How many people here know someone who committed suicide?

sashafierce

This post has been deleted.

Dostoevsky

Just an important note on the language we use on this sensitive topic: people don't "commit suicide". It is not a crime, and has not been in our law anyway since 1993 when it was decriminalised. Things are bad enough for the families without criminalising their loved ones.

People take their own lives.

hattoncracker

Tisserand wrote: »

I think a lot can be learned from people who have tried taking their own lives but didn't succeed. This was my experience and the feeling that nobody really cared anyway, in the weeks and months afterwards, that nearly drive me to do it again, rather than the reasons that drove me to attempt suicide in the first place. I was diagnosed with cancer six years ago and the reaction to that and my suicide attempt were so different, it was staggering. The day I got my cancer diagnosis, I couldn't see the door with well-wishers, people bring flowers, I got hundreds of get well cards and mass bouquet cards in the following days and weeks until my surgery and nearly needed a secretary to answer the phone, so many people were ringing me. When I was admitted to hospital I was worn out with visitors not to mention when I came home. My neighbours bent over backwards to do things for me, cutting the grass and such like.

On the otherhand, when I tried suicide, I had my family sneaking into the hospital in case anybody saw them coming into the psychiatric department. Not one single get well or mass bouquet card. When I was discharged 10 days later, nobody stayed with me, nor did anybody invite me to stay with them. FIVE days later, one of my sisters texted me to see how I was. It has been very difficult over the last few months - when I am with my family and friends, the subject is never brought up, like it never happened and like I had something minor like a throat infection!

I am not writing this to garner pity - I am just stating how mental health is dealt with by society. If you can call my situation mental health. I am not psychiatrically ill, just couldn't cope with being unemployed and having no money yet, somehow, my family and friends think that this was not enough reason to attempt suicide, however, it was real enough for me and it wasn't a spur of the moment decision, I gradually descended into a mire of depression over some months.

Can anybody who is reading this who thinks somebody they know might be experiencing similar feelings, please please get involved. I hate this expression that one hears so often i.e. 'I don't want to get involved'. It's when people don't get involved that people die. Wade in there, take hold and take control. Even with the person resists it. Depression is not logical beast. If somebody does not succeed in their suicide attempt and is discharged from hospital, please please make sure they are not on their own. Please make the person feel loved and wanted and not alone. It's no good after the event saying that you cared but didn't know how to show it. You show it now while the person is alive and has the chance to get better.

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

There is a thread over on the long term illnesses forum for people with depression and anxiety type illnesses.. I post there when I feel I need support.. They are very welcoming and friendly.

rogieop

Dostoevsky wrote: »

Just an important note on the language we use on this sensitive topic: people don't "commit suicide". It is not a crime, and has not been in our law anyway since 1993 when it was decriminalised. Things are bad enough for the families without criminalising their loved ones.

People take their own lives.

not a personal attack on you but this is the bigges pile of sh1t going.

commit suicide, die by suicide, take their lives, etc etc, anyone who has had someone close to them die in this way really and truly doesnt care how you or anyone else talks about it.

swinging, choking blah blah blah, these people have a lot more on their minds than the way people talk about sucide.

Its just more pc BS.

TrixIrl

My older half-brother. I knew him vaguely, saw in the pub a few times & had a laugh with him. Never knew he was my brother until I was rang to be asked to not attend his funeral. Im guessing that situation may have had a lot to do with his death; considering his life was basically a secret. He wrote me a letter and sent his watch, it arrived a couple of days later - took me a long time to accept all of that.

To be honest tho, I also lost an extremely close friend (top 3, definite bridesmaid potential) in a car crash 3 years ago. she had been a little depressed, and its not as if I can ask, but Ive always felt losing control on that stretch of road was a little unlikely.

The village, town etc has lost too many young men, my best friend lost her boyfriend the day of our Leaving Cert English Exam.

Suicide is an epidemic in todays society - awareness needs to be significantly raised - when I went through fairly serious depression, I really felt the stigma wasnt worth the treatment (well that and not being able tio get out of bed)... ridiculous, right??

Tisserand

Thanks for all your support. Again, this is not a personal attack on the relevant poster, but this is not the time for political correctness and focussing on pedantics. Everybody knows what people mean, regardless of how it is phrased and we don't intend to be insensitive.

Owryan

Tisserand, thanks for your story. The problem is, imo, that suicide, like mental health is still a taboo subject for many people . Only by people speaking out, publically will it begin to get the attention it deserves or more importantly needs.

Whats worse for me is to hear some politician try and get some headlines by calling for more resources all the time knowing it wont happen.

Yet in some cases , it works. For example in Carlow where i'm treated , my gp is involved with my treatment routine in St Dympnas and everything is shared so its v easy for them to see if i'm hiding something or not or missing appointments. Also the staff in the day hospital make you feel human and they go out of their way to show it. Yet just down the road in Kilkenny its not the same at all, i was sent there for assessment and it was awful , cattle are treated better .

I dont feel any stigma about having tried to kill myself and i dont hide the fact , but like Tisserand said my family reacted in different ways. My mother pretended it never happened and refused to talk about it , as did one of my brothers but my youngest brother took it on himself to make sure i was ok, calling into visit and checking up on me everyday .

Everyone has a different story but they all need to be heard .

I really feel for you Tisserand as you never got the support i got but its never too late to look for it. Your here posting to try n help others so its only right that you get some help too, even if its just your gp for starters . Just dont give up the fight, its only just begun.

Eoin

realies wrote: »

Figures show 525 people took their own lives in Ireland in 2011, an increase of 7 per cent on the previous year.Bearing in mind that up to 80 per cent of those who die by suicide are suffering from a mental health difficulty, this neglect of mental health services is nothing short of scandalous

Wow, 10 people a week. To put it in some perspective: that's around 250% of the amount of road deaths there were that year - and I wonder how many of those road deaths were unrecorded suicides.

Something makes me think that they haven't quite gotten the balance of funding and awareness right.

To answer the original question - yes, a family member in the last few years. Not my immediate family, but pretty close. In hospital for 5 days after the attempt until the death. It was a pretty horrific week.

steddyeddy

Eoin wrote: »

Wow, 10 people a week. To put it in some perspective: that's around 250% of the amount of road deaths there were that year - and I wonder how many of those road deaths were unrecorded suicides.

Something makes me think that they haven't quite gotten the balance of funding and awareness right.

To answer the original question - yes, a family member in the last few years. Not my immediate family, but pretty close. In hospital for 5 days after the attempt until the death. It was a pretty horrific week.

+1.

Funding for road safety in light of this epidemic is a joke to be honest. We really need to get our priorities straight.

Musefan

I really think those helpline numbers given are so important on a thread like this. Just in case there are any under 18s reading, you can call Childline on 0800666666, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also text the word talk to 50101 for the Childline text service. For any parents worried about their kids mental health, please pass them those numbers. They won't be judged, given out to, or turned away if they need to talk, especially about the issue of suicidal thoughts.

whirlpool

If you believe that suicide is selfish, then the simple fact is that you do not understand it - not in the slightest.

And yes, I lost a good friend to suicide. And most people I know seem to have lost someone to suicide.

CSSE09

rogieop wrote: »

For what its worth, id just like to point out an organisation called "sosad" i know they have offices in the north east, Drogheada / louth, think they might have some in cavan and other places too.

For anyone struggling personally or knows anyone struggling, either with depression or dealing with someones suiide etc etc, they are an absolutely fantastic group.

I live with someone who has been effected badly by suicide, it was horrible having to live with them, eventually got them to sosad for counselling and in the last year the turnaround has been absolutely unbelievable.

I couldnt thank them enough, not only for the work they did with this person but for the effect it in turn had on mine.

for what its worth

http://www.sosadireland.ie/

I'm going to forward this on to the offices they'd be delighted to hear it, this is the group I mentioned in my previous post, just as well I didn't leave off putting the new site live

Ken.

In the 3 years after i finished secondary school there was 6 deaths of former classmates. 1 died in a car crash. and 5 were suicides. I had to buy a new school uniform i was doing that many guard of honours. 2 of the suicides were a week apart.

The guy killed in the crash was in a work van hit by a drunk driver incase anyone thinks it might have been a suicide also.

Muir

Tisserand wrote: »

I think a lot can be learned from people who have tried taking their own lives but didn't succeed. This was my experience and the feeling that nobody really cared anyway, in the weeks and months afterwards, that nearly drive me to do it again, rather than the reasons that drove me to attempt suicide in the first place. I was diagnosed with cancer six years ago and the reaction to that and my suicide attempt were so different, it was staggering. The day I got my cancer diagnosis, I couldn't see the door with well-wishers, people bring flowers, I got hundreds of get well cards and mass bouquet cards in the following days and weeks until my surgery and nearly needed a secretary to answer the phone, so many people were ringing me. When I was admitted to hospital I was worn out with visitors not to mention when I came home. My neighbours bent over backwards to do things for me, cutting the grass and such like.

On the otherhand, when I tried suicide, I had my family sneaking into the hospital in case anybody saw them coming into the psychiatric department. Not one single get well or mass bouquet card. When I was discharged 10 days later, nobody stayed with me, nor did anybody invite me to stay with them. FIVE days later, one of my sisters texted me to see how I was. It has been very difficult over the last few months - when I am with my family and friends, the subject is never brought up, like it never happened and like I had something minor like a throat infection!

I am not writing this to garner pity - I am just stating how mental health is dealt with by society. If you can call my situation mental health. I am not psychiatrically ill, just couldn't cope with being unemployed and having no money yet, somehow, my family and friends think that this was not enough reason to attempt suicide, however, it was real enough for me and it wasn't a spur of the moment decision, I gradually descended into a mire of depression over some months.

Can anybody who is reading this who thinks somebody they know might be experiencing similar feelings, please please get involved. I hate this expression that one hears so often i.e. 'I don't want to get involved'. It's when people don't get involved that people die. Wade in there, take hold and take control. Even with the person resists it. Depression is not logical beast. If somebody does not succeed in their suicide attempt and is discharged from hospital, please please make sure they are not on their own. Please make the person feel loved and wanted and not alone. It's no good after the event saying that you cared but didn't know how to show it. You show it now while the person is alive and has the chance to get better.

I'm really sorry to hear how you were treated. Try not to take it as a personal thing, I think many people really just don't understand what to do or how to react or what they should say. With cancer or other illness there's sort of a standard ask how they are and give a card & flowers. I think with mental health and particularly suicide attempts, many people haven't had to deal with it yet and don't know what it is they are supposed to do.

I really hope you're doing better now, and know that you are not on your own. There are so many people out there who do understand.

hairyprincess

Tisserand, your story had me in tears. And I don't cry easily.
I too have a family and friends who wouldn't know if I was living or dead from one end of the week to the other. But a after an operation I had a few months ago I found out who really was on my side. So use this as a lesson learned, there are people out there who will stand by you and help you through this, you just have to give yourself the push to find them.

A massive virtual hug to you. There are solutions to every problem, don't let a few debts end your life, it is far too precious for that

a5y

Three, all male from mid teens to mid twenties.

A kid in my year at school who I didn't know. His immediate circle of friends had made my life harder than it already was at school. Too this day when I hear "school days are the best days of your life" my fists clench.

A friend of a friend's brother committed suicide. I'd only seen him at a party once. He was dead within a year.

And in the last year a second cousin I don't recall ever meeting committed suicide.

Smidge

One immediate family member.
Five neighbours(on my road)
Far too many over the years in my former local area.

Prick!

I know of a few. Didn't know them really.

One guy shot an ex, he was posessive, he tricked her into thinking he was an old school friends through texts, arranged to meet up and shot her. then drove away and shot himself.

Smidge

Prick! wrote: »

I know of a few. Didn't know them really.

One guy shot an ex, he was posessive, he tricked her into thinking he was an old school friends through texts, arranged to meet up and shot her. then drove away and shot himself.

:eek::(

fenris

4 that I knew well and 9 from my not so immendiate circle.

As someone who was a teenager in the 80's, it was a very common thing to hear about suicides and suicide attempts, there was a level of general bone deep bleakness that made is a short well worn journey for anybody who took the first steps. The key was not to let it in if possible and watch out for your friends where possible.

Two of my friends were in flying form the last time they were seen alive literally a couple of hours beforehand, for others it was a shock but not really a surprise, it really reinforced for me the point that you can never tell what is actually going on in someones mind, and that you really need to watch what is going on in your own head, keep your links to the world open and always seek perspective.

I often try to figure out suicide, at the moment I think that futility, isolation and bleakness are the key factors, pain is a special case that doesn't drive you to suicide but weakens your ability to deal with the other factors. If you have something to live for even severe pain can be balanced out but it really is a balance.

There is also potentially a very logical aspect to suicide based on chronic medical conditions and the decision to to live or not as the case may be, particularly when a point approached where you may not have the freedom to carry out the act without help.

I have two young kids ages 6 and 8, one of the missions that I have given myself is to equip them with the mental and emotional tools that will help see then safely through their teenage turmoils and beyond, I am trying to build the bridges that will allow us to talk even if things get tough, "shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face" as someone wiser than me stated.

Resiliance is the key and it can be learned it is not just something that you have or have not.

the lady in the link below is Brigadier General Rhonda Cornum, she was shot down in Desert Storm, captured, abused and survived to be rescued. She went on to head up the US military initiative to tackle suicide and PTSD through developing mental resilience to allow people to view events as "adverse" rather than "traumatic" through training before the fact rather than trying to limit damage afterwards.
It is worth a look and a hell of a lot of thought.
http://www.youngfoundation.org/general-/-all/events/can-we-teach-resilience-brigadier-general-rhonda-cornum-emotional-fitness

Fast forward to 8:30 to get to the lady herself.

Kimia

To those who think it's selfish - do you also consider the terminally ill person who goes to Switzerland to exercise their right to die as selfish? For some reason, we as a society has less of a problem with someone ending their own life when there is a visible 'reason' for doing so (terminal illness etc).

Emotional pain is just as damaging, if not more so. It's just not as visible. Someone said earlier that a person who is suicidal is not thinking straight - I think that's a good way of looking at it. When you are in emotional crisis, your thinking is literally distorted, you cannot think rationally. You become overwhelmed with the emotions and perhaps you have noone to share them with, and noone to tell you that these emotions are valid and real. I can only imagine how isolating that is. A lonely place.

If you heap shame onto that, it understandably makes the emotional crisis even worse. Shame is in my opinion the most damaging, torturous and painful emotion of all. It quite literally twists your thinking and you will do anything to avoid it. Guilt is another similar emotion. If you heap shame and guilt onto someone who is already in emotional crisis (like our society does because of the still existing taboo of suicide) - it sends that person into a spiral of depression, where they may think that there is just no hope, and no way to life their life anymore. Suicide was described to me as not being the desire to die, but the desire not to live anymore. It seems like a small distinction but a valid one and it really resonated with me. A lot of the time, as someone mentioned earlier, the 'death' part isn't even considered by the suicidal person. It's more about escape, about ending the emotional pain.

This thread is great. After hours is great for these types of threads, even though it gets a bad rep at times. It's good to share, and good to normalize. It sweeps away the shame and validates the emotions that all of us feel from time to time. Fair play to everyone who shared their story - who knows, maybe someone reading this thread is feeling really isolated and overwhelmed and by reading other people's stories, it may give them a sense of unity, that they are not alone.

Shryke

No one i've been close to.
A guy I went to school with went that way.

Also an acquaintance from a few years ago. I didn't know him well but we worked in the same place for a while. He was a nice guy but had some issues and a bit of a coke habit on the side but you wouldn't have known as he was fairly sound, just troubled I guess.
He went home to England for Christmas and hanged himself in the children's playground outside his dads house.
His hoodie was left in the canteen for about 2 months afterward. I think the manager threw it out eventually.

I know of more than that but that's friends of friends and relations of friends and the like.

Amazingfun

I read some but not all of this thread, and find it very interesting.

I know three people who have committed suicide:

1. A teenage boy who was friends with a friend of mine. He was very intelligent and good looking, but we did find him a bit weird. He may have been autistic, a high functioning sort. I am not sure, but his funeral was indeed very sad.

2. My cousin. He hung himself at his workplace. He was not even 30 and I still find it quite shocking, he was the baby in a huge family that, despite their problems, seemed to be filled with lots of love and affection. They were, and still are really, devastated.

3. A prominent businessman in a small town. He too hung himself in his workplace and it was his poor horrified wife who found him.
I admit to feeling a lot of anger at this man, like, how could he leave his wife and children to have to live with that legacy....but I know that most likely he felt they would be better off without him.

I also want to share something I learned while reading Malcom Gladwell's excellent book: 'Blink'.

4. Why do you think the epidemic example is so relevant for other kinds of change? Is it just that it's an unusual and interesting way to think about the world?

No. I think it's much more than that, because once you start to understand this pattern you start to see it everywhere. I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does. This isn't just a metaphor, in other words. I'm talking about a very literal analogy. One of the things I explore in the book is that ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is. One chapter, for example, deals with the very strange epidemic of teenage suicide in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia. In the 1970's and 1980's, Micronesia had teen suicide rates ten times higher than anywhere else in the world. Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behavior can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can. In fact, I don't think you have to go to Micronesia to see this pattern in action. Isn't this the explanation for the current epidemic of teen smoking in this country?

This is just a little excerpt from his book, but after reading it, whenever I hear of a suicide, I try to find out the following:
Did the person have anyone in their life/circle who had killed themselves in the last six months?
If so, who was that person ?

In my cousin's case, I found out a friend of his had killed himself exactly six months previous, so it fit the 'pattern' and the 'meme' theory that Gladwell puts forward. I encourage anyone interested in this subject to check out what he has to say as I am only briefly paraphrasing it here, but the bottom line seems to be that we as a society are not 'fighting' suicide in the right ways at all.

Eoin

Eoin wrote: »

Wow, 10 people a week. To put it in some perspective: that's around 250% of the amount of road deaths there were that year - and I wonder how many of those road deaths were unrecorded suicides.

At least double that I'd say.

whirlpool wrote: »

If you believe that suicide is selfish, then the simple fact is that you do not understand it - not in the slightest.

I'll tell my 2 friends one who had to get blood transfusion, suggesting a pretty sincere attempt, that they don't understand what it's like for someone to attempt suicide. My attempts were pretty feeble on reflection but the thought process was exactly the same with anyone I've spoken to about it. We all tend to look back at it pretty dispassionately though.


Just on another note, the cuts being made to services right now which should be protested more than any other are those to mental health services. I know people who've tried to get into psychiatric facilities (at the height of the boom) and were turned away and dead soon after, another who slashed his wrists in public and had no follow-up care and later killed himself, people waiting months to get an appointment while thrown on a massive dose of ADs to "tide them over". I know people when they were 16 thrown on almost 4 times the dose straight from a GP than I got after 8 hours of counselling and seeing psychiatrist despite all the warnings about ADs for under-18s. Never mind debt or drink or drugs (I know people who find self-medicating to work quite well), the complete lack of available services unless you're loaded or very lucky is what's behind a huge proportion of suicides.

The Big Red Button

fenris wrote: »

Two of my friends were in flying form the last time they were seen alive literally a couple of hours beforehand

I read before that, in cases where the suicide was planned a bit in advance, this often happens. In the hours/days before it happens, the person might be in unusually good form. I guess that, from their perspective, it's sort of a relief, that the end is in sight? Very sad to imagine seeing your life in such a way.

nlgbbbblth

will.i.am wrote: »

This happens to spare families the pain of known there lived one died by suicide!

Sweep it under the carpet.
Dress it up as something else.
Don't talk about suicide.
Don't address mental health issues and depressions.
Just ignore the problem.
Nothing changes.

deandean

I saw this thread, I counted up the people I know who have died by suicide:

1 BFFL - BANG
5 close friends - 2 BANG, 2 hanging, 1 'car accident'
3 people I know and/or worked with. 1 BANG, 1 hanging, 1 O/D

That's nine people.

By comparison, no friend of mine has died in a (accidental) car accident.

Suicide in Ireland is AN EPIDEMIC. The 500+ per anum figure is farrrr below the truth.

I honestly do not know what can be done about the epidemic. Any of those nine people, you could have met them the day before and they'd be grand.

But I am seeing a marked increase in males 40+ years old topping themselves due to financial woes. The fcuking banks, 'Viper debt Collection' etc calling at your door, etc etc have driven a couple of bus loads of decent men to calling it a day.

aristotle25

I can think of 7 straight off in the general area I live. I knew one or two them from school or football but wouldnt have been close friends.

All were in 20/30's and one in 40/50's. 6 male, 1 female. Two of them were brothers.

Hanging in 5 instances, drinking weed killer in another and not sure on the other. Tragically sad.

dueaug

My mam took her own life 6 years ago. She left behind 5 kids, me being the eldest. My 19 yr old sister found her. Mam had no history of mental illness, depression etc. We do know why though so forgive me but its kinda personal. Had to explain to my 8 yr old daughter twice about her nanny. First that she had died and then a couple of years later she came to me and said "so and so's mammy commited suicide" and I had to explain then that thats what her nanny had done too. She had made her body stop working. I told her then because she brought up the subject and I didn't want her getting to her teens and finding out from someone else. I'm still on anti d's as is one of my sisters. My bro is 2 years off the drink(alcoholic). Kinda fecked in the head and don't think I'll ever be right. Miss my mam all the time. Thanks for listening. After 6 years friends etc think you should be over something like this.

hattoncracker

dueaug wrote: »

My mam took her own life 6 years ago. She left behind 5 kids, me being the eldest. My 19 yr old sister found her. Mam had no history of mental illness, depression etc. We do know why though so forgive me but its kinda personal. Had to explain to my 8 yr old daughter twice about her nanny. First that she had died and then a couple of years later she came to me and said "so and so's mammy commited suicide" and I had to explain then that thats what her nanny had done too. She had made her body stop working. I told her then because she brought up the subject and I didn't want her getting to her teens and finding out from someone else. I'm still on anti d's as is one of my sisters. My bro is 2 years off the drink(alcoholic). Kinda fecked in the head and don't think I'll ever be right. Miss my mam all the time. Thanks for listening. After 6 years friends etc think you should be over something like this.

No one can tell you how to grieve.. its a personal experience.. Good for you for getting help.. It's not easy to ask for it.