When in my teens & 20’s I thought hard about it (I was diagnosed at 10 so not then) Igot my kids and decided that my life was for them now. And I have lived every minute for them and after my g-kids was born for them too. I’ve always said sometimes life get’s in the way but we just HAVE to be stronger than what life can deal us sometimes.
Yeah, I’ll take the poll. I believe that Zoe is correct, no one wants to discuss the subject until it’s too late. I can’t say that I’ve seriously considered it in my life, but I guess that the thought had crossed my mind once or twice. Of course, since I was diagnosed with D, it has been the opposite for me. I have been constantly looking for ways to better myself, so I guess something good came out of me getting the diagnosis. But getting back to what Zoe mentioned, I also think that bringing the talk out in the open is good. I have to smile, because I am remembering an episode of Mork and Mindy with Robin Williams where he was dressed as a priest and a man walks into the church and tells Mork that he is contemplating suicide. So Mork starts to give him a long list of ways to do it, and that actually gets the guy to change his mind about taking his own life. So I trully believe that this is a good topic to discuss.
Alex
That’s funny, Jesus; I haven’t thought about that show in years! Actually one of the questions you ask someone when you are assessing them for suicidality is “do you have a plan? if so what is it?” The more specific the plan (and the more available the means) the more at risk the person is.
ew no thanks hate to end this journey and missing the big ending by sleeping through it. I worked construction for over a decade and know a dozen guys not here anymore and I am (even w/ my Big D). Death can come for any of us at any time better get busy living.
You managed to read my post without really understanding it.
I suggest you re-read it and I’ll leave it at that.
I wish you every happiness.
Jean
Sorry if my comment about funerals or my post in general offended you I have lived with depression for many years and have been on and off many meds and seen to many therapist starting in the second grade. I am not a fan in general of funerals, I find that often that funerals are a sham try to set a image of a person as something greater then they had been, and fiind them more for the living then the dead.This is not to say I don’t mourn the passing with friends talking about the persons positives and negatives. I have tried to kill myself in the past and failed, I have tried quick ways I have tried the long slow road of addiction at time homeless and hoping when I passed out from what ever was my fix for the night not to wake up. What I have a lack of respect for is the people who have turned away from help be it a friend, a social worker, therapist. The people I have known have for the most refused help
I have a friend who we are waiting to find out he is dead under a bridge due to his addiction problems. He has lost friends and family but he refuses help and you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help. I have had another friend who after swallowing a few to many pills one night on a drinking binge decide to quit drinking. The next month he was not left alone in fact the first person to show up at his door was a frenemy(sp) with a case of Mt Dew asking if he wanted to talk about AA. I know full well that depression is an Illness but it is treatable. Do I view suicide as selfish no but I do view it as true last resort that is not a option unless you are suffering a terminal not chronic illness.
haha Okay. 
SURE I did. I’ll let you save face.
Selfish act? when I have seen most of my friends who have committed suicide, families push them away or ignore the cries and pleas for help, when I have seen blood families ask the persons true family not to attend because we caused the problems of that led to the death, when we tried to help the person. I have seen preachers that families have brought in to a grown child’s service, who was a atheist or of different faith go into speeches on how we must accept the preachers view of the divine. I have seen parents who abused their child stand at the podium and talk about how much they loved their child when it was that abuse that drove them over the edge. We all mourn in our own ways with my friends it is not usually the traditional way. But drinks are poured and a empty place at the bar or table is left with drink and food.
Last yr from Jan til July , I got in the darkest depression I have ever known for me. I would stay in bed til 1 pm, get up shower eat and go curl up again. It was 20 yrs of verbal abuse and neglect and suffering from neglect of needs of my meds over alcohol for MY soon to be X. I craweled in a hole, I had no one to talk to, and I begged God to just take me, over and over and over again. I many times felt like I was dying and it would just be a matter of time. I Got so low, I was going to take all y BP pills,this idea haunted me and haunted me, and there was a pinch of light, and I won’t say who pulled me from this death hole I was in, right before I was one day from killing myself.
It is a horrible place to be, so sad, so far from living life. My family found out about how I got, and I got some that we sad, and sorry, and my One daughter got so mad at me, because I didn’t tell her what I was going through. It was difficult, but we have patched things up…I learned so much about myself, and how I let myself get there,I have had so much sickness, Type 1, cancer, and Valley fever that almost killed me… I was strong enough to fight all this, but life about killed me.
Particularly for issues around diabetes, I would encourage people to reach out to others here on TuD, if you are feeling like you are in a black vortex, if you are devastated by a new diagnosis, if you have had diabetes for so many years and you are just plain tired…reach out. Find a friend or many here to listen, to support you, to care.
I feel the same, Joe. Never thought dying in my sleep was the way to go. Please wake me up before I die.
Oh dear, does that mean I’m more at risk since I have a specific plan using very readily available means - my large supply of two types of insulin. But nah, it is all ideational. Just that as an OCD, I could never think of it without first planning out the logistics. Makes sense in a dark humour way doesn’t it?
I’ve been dx with mild depression and severe anxiety. Tried a number of different meds but none helped, in fact the side-effects made me feel even worse. Nausea so bad that I was making myself seasick just by walking.
Why is there such a strong link between depression and diabetes? I remember shortly after dx, reading some stupid media article that one way to cut down on depression cases was to eliminate diabetes from the equation. Gee, thanks. By what means - being a ‘healthy’ weight and eating ‘healthy’ and exercising maybe? It was another in the same vein of 'diabetics are at greater risk of ’ and it just made me feel like my dx meant I was now automatically at greater risk of a million horrible things. Just by dint of succumbing to my genetic destiny. What a fantastic jackpot huh?
Doing that to my family intentionally? That wouldn't just be an act of selfishness -- it would be an act of evil, a crime that would stain my soul with shame. I'd be no better than an assailant attacking my family and friends.
That’s where it’s grey area actually. Being slowly killed by a disease, cancer, etc, is one thing, and that will wear down anyone and their family and friends. Suicide on the other hand, as somebody here said, is a complex and multi-layered thing. I think part of the selfish view point may actually be guilt or feelings of inadequacy perhaps. If a person kills themselves, the family obviously was not there to support them or they’d not have killed themselves… but rather than take on that guilt, the family/friends redirect it to show the person that kills themselves as selfish. To me, that redirection is the truly selfish act. But the problem with this scenario is the assumption that the family was not there to help. Depression is a disease, and even with help of family and friends, it can get to be too much for some people. Despite all the tough guy images out there, everyone has a breaking point, most people are fortunate that life never stacks cards against them to reach it. There are some things in life with no answers, no need to assign guilt or blame. I feel suicide is one of those things, you just have to let it go. Claiming they are selfish for putting other’s through such agony and misery is missing the point because if that infliction of misery was truly their goal, then they were probably a lot sicker than anyone realized and deserve pity or forgiveness rather than scorn. I would bet that most people are looking to end their own misery and while consideration of others may be factors in their mind, it’s ultimately not our place to judge them. The universe is pretty dynamic, we are just a tiny tiny part of it. Killing yourself to escape pain, misery, boredom or for any reason shouldn’t really matter in the end. When you call the act selfish, are you really just judging yourself? It’s a vicious cycle of doubt and second-guessing really. Break the cycle! Learn, love, compassion. (Yeah, i know, i sound like a hippy, i don’t care =)
kenx, your response is one I’d pondered myself – would I be angry and deem the act selfish because the person chose to end their life and leave me (and others) dealing with the pain, or is the anger masking guilt because I ignored the opportunity to do something meaningful and supportive?
I’m with you – the buck stops here.
Beautiful response, kenx. If more people spoke of compassion now wouldn’t the world be a much different and much better place?
And you are so right that the cycle of guilt, anger and recrimination can go on and on, for generations actually. I’ve worked with children of people who completed suicide many of whom became suicidal themselves. Healing is always a good thing.
And yes, I’m glad Muragaki started this thread as well. I agree with Lizmari that Depression is not always as easy to dispell with the wave of a magic wand or the pop of a pill, but help is out there and if one person asks for help because we’ve opened up a dialogue that is enough.
I think each person’s situation is different. But ultimately, depression is a very serious thing, and someone who is suicidal doesn’t see things like other people. The point is to try to help them NOT suicide. I have a cousin who has tried to suicide many times, she HAS to be on medication or it will happen again. She is not well without medication. Our family all has compassion for her and do not want her to leave the planet that way.
I think people have a harder time with hidden depression, people who have not been diagnosed and otherwise seem to function as others without this affliction do. That’s when people start to judge more harshly, because they just didn’t know. Ultimately, mental illness severe or mild is a stigma and people don’t take it seriously enough, hence the lack of compassion. Hopefully this will change one day…
Thanks, Melitta.
May I also add, I think what prevents most people from asking for help showed up here – fear of negative judgment. But, the majority of opinions here have been supportive, compassionate, understanding, thoughtful, even hopeful.
Reach out when you need to, to the many open hearts and minds here.
No, it doesn’t mean you’re more at risk because you have a readily available supply, Lila. We all have that at our disposal, unfortunately. And I doubt that many of us haven’t recognized that fact. “Having a plan” and the “Means” need to go together to show serious risk. In other words if you came into a Crisis center and said “I plan on killing myself and here is how I am going to do it.”, then there would be serious reason for concern. The whole idea of assessing someone for suicidality is to differentiate between “thoughts” and “intentions or plans”. And professionals or trained crisis people who do this develop almost a sixth sense of who is at risk.
One of the values of talking about “suicidal feelings” is that it can actually help them escalating into a plan.
Yeah, it can do that. I’m so glad you’re doing better now!
I agree with Melitta and Muragaki, but want to add that as brilliant, fabulous and caring as we TuD’ers are, sometimes it’s not enough, and sometimes family and friends are not enough either. Unfortunately sometimes family and friends, well-meaning think that your Depression is like the down feelings everyone gets sometimes and you can just pull out of it by “eating better” or “exercising more”. Sometimes professional help is what is needed. Finding the right therapist can make all the difference. Some people think that all professionals want to do is “throw pills at you”. Medication can be enormously helpful for what is in part a biological illness, but sometimes it takes time to find the right meds at the right dosage and a lot of people give up before they do. Also the best treatment for Depression has been found to be a combinationof medication and therapy as well as having a good support system.