I have been offline for about ten days, so I was unable to respond to this thread before. I had been following it for a few days, but it came into sharper focus, because on Monday evening of last week, I got the news that my younger brother had taken a deliberate overdose. He was kept on a ventilator through the night and our family spent a horrible night and morning, hoping he would regain consciousness. Fortunately, he is now out of hospital.
We never really will know what went on inside his head. He certainly had a difficult childhood. Mother suffered severe depression and rarely emerged from her bedroom before ten on most days. He was largely fed, changed and dressed by older children, not yet in their early teens. When his father finally returned from sea, he became an alcoholic and the small boy bore the brunt of it, as the family ran a pub. His first marriage lasted a couple of years, producing a couple of daughters, whom his former wife has effectively always prevented him from seeing. He is a diagnosed epileptic. There had been a series of suicide attempts as a younger man, but we had thought he was past that. There had been none during the past ten years.
The break up with a girlfriend and a weekend of alcohol abuse on his own seems to have been enough to tip him over the edge. Yet most of the time, we know him as a cheerful, kindly, generous man,who is full of warmth and fun. I read Coyote Breath's post with interest, because I believe that when someone commits or attempts suicide, they genuinely believe that it is the most rational course of action. Is it just a chemical imbalance or a whole host of causes? I am afraid I only have questions. I have never walked a mile in those shoes.