL]

15. a link to a group that promotes education

on this subject:

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
http://www.afsp.org/

[kimi]

16. Yes

Thank you.

[taterguy]

17. Damnit, if you start making sense I won't be able to call you a dumbass anymore

Great post.

Seriously.

[MiddleFingerMom]

19. It's OK...

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...carry on...
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...even a dumbass broken clock is right twice a day.
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[Forkboy]

18. I think about suicide a lot.

It's the only solution I've ever thought of that would solve everything for me. I think about it even when I'm not depressed, but add the depression to it and starts to trend towards "do it" instead of just think about it. I was struggling with it as recently as February, after 10 months of depression. I've reached my own thoughts on the topic that I don't really share, but suffice to say that I don't see suicide as the negative everyone else does, at least in my potential case.

Thanks for the post.

[MiddleFingerMom]

20. I understand... and also FERVENTLY hope that you've discussed this...

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...with someone or someONES you respect that are outside your own head.
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If not... start doing so immediately... PLEASE????
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It's ALWAYS good to have at LEAST a second opinion, Doctor.
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Personally... I really LIKE having you around.
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[Forkboy]

22. I have spoken with a friend more than once, but I don't bring it up myself, ever.

She's the one person on Earth that keeps me from doing it. So as long as she's ok I'll probably be around.

I've accepted that it is what it is, that I can't control when these feelings hit and when they don't. I don't even have to try to think about it. I can be sitting here watching a hockey game or something and I'll get an image in my mind of me with a gun in my mouth, and then it's gone again, just as quick. That's when I'm in good moods. When I'm depressed it's a lot more than quick images.

I just try to ride it out when it gets bad, and remember that eventually those feelings will loosen their grip again.

Thanks for the kind thoughts. I appreciate it. :toast:

[emilyg]

24. Big, huge hug.

[GreenPartyVoter]

29. I know how you feel. *hugs*

[mix]

21. +1

:hug:

[Terra Alta]

23. Thank you for posting this.

In 2007 I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and was feeling very suicidal.. I am doing very well now(thanks to medication and therapy) but back the I was not in my right mind and thought my family would be better off without me.. I think there needs to be more done to raise awareness about mental disorders and suicide prevention. I feel many people still just don't understand.

[Dystopian]

25. Thank you, Lefty

:hug:
Thank you for putting your heart, soul and mind into this post....
My brother was mentally ill, and never got help.
It's all sad, but true.

peace~

[Old Troop]

26. Everything you say is true. Unfortunately doctors often fail to understand

the issues involved and tell patient to toughen up.

[Odin2005]

27. DAMMIT, I wanna K&R this!

[handmade34]

28. I can't express how much I appreciate you bringing this up

your words are truth and we need to hear them. I tend to be very pragmatic and I can sound pretty cold; it is because I know that if we all were more receptive, compassionate and understanding, we could help more people.

I miss my friend that killed himself and wish he hadn't but I can't be mad at him. I just wish our community could have been more understanding and treated him more kindly and taken his pain more seriously.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. The best thing I ever did for myself to get out of depression

was to walk, no, to RUN AS FAST AS I COULD out of church, WALK AWAY TOTALLY from Christianity.

Sick, sick, verbal abuse... You're a sinner!! We're all sinners!!....
You'll never be good enough for Gawd!!! You're gonna roast in hell but he LOVES YOU!!!


Well, fuck those greedy preachers and their fear-, shame- and guilt-mongering.


They can all go to hell forever and the world would be better off without their twisted hateful speech.

Please hold your fire regarding "No true Scotsman". Original sin is part of ALL christian churches. It's the starting premise and it's abusive as hell. Drives people to suicide, sometimes when they are little children. Breaks the will.

Read some John Bradshaw, Ph.D. and some Alice Miller.

And why that mindset produced lots of good little Nazis at the Nuremberg War Trials who were "only following orders", NOT doing the right thing morally.

I don't darken churches anymore. Only for things like weddings and funerals. And if it turns into a commercial for Jeebus I walk out, especially funerals.



:banghead:

[RandomThoughts]

32. I have heard that before. Although there may be many contexts.

John 3:17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

[Dr Morbius]

33. Thanks, Pop.

I've been trying to tell people for years: mental illness is illness. People can be treated and get better, and it's patently ridiculous - even grossly immoral - for a stigma to be attached to mental illness. It's not like good, moral people never go crazy. There's no shame in becoming sick, is there?

I like to offer this: picture two men. Bob is a law-abiding family man who pays his bills on time, is a pillar of the community, is a good father to his kids and always tells the truth. Tom is a law-abiding family man who pays his bills on time, is a pillar of the community, is a good father to his kids and always tells the truth, who on the advice of his doctor takes anti-depressants. Is Bob really a better man than Tom?

Since there's an obvious answer to this one, it often opens eyes. I wish people would stop making jokes about craziness, about people forgetting to take their "meds", and even wish our President would stop referring to Republican foolishness as "insanity." This perpetuates the stigma, and that really gets under my skin. Someone very close to me, someone I love, a better person than myself, once suffered from crippling depression. She got better. It happens - a lot.

[momto3]

34. Thank you. eom

[blue_roses_lib]

35. Thank you for saying this Lefty

:hug: It's difficult to understand unless you're in the same place. I'll attest, first hand, to the truth of "often mistakenly feel that taking their own life is the best thing to do for their loved ones. This is because they are not thinking clearly...a symptom of their mental illness."

:hug:

[Lindsey]

36. Thank you so much for posting. In the other thread that I think

you were referring to, I wanted to post exactly what you said but couldn't come up with how to say it. You worded everything perfectly.

[Biker13]

37. We Can Never Know...

What personal hell someone is going through.

Richard Cory


Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favoured and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine -- we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Biker's Old Lady

[Skittles]

38. thanks, LFP

I'm always astounded at some of the idiotic responses regarding suicide - the worst disease on earth does not kill you; it makes you kill yourself