Thread: Serious Business Alert - Let's talk about suicide

I feel it depends on the person and the situation. Not to mention the source of their problems andor depression. In my experience, most suicide and suicidal thoughts are based around depression. There are definitely ways to deal with this... first you have to find the source of their depression. I feel in a lot of cases, this may be tough love or insensitivity, but I feel it isn't, I think a lot of people just need a reality check and an un-biased opinion. That's when a professional could help out. Family and friends can be helpful, but they shouldn't encourage the depression or be there to give the person justification of their depression or confirmation that yes, their life does suck. That's not helping them at all and I've seen this problem a lot in past experiences. Like when my best friend in high school would get depressed, she'd just lay in bed and listen to the most emo music. I'm not being insensitive, but her life really wasn't that bad. Most of her depression was due to her online relationship that I made sure to warn her about the distance and what-not. But still, like clockwork, this was how she was. So I'd try to encourage her to at least do stuff... like go out with some friends, and I'd always recommend more positive music to listen to to help with her mood. Studies have shown that music can affect your emotions and I feel listening to depressing music when you're depressed is just sticking your finger in the wound. But she'd always get so mad at me for basically not letting her be depressed. I got bitched at by another friend of hers for being a bad friend... because I essentially wasn't like There there, go ahead, you be depressed you poor unfortunate soul... Why would I encourage someones depression? What is peoples obsession with depression? It's like people can never be happy it seems. They always want more. So yeah... sometimes friends and family don't help. Just depends on the person. I also had another friend who claimed via Facebook status update she called a suicide hotline and the guy essentially said, Yeah, your life does suck. You might as well get it over with. Not for a second did I believe her... it's stuff like this that frustrates me. There are people out there who are genuinely suffering, and very often, those who just want attention are the ones getting the help. That is just not shit you use for some attention seeking. If you want attention, then say it, don't use suicide as some bait for fishing attention. It pisses me off to no end when I see people do that and I see so many people doing it. In my experience, it's always the ones you least expect who are the ones who go through with it or at least attempt it. My only experience personally as in my own is from when I was 14. I was living with my sister at the time. She was a drug addict and her husband was an alcoholic. I was basically there to do what they weren't doing... taking care of their kids. I was practically mothering my infant niece 247 and simply keeping an eye on my nephews, making sure they weren't getting hurt. The things they put me through, the way they treated me, and the conditions of my lifestyle just weighed down on me and it felt like it wouldn't end. Beforehand I had never really thought about depression or suicide. I didn't even think of myself as being depressed. I was just living. But one day while in an emotional rut, I was looking through a drawer in my room for something and saw an exacto knife. I grabbed it and instantly, it took a second, but it felt like a couple minutes, I thought to myself I could cut myself up with it and end all of this right then and there. But then I had a voice come over me right after that telling me I was crazy and I simply couldn't do that. I feel stupid when I think back to it because my life is better now and I am happy and I do not dwell on my past. Ever since then I've given a bit of tough love to friends who have claimed they were suicidal none have actually gone through with it or seriously attempted it... maybe cutting themselves and showing them off.... Sometimes they just need another person's perspective. For me, I mostly self-medicated in a sense, even when I had made friends who would have been willing to support me. It always helped to think of those who had it worse off than me, like people in other countries who fight for survival on a daily basis. Then there's me, living a life that people in many countries dream about, and I'm sitting here thinking I have the worst life out there. That's silly. I've tried this method on other people, but I usually get a response like That's unfair! Just because someone else has worse problems than me, it doesn't mean my problems aren't bad! Which is true... but you see people on the verge of starvation, disease, and death, literally fighting for a chance to live another day, and they appreciate the little blessings in life that they receive. And for what? Probably the same suffering and injustice that likely won't change. But here is said person, living in a first world country with many resources and luxuries available for them, not to mention the people who love them and everyone is loved..., and they want to die because they refuse to believe that their problems can get better? ------------------------------------------------- On a semi related note, I recently watched a documentary on the suicide forest in Japan. It's the second most popular place for people to commit suicide. They followed a forest rangergrounds keeper as he showed them around the forest. It was very eery. He showed them cars that were sitting in the parking lot that were dusty and covered in leaves from the trees above them, indicating the car probably belonged to someone who succeeded in killing themselves. There were ribbons going from tree to tree, he said it was a method used for people who weren't sure if they wanted to die, so they wouldn't get lost in the forest. There were a few camp sites set up from those who were hesitating. And they even found one with a guy in the tent who was still alive, and they later had an ambulance come and pick him up. But then again, suicide is viewed very differently in that country. It was always seen as a noble act and according to the park ranger, many Japanese today are very apathetic towards suicide and see justification in many suicides--- like a family man who is unemployed and can't find a job. He may kill himself out of shame for being unable to support his family. That is seen as understandable by many people.