From: U23700@uicvm.uic.edu
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday
Subject: Re: Arguing people out of suicide (was Re: Christmas comes but once a
Date: 30 Dec 92 22:56:28 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago

In article <Bzvr26.6v9@NCoast.ORG>, brown@NCoast.ORG (Stan Brown) says:
> [text deleted]....Not one of the therapists I saw, each of them for a
>year to several years, helped me.

    as it often is with doctors -- some can help, some can't. when my
sister attempted suicide, she was seeing a therapist. the woman just
wasn't much of a help to her -- even though she did think she was
getting something out of it.

>Not one of the drugs pushed at me by
>psychiatrists had any beneficial effect for more than the first few
>days--though the side effects endured.

i wonder what drugs you are speaking of. were they anti-depressants,
or were they stimulants or sedatives?

before i went on anti-depressants, the shrink (not my psychologist, she
can't prescribe because she's not an m.d., so i had to see a psychiatrist)
said i should go to the health sciences library of the school i'm at and
read up on anti-depressant drug therapy. i did this; took out many books
on tricyclic anti-depressants, the ones my sister had been on and did
well on. then, and only then, did we discuss taking the drugs and the
side effects i could expect.

the most important thing i learned was that with tricyclic anti-depress-
ants, *no* *mood* *change* is effected for at least 6 weeks. in other
words, you have to take them for 6 weeks before your black mood lifts
at all. this was the case with me also; i did not notice any improve-
ment for two months, the entire time which i spent crawling through
my days, skipping class and sleeping as much as possible to avoid
thinking about not wanting to be alive. i barely made it through the
semester and was put on academic probation.

BUT i must also add that my hopes of anti-depressant therapy being
my cure-all for my depression were WAY out of line. i thought i'd
take these pills for 8 weeks and magically, my depression would go
away. it did, at first. but then it would come back, descend for a
few weeks during which i would barely function, and then fade away,
leaving me in fear of the next cycle. basically i've been forced to
realize that not just my biochemistry is used to depression (that's
what the drugs are for), but my thinking patterns are (that's what
the therapy is for). depression still comes back to me. suicidal
thoughts still occur to me. the difference is now i can stand back
a bit and say, this is the depression speaking... i've come so far
and done so much that i never thought i'd be able to, i can't quit
now.

>When I dared speak of suicide to
>one psychiatrist, I was threatened with instant incarceration unless I
>recanted.  Now what sort of help would you recommend to someone with
>these experiences?

all i can say is when my sister attempted suicide, of course she was
placed in the psych ward after the emergency room was done with her.
later she was transferred to an adolescent psych unit at another hos-
pital. initially she hated it but it allowed her to, over several months,
repair her self-esteem, and interact with our parents/family from a much
greater (and safer) distance, and with the help of intermediaries like
a social worker and psychologist. she was also placed on lithium and
clomipramine, the latter for her depression and the former for her mood
swings. it was a painful time for us all but out of all of us she has
done the best; she has turned out beautifully, just like a swan and
just finished her b.s. with top honors and was invited to join [insert
prestigious fraternity name]. i'm sure no one would guess now that about
8 years ago she was in a psych ward for almost a year. perhaps incarcer-
ation seems like a horrible thing to some. but, watching her change and
get better while i felt miserably paralyzed, watching my parents change
the way they acted toward her while the social worker confronted them
with the problems in our family, it all made me very envious of her
chance at a "vacation" from real life, while i felt forced to go on,
shuffling on in a 2 steps up, 3 steps back mode throughout most of my
college career. i am still on anti-depressants and i doubt i'd still
be around, much less have finished a degree if it weren't for them.
but the depression -- which seems to run in my family, either because
of environment or heredity -- comes back. it always comes back. i just
have ways to fight it now, where before i didn't.
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday