Suicide

[TLO]

I found out today that a good friend of mine from high school committed suicide last night. This has never happened to someone I knew closely.

I'm not sure how to process the emotions I'm feeling.

[ChiefsFanatic]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

Even worse than convincing you that the survivors won't care, depression will even convince you that they'll actually be better off without you.

This. So much this.



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[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

That comment was already moderated. There was zero reason to call further attention to it.

I responded to a rude comment clearly directed at me. That was my reason. I can't imagine you having an issue with that.

[Otter]

Dealt with this years ago and know it isn't easy. Sorry to hear bro.

[jerryaldini]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

Get help. We know that we're social animals. For that reason, sanity and insanity are contagious on some social level. Let the herd protect you until you heal and become strong enough to help protect the others.

Awesome CB! Love how you put that. The support in this thread is really great to see.

[scho63]

While this may not be the most uplifting thread on CP, it sure is a valuable one.

Sorry to hear of your loss TLO.

This is the 3rd suicide I know of in less than 18 months.

A great business partner of over 25 years from Hong Kong had his only daughter Rachel commit suicide in April 2019. I had stayed at his place in Hong Kong many times when she was just a young girl of 7-8 years old. I was stunned to learn of her suicide. She succumbed to the pressures of a young Chinese girl who was not married and was in an abusive relationship.

The second occurred early this year as a good friend for over 30 years had his 24 year old son kill himself while in counseling for depression and other mental health issues. Ben was a great hockey player and nice kid, just had demons and hung with a bad crowd of drug takers. Something that added to his issues. The family looked like a perfect picture of life but yet their oldest son of 2 boys took his own life.

Just really sad and happens more than we would like to see.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Jesus Christ.

My wife had PPD with our first kid and of course didn’t tell me or anyone else about it until years later. Like your wife she wasn’t suicidal towards herself or the baby, just unhappy. This story horrified me. I can’t imagine how someone in our wives shoes would feel in that situation.

Congrats on the 3rd kid. Hopefully PPD doesn’t come back. It didn’t for my wife with the second kid.

It scared the hell out of me to hear her say that she'd thought about killing herself. She'd never once talked like that before and had no issues after our first kid. She told me how she didn't feel like she was good enough and that the girls would be better off without her around and that just tore me up, still gets to me even now. She's a damn good mom and absolutely nothing has happened that those thoughts should cross her mind. When the part of you that is in control of every single function of your body starts to tell you that you're not good enough, then it's impossible to not believe it. Thankfully there are other parts of the brain telling you not to believe those other thoughts, but God damn that's just gotta be so confusing.

The brain is such an intricate and complex organ, so it makes sense that if one thing is out of whack then it sends the whole thing into a tail spin. Mental health should honestly be our number one concern, but just so few even take it serious. There are still a significant amount of people that think people need to just be happy instead of sad. It's not gonna get better until people stop associating everyone with mental health issues with negative connotations and just saying they are crazy.

Once mental health can be thought of like any other type of health problem, then we will actually see real change. The sad thing is that curing these diseases of the mind are going to be very hard and we are already behind the curve.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Yep.

And it's far more complex than just throwing some meds at the problem. In fact, in many cases, throwing meds at it makes things worse, not better.

I have a real problem with throwing meds at people when we have absolutely no idea what actually leads a person to becoming depressed. We think that it is caused by chemicals in the brain, but what we don't know is the proper ratio of those chemicals, what the levels of the chemicals are supposed to be in a "normal" brain, or what those levels are currently at in the person suffering from depression.

I think the 70s and 80s are responsible for the over-prescribing of antidepressants. Back then it was thought that antidepressants helped ~70% of people vs placebo which was shown to help ~30% of people. New and better studies have shown a significant decrease in the amount of people antidepressants help and it is now believed that they help just about 40% of the people taking them and 30% of people would be helped by placebo effect. Antidepressants are shown to help very little to those with mild-moderate depression.

Did a little research cuz I was curious. Info above can be found here https://www.ncbi..nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592645/

The 70s and 80s really ****ed us in regards to mental health and it seems that people want to ignore all the new studies that say antidepressants are over prescribed and don't help near as many as people want to believe.