very much OS: Suicidal Friend

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: charcloth
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 01:11 PM

wish I knew what to say. will pray for you both

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: emily rain
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 01:11 PM

yes, Jon, ditto that.

i hear ya: happy drugs can't change the way life is treating you. that's why depression is an illness with two causes, situational and chemical. in some cases, though, a situational depression can become a chemical one. your brain spends so much time marinating in unhappiness that it resets itself to maintain the feeling, regardless of what's going on around you. i would guess that's why people keep suggesting antidepressants for you.

if you've felt suicidal before and don't now, you must be doing something right. i wish you peace, jon, however you can find it.

emily

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: emily rain
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 01:13 PM

oops -- charcloth and i posted at the same time... i meant to be dittoing Peter T.

(and thank you. that's the best i could ask for)

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 03:32 PM

Peter T, I am getting through a day at a time and am not struggling at the moment. The only reason I mentioned it here was to try to illustrate that there are plenty of good reasons for being down or depressed but far too many people seem to think that medication is the answer.

It seems a wierd world when one on is not supposed to be depressed when one watch their lfie or parts of it collapse around them. I do agree that some people can be depressed for no reason and presume that is an ilness butI think that all many people need is just a little break in life.

As a general rule, I am against psychiatric drugs of any kind and believe that they are often prescribed without any real thought. My mothers gp wanted to put her on antidepressants simply because she was worried and upset over my father being in a coma having had a stroke...

Jon

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 04:29 PM

I agree Jon, and am glad you are keeping on keeping on. Masking depression with drugs is like refusing to mourn when someone dies or you lose some hope you had. If you can't respect your own response, what can you respect? It is betraying the honesty of your own existence and experience. And if you believe that the world is meaningless or a machine out to get you, there are good reasons for thinking so! D.W. Winnicott, the child psychiatrist, once said that the patients he respected most were the ones who refused to have a nervous breakdown, and those who had enough courage to have a nervous breakdown. The line gets crossed perhaps when months or years have gone by without any relief, or when one can feel oneself being sucked down too deep. Then drugs or almost anything seem to me to be justified. A close friend of mine once said, just before he was hospitalized, "You know how in Alcoholics Anonymous they say you can't do anything until you have hit bottom? I have discovered that there is no bottom." He is now on drugs, which keep his life and family together, but he is not the person he was -- but then he stopped being the person he was a long time ago. Do I like him better now absolutely? No. Do I like him better than he was when he was beating his wife and lying howling in a bottomless pit? Yes. Some things maybe, just break, and will not come back together again, ever.

When it becomes endless or bottomless, then even a strong person, who has always shunned help, needs help. Even just to try, even if it seems really stupid, or betraying your right to be angry at the world because of all it has done to you. It is a terrible time. I have been there myself, and watched friends grope towards asking for help, and failed to ask for it myself. I came out with just a belief bitterly earned, that asking for help often takes much more strength than toughing it out.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Okiemockbird
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 04:31 PM

No one has any business claiming that antidepressants or lithium can magically prevent misfortune, or sorrow. No one has any business saying that they make one immune to all grief. But my (admittedly amateur) observation of those who have been prescribed (by a competent, experienced physician) seratonin re-uptake inhibitors for depression, is that they give the patient a better grip on himself, giving him a fighting chance to prevent himself from getting caught in a sort of feedback loop in which the sorrow itself (not the original pain) creates more and more sorrow. I have also known someone with manic-depression, whose condition appeared to me to have been stabilized by the drug-treatments appropriate to that condition.

T.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: JenEllen
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 04:35 PM

Dear Emily;

So sad at heart to hear of your troubling time. Your friend is lucky to have your peace and light.

I agree with confronting your friend, but I'm not too much into the "duct tape them to the chair" kind of interventions stuff. In my experience it does more harm than good.

I've had to deal with this myself, and the best I can offer is that you sit her down, and be prepared. Imagine a good sheepdog. Whichever way she goes, argument wise, nip her back into the fold. Tell her you love her, and offer options instead of the trite crap that pervades most folks senses. Tell her how to get help, and offer to go with her. Tell her that if she kills herself, there will have to be someone to find her. When I was six, a man hung himself in my grandfather's barn. He had been there a few days when my grandfather sent me in to get some tools. Does she want a six year old to find her body, and have to find out the horrors of death well before her time? It's not just herself she's hurting here.

And whatever her choice is, remember that it is HER choice. In coming to ask for help, and showing that you care, you have done the best you can. Keep your strength, and the love of those around you. I send you as much love and strength as my lil' black heart can muster. Elle

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 04:49 PM

Em, have you thought about printing this out, minus a few postings, to show to her, so that she can see for herself how much you and those who love you care? It's just a thought; not sure if it's a good one or not.

Jon, I think I understand what you are saying. I too, advocate no use of drugs unless there is no other way. I was on heart meds for almost twnety eyars, always itching from allergic reations, always aching, always with brittle hair and nails. Finally found a doc who was open to my ideas on herbs and last April I went off of any medication stronger than an occassional tylenol. I take garlic, hawthorn, motherwort, and dandelion tinctures everyday and feel so much better, plus my hair, skin, and nails are normal, again!

For me, most drugs are extremely toxic and I shun them. I also believe that doctors and society in general use them to excess and I abhor the general mentality which comes through in commercials which basically tell us to "take a pill" it'll solve all our problems.

I don't think that is what most Mudders were saying though. One thing I love about the Mudcat, is most of us post from personal experience, just as you've done, Jon, and I really appreciate that.

I do understand PeterT's point and that of others about friends or themselves benefitting from drugs. And, I do agree there comes a time where the feeling of depression is the motivation to keep being depressed and may cause a chemical imbalance which need to be righted.

Emily, you are doing a great job as a friend and fellow human bean!

luvyaKat

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 05:00 PM

Peter, I completely agree with you that it takes more strength to ask for help - probably because people think there must be something wrong with them if they can't solve their own problems. On the other hand, the one time I did ask for help, I didn't get it. I knew the people in the Mental Health office on a professional basis. They first thought I was joking, then told me I needed to fill out a rather lengthy questionnaire. I was very stressed at the time, and there I couldn't deal with the red tape and road blocks, so I walked out.

I've been lucky. For me, things always seem to work out. For others, things always seem to go down the crapper. There are undoubtedly a myriad of reasons for the two different perceptions/realities. I think some people lose a feeling of contol, or actual control, over those reasons, and just give up trying.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 05:10 PM

I seem to have spread confusion. Let me try again.

I have a friend of long standing. He has had many troubles. He never tried to commit suicide.

Then he got involved with a woman who regularly tried (how hard I cannot say) to do so. That was the only period during which he tried to commit suicide. The only times he did so was when she did so. Even then he did not do so every time she did so.

This suggests it is safer to keep a fair distance from those who do try to commit suicide. If they lock you into their lives you may find you go with them.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: emily rain
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 05:23 PM

awesome post, Peter T. well put, Okie.

yes, Richard. i, for one, heard you. and again, i do appreciate what you're saying and the concern that goes with it. and i am keeping a fair distance; after all, i'm not married to her or living with her.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: longhair
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 05:55 PM

Let me also clear up somethings I said that may have been misunderstood. I, like many on here, believe that doctors had out pills willy nilly. I think they script them out to kids way yon more than nessasary, and also to people that just has a case of the blues. I hate taking the meds I'm on, and can promise that if it wasn't a need be thing I wouldn't. I tried all the herbal stuff, St. Johns Wort, plus what ever else they said was good for depression. I've only been fighting this shit for 20 years, so my view on things may be a little jaded. I'm not, nor would I ever claim to be an expert. I'm just relaying info from my own experience and those of some people I know. I got off my meds for 2 years before it came back worse than it ever was. I thought I had it licked, but was just lying to myself. Yes, I agree with Richard that one should be careful when dealing with someone in this mode, but I also cannot see not trying to help.

Jon, I'm glad you're making it w/o drugs, it's good that you seem to have a handle on it. Evidently I could not, it's not anything I'm proud of, but just the way it is. Just keep on fighting the good fight.

Emily, there's been some good info written here, mine might not be included in it, but I hope that something that somebody wrote in this thread you helps you and your friend... longhair

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 06:50 PM

Longhair, what works for you is good and nothing to be ashamed of.

Richard, while I respect your experience with your friend, I think it may be a generalisation to assume the same things will happen with anyone else whose friend/SO or whomever is suicidal. No disrespect intended.

Like Jeri & PeterT said, too, it does take a lot to admit to yourself that you need help and then ask for it.

Subject: RE: very much OS: Suicidal Friend
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Jan 00 - 07:00 PM

Richad, I appreciate that you are talking through experience but I have been involed with several other people who have felt suicidal and have never found that has effected me. My feelings have been my own and come at there own time and there is no connection between the 2 and in fact, I would almost be inclinded to suggest the opposite, ie that if you have a friend who is struggling in that way, you in fact have somebody to be strong for rather than join in the depression with. Are you sure that it wasn't the emotional involvement within a relationship that caused that problem with your friend.

Coming back to drugs, I had a friend (in fact the first of the 2 girlfriends I mentioned earlier). She had been on Prozak and all sorts and I got a phone call from her on New Years Eve (a long while after I had stopped seing her) telling me that she didn't know who to turn to and that she couldn't see any meaning in life. I cancelled my plans and went over to see her and took her out for a drink. As luck would have it, it ended up being the night when life finally gave her the break she needed. She met somebody that night and they later had a daughter. Did her far more good than any of the drugs. She has moved out of the area now and I have lost touch with her but as far as I know she is still doing OK.

I have recently been trying to restore some stuff that I had written at the time I got labeled sz. I am past caring what anybody thinks about me. If any of the let's say "amatuer psychologists or psychiatrists" (just don't know what term to use - I'm not being rude to anybody" want to have a read of some of it, it is at http://members.tripod.co.uk/jonbanjo/life.htm

Jon